OUGH AL RACKS D N T E L & RAILS G

GlendaloughT State Park Battle Lake, MN Winter • 2016 • #83

Members • 2 • Chairman's Message • 4 • Inside: Advisory Board Minutes • 3 • Park Projects • 5 • SummerAnnual Meeting in Minutes Glendalough • 4 • Historic Glendalough • 6-7 •

Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, New/Renewing Park Partners November 1, 2015 – February 10, 2016 NEW PARTNERS JoAnne Collins, White Bear Lake Richard and Deborah Johnson, Henning Paula Krahn Merkle and Craig Merkle, Baltimore, MD Judy Youngren, Mesa, AZ RENEWALS Helen Momsen, Spencer Iowa Advisory Board: Bill and Gail Ewald, Kissimmee, FL. Steve Nelson, Chair (2016) David and Vonnie Godding, Alexandria Dan Malmstrom – Vice Chair (2017) Mike and Pam Hemquist, Battle Lake Kristi Everts – Treasurer (2017) Richard Ballantine Durango, Co. Jean Dirckx – Secretary (2017) Clarence and Lorraine Bladow, Richville John Christensen (2016) Vern and Joyce Youngren, Battle Lake/Mesa, AZ. Chris Estes (2016) Larry and Connie Fraser, Hutchinson Peter Christianson (2018) Walter and Harriet Johnson, Minneapolis Deb Baker (2018) Tracy Kortlever (2018) John and Bonnie Nordstrom, Frazee Jackie Estes, Battle Lake DNR: Brad Riba, Sartell Phil Leversedge, NW Region Parks and Trails Manager Tom and Stephanie O’Brien, Bonita Springs, FL. Chris Weir-Koetter, NW Region Strategic Manager Marion Araskog, Bonita Springs, FL. Melody Webb, District Recreation Supervisor Staci and Jim Korkowski, Conroe, TX. Kathy Beaulieu, Region Naturalist Keely and Clay McNerney, Plymouth Ben Eckhoff, Area Naturalist Debbi and Dave Olson, Fergus Falls Cindy Lueth, Region Resource Specialist Cyndi and Harvey Pederson, Bonita Springs, FL. Scott and Sheryl Araskog, Maple Grove Glendalough State Park: Rick and Sherrie Araskog, Waseca 24869 Whitetail Lane William Ballantine, Kirkland, WA. Battle Lake, MN 56515-9654 Doug and Karen Brewers, Clitherall (218) 864-0110 Robert Morgan, Fort Ripley Gerald and Bernice Davis, Wahpeton Jeff Wiersma, Park Manager Peter and Stephanie Christianson, Fargo Emil and Marlys Madsen, Battle Lake Glendalough Tracks & Trails Janet Anderson, Harlingen, TX. is the newsletter of Glendalough State Park Melyssa Cowles, Kailua, HI published quarterly by the Glendalough Park Partners MEMORIAL Wyman Nelson, Lois Carlson, Bob Alinder, and Kristi Everts • membership Leonard Stienessen by Don and Judy Loe Dede & Jeff Carpenter • assembly/mailing Kent Olson by Susan Olson and Tedd Olson Thank you for keeping your memberships current. Please check the date on the address label of your Tracks and Trails to check your membership status. Next Advisory Committee Meeting Send your membership correspondence to: Thursday, February 25, 2016 Glendalough Park Partners/Kristi Everts PO Box 901 7:00 p.m. Battle Lake, MN. 56515 Glendalough Lodge - Open to Everyone [email protected] If you have a seasonal address change please let us know! Our postal permit does not forward the Tracks and Trails. 2 Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota GSP Advisory Board Minutes Minutes • Quarterly Meeting • November 19, 2015

