Center in Schroeder opened for the season with a wellattended, enthusiastic celebration the evening of June 5, 2009. The event included food, wine and punch, music by Paul Deaner and Andy Skalsky, and a reading by local author Kirsten Stasney from her new book, Thy Father’s Will. Exhibit rooms were open, and the museum shop offered many interesting items that would make nice lastminute gifts or mementos for guests visiting the area.
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Schroeder Area Historical Society were on hand to greet guests. According to Skip Lamb, who lived in the building with his family when it was the Cross River General Store, many residents, even those who have moved here from other places, have become involved in the historical society and its heritage center. "We’ve really been fortunate to have that," he said. Running the Cross River Heritage Center takes a lot of volunteers, he said, and those volunteers are also helping local churches and schools.
"It’s really amazing to have this level of dedication and commitment from volunteers in such a small town," said Cross River Heritage Center Director Suzan From.
Lamb spent part of the evening entertaining guests in the basement, where a barber chair sits next to a post office window and a row of post office boxes – the former general general store also housed the post office and barber shop, where a barber showed up once a week to give people haircuts.
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If you asked Skip Lamb if the following story was true, he might not vouch for it, but this is pretty much what he was saying the night of the open house:
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When Charlie Nylund was the barber who came once a week to Schroeder, lots of stories were told while the scissors were in motion. One of them was about a homesteader who shot and killed two county employees in 1928 after unsuccessfully warning them to stop taking his "Apples for Sale" sign down from the Sugarloaf Road. A posse, including Charlie Nylund, went out after him, finding his homestead on fire and the homesteader running away with a backpack on his back. He was shot and killed.
According to Skip, if Charlie Nylund was talking about Al Capone when you were getting your hair cut, you got an Al Capone haircut. If he was talking about the apple-growing, gun-toting homesteader who shot the two county employees, you got a butch and were lucky to get out of there with any hair at all.
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An undisputable fact was that the Lamb family had a pet deer. The museum holds a photo of the deer licking an ice cream cone inside Lambs’ store. Skip said that one hunting season, a hunter came into the store to tell Skip that he had seen their tame deer in the woods but made sure not to shoot it. Skip’s reply? "That’s nice, but our deer is locked in my garage!"
The Schroeder Area Historical Society’s biggest fundraiser of the year is coming up on Saturday, July 18, with a tour of several cabins and guesthouses built by architect Edwin Lundie as well as ten other architecturally interesting buildings. Dale Mulfinger, author of a book about Lundie’s work, will give a lecture on cabins after the tour, and a picnic on the ledge rock (with music) will follow. The cost is a $150 donation to the society. Information can be found at crossriverheritage.org or by calling (218) 663-7706.
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