History

One summer day in 1904, a busy housewife on a farm about three miles east of Bronson halted her household tasks to discuss a proposition with a male visitor.  The visitor was a stylish dressed city chap, but his wrinkled brow and troubled eyes belied the serenity of his garb.  He and the woman engaged in earnest conversation and frequently referred to a blue print on the man's knees.  After the discussion had continued for an hour or so, the man sprang to his feet abruptly.  "All right," he said, "I'll do it.  I think your right."    The woman was Mrs. Margaret Bronson and the man's name  was Green.  He was an official of the Soo Line, charged with routing of the Soo railroad through Kittson County.  Green's remarks, quoted above, announced his decision to route the road as suggested by Mrs. Bronson and that is the course of the Soo right way today.  So Mrs. Bronson has the distinction, perhaps unique in Minnesota, of having chosen the course of a railroad.    Although the incident occurred many years ago, the details are as vivid in the pioneer woman's memory as if they had taken place only last week.  Although 83 winters have stooped Mrs. Bronson's shoulders and traced wrinkles in her face, her mind is as keen as ever, her eyes as bright and her step firm and quick.    She chuckled when pressed for the details of the routing of the railroad, "You see, everybody wanted the road to go past their place," she explained, "and the engineers were having quite a time.  They had surveyed one line about three miles farther east and then the promoters at Pelan persuaded them to run the lines through a good territory.  They next ran their lines about a mile west of the first route.  None of them seemed to satisfy the officials down in St. Paul.  As the surveyors stayed at our place I heard a lot about it and I had ideas of my own, too."    "Well, the upshot of it was that one Sunday I looked out and saw a man driving up to the house in a fine rig drawn by two horses.  He came in and told me his name was Green and that he was the man who was routing the railroad.  I always described him afterward simply as 'the man who drew the lines on the paper'.   I don't know what his job was, but he asked me all sorts of questions and wanted to find out the best route for the road.  So I told him that if they would run the lines farther west they would get the trade from Jupiter Township which was a good district.  That trade was going to Kennedy then, but the Jupiter folks had to drive through seven miles of gumbo to get there.  So he said he would run the road there and there is where it is now.     Although the matter-of-fact record says that the Village of Bronson was named in  honor of Giles Bronson, husband of Margaret, it is generally conceded by those familiar with the circumstances that the wife also was purposely honored.  The manner of the naming is interesting, too.  "The surveyors had been at our place a long time and we became acquainted," Mrs. Bronson said.  "Even Edmund Pennington, then general manager and vice president and afterward president of the Soo Line paid us an occasional visit.  When they met in St. Paul to name the towns along the line, Bronson received its name.  Several of the surveyors and officials wrote us afterward and said they suggested the name, but I really think it was Pennington who chose it.  At least, that is what I learned on good authority.  Pennington County was named after him, by the way."    The pioneer career of the Bronsons was somewhat different than that of many pioneers of the count.  They kept a stopping place for a number of years and, for that reason, made contacts and acquired viewpoints not common to homesteading.    Roseau County was organized in 1894, and, when it was surveyed and opened to settlers, many homesteaders going east from the Dakotas or branching east from the Great Northern line passed by the farm.  Several asked for meals and lodging.  After taking care of a large number just to be accommodating, the Bronson's decided to convert their home into a stopping place.  They were well patronized from the start.  Excellent, home cooked meals were served for $.25 each, with lodging and breakfast for $.50 and $.50 additional for feeding and stabling a team overnight.    A post office had been established at the Bronson farm in 1888 and, with the stopping place service, the farm became a center of some importance.  Mrs. Bronson was postmistress.  She remembers that the office was called Percy after her husband's native township in Ontario.  At first the mail was delivered twice a day by stage drivers who operated between Hallock and Jadis, now Roseau.  Andrew and Louis Ecklund drove the stage for a number of years.    Many prominent residents of the Twin Cities made the Bronson farm their headquarters in the hunting season.  The stopping place service was discontinued after the Soo Line was built and the post office was abandoned in 1901.     The story continues and describes Mrs. Bronson's memories:  She can close eyes and see again the group in the old log cabin,  stopping place, worried husbands and wives, perhaps with fretful children hurrying to a new home in a new land; speculators and promoters eager to get in on the ground floor where new towns were to be built and new business established.  She sees the interior of the new house, with railroad officials and surveyors grouped about the table studying their maps, among them Hankinson, the chief engineer, for who Hankinson, SD was named.    Although the Village of Lake Bronson was settled west of the Bronson family homestead, its early history begins there.  Once the railroad came through in 1904, many business were established and "Bronson" was platted and filed February 8, 1905 and also incorporated in 1905.  The name was changed to Lake Bronson in the late 1930's after the dam was built and the lake formed.