The meeting was called to order by Chair Steve Nelson with for some of the work from a scout organization, and heavier the following directors present: Deb Baker, Peter Christianson, work may be completed by the Trails section of Parks and Jean Dirckx, Chris Estes, Kristi Everts, Tracy Kortlever, and Dan Trails. Stay tuned for further developments. Malmstrom. Also in attendance was Park Manager Jeff Wiersma. JOTTINGS: Approval of Agenda • Five lodge rentals have been scheduled for November and The agenda was reviewed and approved. M/S/C (Dirckx/ December this year, with a few more coming in January and Christianson) February. This is a considerable increase over past years. • Several phone calls have already been received regarding Approval of Minutes winter ski and snowshoe rentals. The minutes of the August 20, 2015 meeting were approved. M/S/C (Malmstrom/Christianson) • The sledding hill (Prairie Hill section) was mowed after the prairie was dormant in the hopes that this will make Treasurer’s Report sledding available far earlier than in past years. Less snow There is $57,027.79 in the Treasury as of November 19, 2015. should be required to get good conditions. The Treasurer’s report was approved. M/S/C (Malmstrom/Baker) • Volunteers from the SALT/VOA High School in Minneapolis helped trim the trail south of Annie and spent a Park Manager Report couple November nights in the group camp. FROM ST. PAUL: • Yurts are becoming more popular than cabins in terms of • Parks and Trails will offer a “Free Park Friday” on Friday, winter reservations. Weekends are booked well into the November 27, the day after Thanksgiving. No vehicle New Year, while cabins are becoming readily available after permit will be required that day so visitors can walk off last weekend. their family feasts or just come out and relieve some stress from shopping on Black Friday. Old Business • Outdoor seating project: The concrete is poured and • Former Glendalough intern and parks worker Amy Shnoes, benches are in. recently manager of , has accepted an assistant manager position at Lost Dutchman State Park • Purchase of Defibrillators: The third one has been received. in Arizona. • Furniture for the Trail Center: There was a motion that • now has a bison herd. It is part of a Kristi and Jeff select and purchase furniture for the trail strategic plan to protect the very pure genetics of the Blue center, spending up to $5000. M/S/C (Malmstrom/Everts) Mounds State Park herd by expanding the size of the herd • Bike Hitches are in. They need to be installed. and distributing it among additional parks. • Jeff was authorized up to $1500 at the August meeting to • Snow depth reporting for the ski/snowmobile season starts buy an auger. He has picked one out and will order it. next week. Trail conditions, as always, will be available on • Jeff was authorized up to $2000 for eight grills at the last the DNR website. meeting. He will be ordering those. • The new State Parks and Trails guide will be out soon with • Park Partners website: Dan presented the options that a new look. It has been reduced considerably in size with were researched by Lisa Malmstrom. Her recommendation the expectation that customers will access information on was to put a page on the Minnesota State Parks website. their phones or the website rather than trying to include After reviewing the options, there was a motion to support information on all parks and trails in one printed brochure. creating a Park Partners webpage on the Minnesota State PARK PROJECTS: Parks website, spending up to $500. M/S.C (Christianson/ Estes) • Woody Stem Removal (Beaver Pond Trail): A considerable amount of brush and small trees were removed in the New Business wet meadow (old golf course) along the trail. Due to Chris will do research on a pull-type cart to transport people at wet conditions, it has been more than 10 years since a events such as the walk. prescribed burn was conducted in this area, and the wet meadow has seen heavy encroachment by woody plants. The next meeting will be February 25, 2016, one week later than This could spell the eventual end of this unique ecosystem normal. which fills with flowers every fall. One side benefit will be Adjournment better views of Blanche Lake from the trail. There was a motion to adjourn. M/S/C (Malmstom/Christianson) • Annie Battle Lake accesses – Preliminary discussions The next meeting is February 25, 2016. were held to determine how to improve the carry-in water accesses at the campground and boat rental areas to combat Respectfully submitted, the erosion that is taking place. Free labor may be available Jean Dirckx, Secretary Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota 3 GSP Advisory Board Minutes Annual Meeting August 20, 2015

