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Foreword

We gratefully acknowledge the advice, encouragement and assistance of many pioneers, their children, and those who later made their homes in Renville County. This book is a book of real-life stories of many people, and many steps of progress made by the homesteaders and pioneers. It is about the early settlers who built their log or sod shacks, broke the virgin soil with one-bottom ploughs drawn by oxen, cows or horses (or one of each). These stories begin in 1896 when the land that is now Renville County was surveyed and opened up for settlement. People came in droves from the more populated states to the south and east, to settle down on the North Dakota prairie, and by 1902 most of present Renville County had been filed for homestead.

The stories in this book record the history of those hardy visionaries who came to a wild land, met the challenges of the prairie and, using equal amounts of inspiration and perspiration, carved out a living for themselves and their descendants. This book, written by pioneers and by sons and daughters of the pioneers, is but a small tribute to our parents and grandparents, to preserve their memory and to record our gratitude for the inheritance left to us, our children and the generations to come.

The Renville Old Settler's Association express their thanks to Miss Merilyn Smith, Instructor of Art at Wisconsin State University, Oshkosh, for the design on the cover, the Frontice picture and the 1975 Atlas.

The Committee has done much research in the County records and in early newspapers to make the material in this book as authentic as possible. We have included material as we have found it, or as it has been sent to us. The Directors of the Old Settler's Association assume no responsibility for the material but have tried to preserve the memory of the pioneers and the people who have lived and worked in Renville County during the past 75 years, who have worked to make all the 'improvements' we are enjoying today, - to make Renville County a fine place to live. .

By the Secretary

Renville County Old Settler's Association,

"The service we render to others is the rent we pay for the space we occupy on earth."
- Sir Wilfred Grenfell -