2. By 1919 Willow River was home to three general stores, a farm implement dealer, a hardware store, a garage, a lumber yard, two hotels, a clothing store, a newspaper, a meat market, a restaurant, a potato warehouse, a harness and shoe store, a creamery, and the State Bank of Willow River.
3. The Willow River school board authorized the construction of a brand new school in 1920. By the fall of 1921, the new brick school was ready for classes. Built by the Mattson and Peterson Company of Minneapolis, it cost over $55,000.
4. The State Bank of Willow River failed in June of 1925, costing several customers their life savings.
5. A new village hall was built in Willow River in 1933. It was often rented out as a dance hall for $6 a night, and in 1937 a “moving picture booth” was placed in the hall and used to show such films as “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
6. Twenty-two year old Henry Nyrud become the youngest-ever mayor of Willow River in 1938.
7. The Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) worked on two major construction projects in Willow River during the late 1930s: the Willow River Dam and the General Andrews Tree Nursery. The Willow River Dam cost nearly $50,000 in national and state funds.
8. Herbert and Mary Mielke owned and operated the Willow River Telephone Exchange from 1944 to 1959. This company's switchboard served the Willow River area for forty-five years until the Pineland Telephone Company bought out the Mielkes in 1959.
9. Television came to Willow River in the late 1940s. Reception was notoriously poor, but this new form of entertainment proved very popular, even though only five places in town had a television set.
10. The Willow River Commercial Club was founded in 1949. The first officers were Carl Aakhus, president; Frank Stepan, vice-president; Erv Prachar, secretary; and Jake Novak, treasurer.
Sources: Willow River: Flowing Through the Century edited by Coral Popowitz; Pine County...and Its Memories by Jim Cordes
The Willow River school library, 1940s
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