The meeting was called to order by Chair Steve Nelson with the Election of Officers following directors present: Steve Nelson, Chris Estes, Peter There was a motion for a unanimous re-election of all advisory Christianson, Dan Malmstrom, John Christensen, Deb Baker and board officers for next year. They are Steve Nelson (Chair), Dan Kristi Everts. Glendalough State Park Manager Jeff Wiersma was Malmstrom (Vice Chair), Kristi Everts (Treasurer), and Jean Dirckx also present. (Secretary). M/S/C (Baker/Wiersma) Approval of Agenda Committee Reports The agenda for the 2015 annual meeting was approved. M/S/C Membership: Currently 281 member households compared to 252 (Malmstrom/Christianson) last year. Approval of Minutes History: Estes shared news of the discovery of photos of Roberts The minutes of the 2014 annual meeting were read and approved. Camp/Leta Hanson. M/S/C (Christianson/Everts) Education: Wiersma reported that Battle Lake and Perham schools Treasurer’s Report had received grants for bike trailers. The treasurer’s report was presented by Kristi Everts, showing Committee Appointments for 2016 a current balance of $57,364.98. Report was approved. M/S/C Membership/Promotion: Everts, Christianson, Baker, Nelson (Baker/Wiersma) History: Estes, Kortlever, Wiersma Election of Directors Education: Malmstrom, Dirckx, Kortlever, Wiersma Current Directors Baker and Christianson were re-elected Adjournment unanimously. Rademacher expressed a desire to retire from the There was a motion to adjourn at 7:25pm. M/S/C (Malmstrom/ advisory board. Everts nominated Tracy (Estes) Kortlever who was Christianson) unanimously elected. Terms for all above directors expire in 2018. Respectfully submitted, M/S/C (Malmstrom/Christianson) John Christensen, Acting Secretary

Chairman's Message Let there be peace on earth……… A phrase you probably heard or even sang a lot over the recent Christmas holidays. And with all that’s going on in the world lately, something we hope for and maybe pray for on a daily basis. And let it begin with me ………. a great idea, but how do we do that? That’s something each of us will have to figure out for ourselves. I suspect that there aren’t many of us on this mailing list that can have a major impact on world peace, and who of you wants to be the moderator for the next political debate? We can begin in a small way, however, by experiencing the simple peacefulness of our beautiful Glendalough State Park. Many of you already do that, and I admire those who know how to REALLY enjoy the quiet, the natural landscape, the walking and biking trails, the lakes, woods, waving prairie and resident wildlife. You have the strength to turn off the electronics and shut out the noise of the daily news cycle, political posturing and the most recent tragedy. I marvel at those outdoor enthusiasts who don’t find it necessary to check the Vikings schedule when planning a visit to the park. I admit I’m not there yet and I’m still not recovered from that last game! And I confess that most of my trips to the park involve some sort of advisory board or Park Partners business. But even then there is a sort of peacefulness that comes over me as I drive through the park entrance. Whether you can remember your New Year’s resolution or not, make another one. If you haven’t been to Glendalough for awhile, come check it out. And if you are a frequent visitor, invite a friend or friends to come along with you next time. Schedule some quality family time at the park. I had some great fun fishing with my nine-year-old grandson this winter, but trust me, that energy is better served in a 2000-acre park than a 6 x 8 fish house. May you and yours have a healthy, happy and PEACEFUL new year. See you at the park. Steve Nelson Chairman Glendalough State Park Citizens Advisory Board 4 Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota Jeff’s Jottings by Park Manager Jeff Wiersma

• Many state parks benefited from grants to provide more archery equipment for Archery in the Parks. Instead of one set of equipment for the entire northwest region, Glendalough now has its own set that it shares just with . This should allow us to have monthly archery programs in the summer and possibly be able to meet requests of special groups like scouts, schools, etc. on a shorter notice. • Park attendance increased dramatically again in 2015. Camping attendance was up 24% to over 10,000 campers, largely because of the yurts. Day-use visitation climbed almost another 14%. Overall, there were more than 76,000 park visits in 2015. Attendance was up at most state parks last year, with Glendalough’s increase slightly above the average. • With the lack of snow, people have had to be opportunistic this winter, getting their skiing, snowshoeing, and sledding in during short periods when conditions have been acceptable. Of course, hikers and ice fishermen have had no complaints. Even without snow, the park has remained busy with cabin, yurt, and lodge rentals, the Boy Scout Klondike Derby, school visits, and other groups. • Battle Lake second graders observed an otter on the slough along the creek in January while hiking with the park naturalist. Fisher tracks were seen in the pines along Sunset Lake during the naturalist’s “snowshoe hike” in February. • The yurts continue to fill every weekend this winter. There have been no cancellations due to storms or hazardous windchills. These seem to be a very tough and determined group of campers.

