clay county histories

Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC

Some weeks ago, my friend Howard Anderson asked me about an old apartment building that he heard had something to do with a school and a church and a bootlegger. After looking into it, I found that the building at 316 7th Ave S, Moorhead, a large unique four-plex next to a charming old market, has quite a fascinating history.
First of all, it is one of the oldest buildings in town! The settlement of Moorhead was established in September of 1871, and this apartment building was constructed sometime in 1872-73 to be our town’s first school house. There are not many buildings in this part of the planet older than that.
Moorhead grew fast through the 1870s and our kids soon outgrew their first school, so we built a new one. Moorhead’s Swedish community was also on the rise, and they wanted a church so the Almighty could better hear hymns in His native Swedish. They bought the building and turned it into Bethesda Swedish Lutheran Church. Moorhead Swedes were fruitful and multiplied to the point of deserving a church that looked more church-like. They sold the building, moved it, and built a new one in it’s place in 1905. Readers might remember this white church across the street from the Public Library that used to serve as Churches United for the Homeless. An apartment building is there now.
The new owner of the building was Severin “Sam” Lundgren. Sam moved to the USA from Sweden in 1880 at the age of 20. He made his way to Moorhead by the early 1890s. He was a bartender during Moorhead’s infamous Saloon Era, when North Dakota banned alcohol sales so our town became Fargo’s beer fridge. Sam tended bar from place to place, including a stint at the Gold Mine Jug House, which became Ralph’s Corner Bar. He worked his way up to owning his own saloon next door, which became the stage room of Ralph’s in the 1990s.
But by 1905, it was time for 43-year-old Sam Lundgren to settle down. He was marrying Isabella, a 24-year-old Norwegian girl, and Isabella needed a house. Sam bought the big old Swedish church and moved it to a lot he owned on the 300 block of 7th Ave S, where it still sits today. The Lundgrens turned the schoolhouse/church into a duplex. They lived at 316 and they rented out 314. City directories indicate the building was further divided into smaller units in the mid-1920s.
And yes, Sam Lundgren was a Prohibition bootlegger. When selling alcohol became illegal, Sam converted his saloon into a soda shop and went right on selling alcohol. He bought the Rex Hotel with partner Frank Magnuson and packed four speakeasies into the place. When one soda shop got busted, a cigar shop or grocery store popped up in it’s place and the moonshine kept flowing. The Rex was the most busted place in Prohibition Clay County.