American Café

The American Café opened in September of 1922 in the Scofield Block on Main Street by a Chinese-American named Louis Lolling.  The  menu featured Special Chow Mein at 25 cents a plate and Lobster Egg Foo Yung at 55 cents a plate. Mr Lolling, while looking for an employee at the Dakotah Hotel, 60 South Main, was arrested in an opium raid. After convincing authorities that he was just looking for an employee, charges were dropped. However, Lolling became discouraged with Minot, sold his new café and left Minot in 1924.
The American Cafe remained open for many years.

JB Reed Transfer & Storage

JB Reed Transfer and Storage was one of the oldest operator of moving trucks in Minot. They got their first truck, a Winton, in 1911. The crank on this vehicle was on the side. After the driver cranked it and got it started, he would most likely have to run after and catch up to the moving truck. Eventually Reed Transfer went to using GMC and International trucks. Before that, some of the trucks they had were a Republic, an Overland and a Maxwell. In 1933 , Reed Transfer became the agents for Aero-Mayflower Moving out of Indianapolis. Cliff Reed was also a lover of fine cars. In 1934 when President Roosevelt was in Devils Lake, he was chauffeured by Cliff Reed in his Sport Model Buick. He was and his car also chauffeured the Mexican ambassador to the United States in 1935 when he was visiting Minot.  Pictured below is a Dakota Transfer truck from the 50’s .  A side note on the Winton Automotive Co..... They were the first to run an ad in Scientific American in 1898 inviting people to "Dispense with Horses and drive a Winton". A Winton was also the first automobile to make the cross country trip from Los Angeles to New York in the early 1900's. The trip took over 63 days as there were about 250 miles of paved roads at that time.

Boston Store

Herman Gordon arrived in Minot in 1905 and opened a small tailor shop in town. His first shop was on First Street South West. Later he moved to Main Street and opened the Boston Store. Eventually, The Boston Store moved to First Street Southwest, just south of what is now the Federal Building. Herman was ten years old and still living in Russia when he “ went on the bench”. The term used at that time applied to learning the tailor’s trade. He learned from his father. After coming to America in 1902, he worked for three years as a tailor in Petrosky, Michigan before moving to Minot. Herman and his wife, Helen, lived at 613 East Central Avenue, or in what is now know as Eastwood Park.

Squirrels in Minot

There are not too many places in the Souris Valley in Minot that one does not see a number of squirrels. At times there seems to be a number of black squirrels in the mixture. I often wondered if these were a different breed of squirrel. Back in 1939, the same question was on people’s minds. It seems that in the early 1900’s, the Minot Park Board imported squirrels from Iowa and Wisconsin. One story had it that the squirrels were brought in to provide wildlife for Riverside, (now Roosevelt), Park. The idea was the squirrels, once released in the park would stay on the east side of the river, confined to the park. Obviously the early Park Board did not realize the ingenuity of the squirrels. George Valker, a long member of the Park Board, recalled that the black and foxtail squirrels were introduced to the Park in 1916. In 1939, Perna Stine, a biologist at Minot State Teachers College said the black squirrels are a variation of the grey squirrel family. Although the black squirrels are not as prevalent as the grey squirrels, there are still some in the city today

KCJB - Radio & TV

New Minot Radio KCJB 910 AM and KCJB-TV  - KCJB arrived on the scene with several new personalities and shows. Two of these were Dean Thurrow, and Cis Hadley. Cis went out to neighboring towns grocery stores for remote broadcasts. One of these was from the HiLo Groceries at Van Hook. Of course the show was called "Hello from HiLo" .  Many remember being at the remote shows and  also listening to the shows to see if your neighbors might be interviewed on the radio.
Another Minot Memory would be when KCJB TV went “On Air”. The first year they were at the state fair they did closed circuit from several locations on the fair grounds. The broadcasts were not very  clear, having a lot of “snow” on the scene. This led to the famous statement of one fair attendee watching the dairy cattle judging in a different building. His statement to his wife was “let’s go over to the dairy barn,  its hot here but looks like it’s snowing over there"  “Live”  TV at its best

KLPM 1390 Radio

Old Minot Radio -  KLPM 1390 AM. KLPM was referred to as “Old Minot’ Radio. One of the on air personalities was Les Maupin. One of his radio shows was called Tello-Test. This was a program where random people were called to answer a question to win a prize. When dialing the phone number, over the radio it was 8 – 3 – 8 – 1 – 4 – 5 - ??? the listeners would not know the complete number until the last digit was dialed.
Saturday morning the station had a program called Birthday Train for kids. Parents would send in information on the child’s age and birthday for an announcement on the radio. The radio station would wish the children Happy Birthday and give them clues as to where their presents were hidden at home.

Scandinavian Hotel & Windsor Hotel – The Windsor Hotel was on the corner of 1^st St and 1^st Ave. SE. This is where the old YMCA was located. The Scandinavian Hotel was on the east side of the block on1st Avenue, just east of the Blue Rider Bar. The original Soo Line Depot was across the street, on Third Street SE. When the early settlers arrived at the Soo Line Depot, they would see they Scandinavian Hotel. Most if not all of the Scandinavian languages were spoken here. Many of the early pioneers in the northwestern part of the state arrived at the Soo Line depot and may have stayed at the Scandinavian Hotel. Eventually the Scandinavian Hotel was demolished to make room for an expansion on the Windsor Hotel. Pictured below - The Scandinavian Hotel (early 20's) and The Windsor Hotel (Late 40's)