PARK PROJECTS

FROM ST. PAUL:

• Winter services were changed at many state parks this winter in accordance with the new system plan that will bring more efficiency and sustainability to Parks and Trails. As a result, many parks no longer offer groomed ski trails, have reduced trail miles, or have reductions in winter camping availability. At Glendalough, cabins and yurts will be available only Thursday – Sunday during the winter season. Skiing opportunities remain the same – now if we could actually get some snow! • New technology is driving exciting changes in the campsite reservation and self-registration process. Don’t worry though if you don’t have a smart phone or aren’t tech savvy. There will still be options for us “old-fashioned” folks. • DNR is busy working on an energy initiative to reduce energy use by 20% by 2020. This will be the source of several park projects in the coming year. Our activities might also provide some ideas for reducing your own energy expenses.

PARK PROJECTS:.

• Trail Center – New chairs, funded by the Park Partners, were placed near the fireplace for a casual and comfortable seating area. They can easily be moved and replaced by tables and chairs again, if needed. A bid was also received for replacing the old vinyl flooring which is in poor condition. • Yurts – Wood storage boxes were modified and provided with locks so that hatchets can be placed inside. Campers will thus be able to make their own kindling. Viking Furniture is attempting to redesign the futons which have been constantly breaking. Currently they have to stay in the bed position. • Energy Initiative – All screw-in light bulbs in the park were replaced with LED lighting. All outlets and light switches on exterior walls were insulated with foam inserts. New Energy Star refrigerators were ordered for the lodge and trail center and should arrive shortly. • Signage – New wood-routed signs have been ordered for the entrance road and several other locations in the park where signs are outdate, rotted, or otherwise in need of replacement. • Fire Rings – Another round of replacement fire rings has been received, this time for the canoe sites, group camp, and day-use areas. The old rings can be made available to city and county parks, or other government entities that would provide for the general public.

Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota 5 Historic Glendalough December 10, 1931 – Source Unrecorded F. MURPHY HONORED BY A FINE ARTICLE IN AMERICAN PRESS

