Fun Facts - Brook Park

1. Brook Park was originally named Pokegama, an Ojibwe word that means “one water jutting off from another.” Early on, it was the site of the Nelson Company lumber camp. In 1882, the Minneapolis and St. Cloud Railroad built a line through what would become Brook Park, and railroad maps labeled the future townsite as “Pokegama.”

2. Dr. C.A. Kelsey founded and named the village of Brook Park in 1893. Dr. Kelsey, his brother J.H. Kelsey, and brothers J.H. and G. Markham of Rush City had formed the Kelsey-Markham Realty Company and purchased ten thousand acres of land, which they sold to settlers. Dr. Kelsey hoped that the new town would offer a park-like setting along Pokegama Creek.

3. Of the new settlers, five families were Russian Jews that came up from Chicago, where they had operated push carts.

4. Brook Park was destroyed by the 1894 forest fire, and twenty-six residents lost their lives. Other townspeople saved themselves in their wells or in the small pond by the railroad tracks. On October 1, 1915, the town dedicated a monument to the fire victims, many of whom were buried in two trenches in the Brook Park cemetery.

5. The Brook Park School District, Number 24, was established on May 19, 1894. Residents volunteered their time and labor to build their new schoolhouse, and it was finished only a short time before it was destroyed by the 1894 fire.

6. In 1899, B.J. Kelsey, another of Dr. Kelsey's brothers, opened a general store in Brook Park. He was a kind, helpful man, who enjoyed assisting new settlers in getting their farms up and running.

7. The first village creamery was founded in 1905 as a private establishment. The Brook Park Farmers Cooperative Creamery, one of the earliest of its kind in the country, began operations in 1913. By 1918, it was paying out nearly $75,000 a year to its patrons.

8. Isaac Hazlett organized the Brook Park State Bank in 1910, and a Mr. Cram served as the first cashier. A.E. Eddy took over the cashier job in 1912. Fifteen years later the bank merged with the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank of Hinckley.

9. Brook Park's first newspaper, The Brook Park Enterprise, was published by W.C. Warren out of the Hinckley newspaper office. In 1915, Howard Folsom of Pine City established The Brook Park Banner. Sixteen-year-old Leonard “Scoop” Machart purchased The Banner the following year. For the next year and a half, “Scoop” printed the paper himself with a hand-roller press. He was attending high school at the time.

10. Brook Park was home to two churches, a Methodist church and a German and Norwegian Lutheran church.

Sources: Pine County...and its Memories by Jim Cordes; One Hundred Years in Pine County; “Tales of Old Timers: Brook Park,” The Hinckley News, July 21, 1932

B.J. Kelsey's general store