Nancy Edmonds Hanson

“It’s hard for us to think about history during our own lifetimes,” says historian Markus Krueger, who does just that for a living. “History is what happened to our grandparents. But when you realize that now we’re the grandparents … well, it begins to change your thinking.”

Or not quite. Markus isn’t close to reaching that particular high point quite yet. But as programming director for the Historical and Cultural Society of Clay County – where he has spent most of his time since graduating from Minnesota State University Moorhead with a degree in art and history – he is more acutely aware than most that the landmarks of life today maybe the historic highlights of tomorrow.

That’s the thinking behind one of the historical group’s current projects, a “history harvest” of the lore surrounding Moorhead’s late lamented Ralph’s Corner Bar. Just as the city’s Wild West history and saloon-soaked early days provided the raw material for the outstanding “Wet and Dry” exhibition at the Hjemkomst Center in recent years, so the stories surrounding the legendary Ralph’s may fascinate Moorheaders of generations to come … and pique the curiosity of today’s adults, who spent golden days of their youth at the now-ghostly site at the northwest corner of Main Avenue and Fourth Street. An exhibit based on the bar’s place in local history is on the calendar for Fall 2022 through Spring 2023.

Almost two dozen people gathered at Rustica (once the site of the Ralph’s Bar’s former competitor Kirby’s) on Jan. 28 to share memories and memorabilia to be archived by the historical society. “We recorded 15 interviews, from a couple of minutes to half an hour,” Markus reports. They also documented 224 artifacts. Photos were scanned, some objects were donated, and as for others: “Now we know where to get them when the exhibit is up.”

Markus is looking for more. Future Ralph’s History Harvests are coming up at Junkyard Brewing Company and the Moorhead Public Library in coming days.

He compares the process of gathering stories from the bar, which occupied the same spot from the city’s notorious saloon age through Prohibition until its sale and closure in 2005, to older generations’ memories of sitting in local speakeasies until the 21st Amendment repealed the national alcohol ban in 1933 and Moorhead’s taps ran free again. “When we were putting together the ‘Wet and Dry’ exhibit, I wished we could talk to the men who hung out there. But they are all dead,” he says. “Preparing for this exhibit, we thought about what we wished we could have asked about that era if its veterans were still around to tell us.”

As the hub of Fargo’s music scene during their own salad days … even if its address fell east of the river … reminiscing about Ralph’s evokes fond memories for Markus and colleague Mark Peihl, the society’s head archivist. “Mark’s day was in the ’80s. Mine coincided with the magical last years of Ralph’s existence,” Markus says. “This is a labor of love for both of us.”

The exhibit they’re developing goes back much farther than the history duo themselves. “We’re tracing that corner’s story from the 1880s through the end. There’s always been alcohol there,” Markus reflects. “People in Moorhead didn’t think much of enforcing Prohibition.” In the 25 years before Clay County voted itself dry in 1915, one in 10 Moorhead families had at least one member working in the liquor industry. With just one-tenth its current population, the city supported the same number of establishments it has today.

Why focus on Ralph’s rather than other popular drinking establishments of the same period? The historian has explains: “There’s just something about Ralph’s that the Blackhawk or the Magic Aquarium or even Kirby’s never quite had. It was grittier. The bands were alternative, indy, punk, hardcore … and when they weren’t playing, they were sitting in the booths listening to other bands. It was the place in town where bands traveling from Minneapolis to Missoula stopped for a night to get gas money to keep on going.” He adds, “After all, none of the rest of them have their own Facebook page.

Can you say ‘sesquicentennial’?

While they put together the pieces for the Ralph’s exhibit, Markus and the HCSCC team are working on another, larger project – the kick-off for a citywide sesquicentennial, or 150th anniversary, celebration slated to begin in 2021. It loosely marks Moorhead’s beginnings in 1871, when the Northern Pacific Railroad reached the east side of the Red River and its crews spent the frigid winter encamped in tents. They’re looking for ideas to retell the story of the city’s earliest days, the rip-roaring Wild West period when the encampment, with its saloons and rough businesses, had all the character of famed Deadwood, South Dakota – but five years earlier.

An important focus of that story, he says, will be a serious examination of the indigenous people who passed through the locale. “It’s a hard story to tell because this was a crossroads,” he explains. The Sissten, Wahpeton and Yanktonai Dakota people are part of that history, along with Pembina, Red Lake and Pillager Ojibwe and the Metis people. It encompasses Minnesota, the Dakotas, Manitoba and Saskatchewan – a vast empire where they moved around freely. The society has arranged with five modern Native American scholars to help recount the process of dispossession, including wars, treaties and the far-flung reservations that have kinship with the people who remain. “People are hungry,” he adds, “for that story to be told.”

“We’ve been thinking about this in-house for two years. Last week was our first event to gather public input,” Markus reports. “We heard a lot of ideas that I wouldn’t have come up with myself, and got feedback on some that we had in mind.” He adds, “Just because I have an idea for a program doesn’t mean anybody’s going to go.”

He compares the historical team’s vision of the sesquicentennial to the “1 Book, 1 Community” project shared by a variety of libraries and organizations across the F-M area each fall. “I can see years full of events all over town,” he suggests. “The ideas are just beginning to come in, and we’re ready and willing to hear more.”

To share suggestions for sesquicentennial events and the major exhibit at the Hjemkomst, he invites people to watch for upcoming brainstorming sessions or email him: markus.krueger@hcsmuseum.org.