STORY TELLS OF TRIBUNE’S EDUCATIONAL DRIVE IN N. W. “Beautiful Camp of 800 Acres” Is Glendalough, Near Here By Daniel Rockford in the American Press Ten years ago a great northwestern city newspaper started a revolution. An agricultural revolution. A “ten-year plan” to shift over the whole method of farming in the northwest from single crop to dairying and diversified farming.The revolution took. And the farm income of the northwestern states of Minnesota, the Dakotas, and Montana rose $95,000,000 every year from 1921. And the Minneapolis Tribune’s plan became known as the Minnesota plan. And recently President Herbert Hoover sent for the Tribune’s publisher, Frederick E. Murphy, to come to the White House and tell him what has been happening out on those western wheatlands. Today that Minneapolis Tribune plan is a big item in the whole back-to-prosperity movement of the nation. It has been mentioned by the leaders of finance, industry, and labor. Its lessons are being studied by individual states such as Maryland and Georgia, which are launching special agricultural programs, and by the principal agencies of the country concerned with economic well-being of the people. Readers of the American Press may be familiar with the Tribune’s story of the farm revolution. They may have heard Charles F. Collisson, the Tribune’s agricultural editor, give his nationally known talks, “Cow Paths to prosperity,” and “Land of Milk and Money .” They doubtless know that under the Tribune’s leadership a great loan fund of ten million dollars with a hundred million additional reserve credit, was established in Minneapolis to lend money to busted farmers of good character, to put livestock on their grain farms. They doubtless know that this fund and the benefits from the loans stopped the terrific wave of failures which cleaned out every other bank in Minnesota in the years just after the war. They way have read of Murphy’s special “bull campaigns” which the Tribune paid for, sending cattle experts right to the farms to sell the farmer a pure bred sire to better his herd of cows and their earnings. They may know that an acre of land, farmed by the Murphy method with plenty of natural fertilizers and with rotated crops to enrich the soils, will even grow wheat profitably, because where the yields of the usual twelve bushels per acre cost the farmer $1.61 to produce each bushel, the twenty-five bushel-per-acre yield only costs the farmer 71 cents per bushel. Similarly where a farmer milks ten cows of 100 pounds annual butterfat production, he earns $135. If he had one good cow with 400 pounds annual butterfat he will earn $138. And his feed costs are less than half as much per pound of butterfat produced. And newspapermen who are something of farmers themselves, may entertain interests in Murphy’s own farm background, his early years on the farm of his father in Wisconsin where he first learned the value of diversification, and of Murphy’s great experiment in the Minnesota Red River valley, from 1918 to 1921, when he shifted a six thousand acre farm of his own from wheat to dairying, sheep and pigs and proved the sense of the things he started the Tribune campaigning for in 1921 when he became its president. But the important thing from our angle, is what effect this whole campaign has had on the Tribune as a newspaper. Has it bolstered the advertising revenues, given the paper circulation, added to its prestige? Having heard in New York where Murphy and Collisson have been telling the financial and industrial leaders about the Tribune’s revolution and the resulting healthy condition of the Northwest today, about the great farm campaign, I decided to get Murphy off in a corner and find out what about the Tribune itself. To jump right back to Minneapolis. There are several good papers there and in St. Paul. But the Yale-Harvard battle in Minneapolis has for years been between the Tribune and the Journal. The Tribune with morning and evening and Sunday editions and the Journal with evening and Sunday editions, have usually both shared advertising appropriations. It’s a “one, two town.” And short of buying up the Journal, one could hardly expect the revenue to be pulled from either paper to the other. But since the Tribune northwestern agrarian campaign opened, the Tribune earnings have risen steadily. When Murphy walked into his office back in 1921 he had to push the door shut to keep the sheriff out. And it was quite a struggle there for a time. But Murphy knew his Tribune. He’d worked on it steadily from 1893 when his brother took it over, until his return to the soil to help grow food to win the war in 1918. And when his brother’s death called him to active leadership, he knew what to do.

