Chapter 19 • Oak Lake, First Town -1870

B. B. Anderson owned up a store Nov. 1 1870, at his residence, which was the first store in what is now Audubon Township.
The township was organized under the name of Windom in Jan. 1872; changed to Calfax in Sept. 1872; changed to Oak Lake on Jan. 2 1881; and later changed to Audubon.
The Northern Pacific railroad surveyed its lines in the fall of 1870 through the township and towards the close of the year, a camp and supply station was established at Oak Lake cut. Many used tents to run their business in, till other buildings were provided. Oak Lake grew. They built hotels and saloons and stores and it was very busy little town. They even had a temporary depot and the train came through every day. After stations depots were established at Detroit, business fell away at Oak Lake and the town discontinued to be.

Oak Lake village, 1871-1872. This was a thriving village at the Oak Lake out on the northeast quarter of section 24, present township of Audubon. The village grew with all the activities with progress of the work of excavating the long deep cut on the N.P. Railroad at that place being several hundred feet long and twenty or more feet deep. This was the biggest job atween Duluth and the Mlssouri river. Work began in this cut the beginning of the winter of 1870. This dirt was removed by shovels and wheelbarrows. In the spring they used oxen and scrapers to move the dirt. There were forty men working on excavating the frozen ground at both ends of the cut. There was a small city of tents, and they lived in the tents all winter. There was a store to take care for all their needs. In August they said there were four hundred people living in Oak Lake at that date in tents and huts.

Audubon Township was surveyed in the summer of 1872, at which time a railroad station was built and the depot agent was Rota Platz. Henry Larson built a hotel the same summer; the first in Audubon, B. B. Anderson owned the first store building in the fall of 1872. The Audubon Journal was started in the fall of 1873 by P. P. and O. D. Wall.
Rev. Waltenson conducted divine service in John Beaver home, Nov. 6 1870. He organized Richwood Norwegian Evangelical Lutheran church in 1872. Rev. B. Hagboe who came in the summer of 1872 and the first resident preacher, but no churches were built until the summer of 1874 in Audubon.
The First State Bank of Audubon was organized early in Feb. 1907. S. A. Netland, president and A. O. Netland was cashier. A son still runs the bank in 1972.

August 1871, T.H. Canfield and a group came through on a tour of inspection. They camped where Audubon depot now stands. The prairies were covered with flowers and lilies. There were ladies in the party who were filled with admiration at the beauty of the surrounding county and country and one lady asked Mr. Canfield if a railroad station could be established there, that it could be called Audubon. One man took out a memorandum book and noted down the request. It was afterwards learned that the lady was a niece of John J. Audubon, the great American naturalist.
It cost Detroit several thousand dollars to build roads as good as those leading to the cut, which did not cost a dollar.

In 1871 a temporary station and telegraph office was established at the west end of Oak Lake Cut, and another at Detroit, where the Pelican River runs into Detroit Lake. Then the railroad officials became tired of dallying any longer and in the spring of 1873, moved the station from Oak Lake to Audubon. This proved the final undoing of Oak Lake. Everybody moved away but Burger and his family. Burger would not sell his land at a reasonable price for a depot to the railway, so they moved N.P. to Audubon and later established a depot in Detroit.

Finally all there was left of Oak Lake was an old log hotel and barn and big patch of Canadian thistles.