6 Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota That’s when Collisson came aboard. Collisson had been a farm paper man and had the same vision Murphy had. The idea that only by getting the city and town business men to co-operate with the farmer, would the agricultural revolution ever succeed. Business takes leadership and executive ability. And the farmer can’t do it himself any more than any other basic industry. The Tribune worked with known forces. It did not have to create the whole supporting structure of the revolution. It only had to coordinate the existing forces breathe the divine spark of desire into the whole, and point the way. And keep on pointing the way, as it has done for ten years in a full page every Sunday, written by Collisson. Agricultural colleges, federal, state and county officials, bankers, country newspapers, service clubs, boys and girls organizations, the public schools livestock associations, dairying and cooperative organizations, all were brought into the onward march. Naturally the Tribune’s circulation grew. Its local and territorial reputation expanded. And as the educational campaign gained momentum and Murphy saw that he needed lots of money to finance the thing, its value had become known to theWhite House. President Calvin Coolidge, if the inside story could be printed, did more for the success of the plan, probably, than many of its recognized backers except Murphy and Tom Cochrane of J. P. Morgan. They put over the Agricultural Credit Corporation of Minneapolis. When private interests, railroads, banks, insurance firms, and industries had raised ten millions, the War Finance Corporation promised one hundred million more. The tide of bank failures was turned. Then loans to individual farmers began. More than one of every twenty farmers in the four states has borrowed from the fund, and, by his borrowing, been enabled to make his farming less of a gamble and more profitable each year. Then the banks started making similar loans so many thousands more were added in shifting the region from single crops to the “cow-sow-hen” type of profitable farming.The market for automobiles, radios, and electric iceboxes grew by one hundred, two hundred and three hundred per cent. Average farm income grew almost $1,800 a year in the areas where the Tribune plan was well carried through. And the Tribune began to find itself becoming a nationally known newspaper. Its revenues increased not by taking money from its competitor papers in the northwest, but by bringing to its pages new and heavy advertising accounts of firms realizing the new buying power of the northwest. In 1928 the Minneapolis Tribune was proposed for the Pulitzer prize for having done the most distinguished and meritorious service of any American newspaper in 1927. The proposing institution was the greater North Dakota Association. The reason was the tremendous work that the Tribune had financed and accomplished in North Dakota. Naturally such a long pull proposition as an agricultural revolution which has taken ten years to really prove its virtues could not compete with more sensational newspaper victories of the popularly acclaimed type. The Tribune didn’t get the prize. But it is getting a more important prize today. Because today the contrast between the northwest in 1921 and in 1931 proves the real value of the services of this newspaper to the four states it especially serves. So discriminating a reporter as Dr. Vergil Jordon of the Business Week, recently returned from the Northwest, declared that the conditions of the banks there is substantially better than banks generally, and that the whole fabric of life in the Northwest is in better balance and strength than in the depression of 1921. If there had not been this shift from grains to dairying and diversified farming, and the resulting hundred million a year increase in farm income in the years 1921-1930, the Northwest would have gone under such a catastrophic wave of farm failures and attendant city economic distress as staggers the imagination. The Northwest’s buying power today is a bright spot on the depression map. Murphy has carried on his farm. His Holstein herds include 27 cows with more than a thousand pounds of butter fat per year. Of these six cows have records of over 1250 pounds per year and this is a world record, since no other farmer anywhere has so many cows of this production. Only 156 cows in the history of such matters have reached 1250 pounds annual production. Murphy also has a beautiful camp of 800 acres a few hours drive from his Breckenridge 6000-acre farm. At the camp he has “everything but golf and booze.” From the camp he runs the paper each year from July to November. Today Murphy’s horizon is national. Not that his newspaper desires to serve other than its natural territory but that he is now staging a campaign to smash the popular idea in the East that all farmers are down with the wheat and cotton growers. If Murphy’s Northwest were down and out it would be no place to try to sell goods, no place to advertise. Today when all faces show the strain of the depression, Murphy is preaching cheerfulness. His optimism is backed up by ten years good hard work. The Northwest has shown the road back to prosperity. And it is a wide paved road, a road paved with the achievements so largely sponsored by the Minneapolis Tribune from 1921- 1931. And when he points to the road and the prosperous Northwest, one cannot find fault with Frederick E, Murphy if he incidentally happens to be pointing also to the advertising columns of his newspaper.

Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota 7 Non-Profit Org Thank you, US Postage PAID Park Partners! Battle Lake, MN To Renew or to Become a Permit # 47 Glendalough Park Partner: Glendalough Park Partners Choose one of the following levels: PO Box 901 Battle Lake, MN 56515 Park Pal ( $10 ) 1 year subscription to Tracks & Trails RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED Supporter ( $25 ) 1 year of Tracks & Trails + magnet

Donor ( $50 ) 1 year of T & T + Commemorative Walk T-shirt circle size: S M L XL 2XL

Patron ( $100 ) 1 year of T & T + Glendalough History DVD

Benefactor ( $500 ) 1 year of T & T + Glendalough print

No Gift Desired (check box)

Send your tax-deductible contribution to: Glendalough Park Partners PO Box 901 Battle Lake, MN 56515

Walk For Glendalough 2016 Saturday, April 23 ~ 9:00 AM – NOON

Join the walk and help raise funds for projects in the park! Every year on the Saturday closest to Earth Day the Glendalough Advisory Board sponsors this fund raising event.

Come to the park for morning coffee, take a walk, register for door prizes, stay for lunch and the awards program. All participants who collect $50.00 or more in donations will earn the annual commemorative walk tee shirt.

Pledge forms will be sent to Tracks and Trails subscribers/Park Partners.

Pledge forms are also available at Everts Lumber in Battle Lake and the Battle Lake High School.

For more information contact walk coordinator,

Kristi Everts [email protected]

Glendalough State Park • Battle Lake, Minnesota