1940
Census: 6,018 (a 36% increase since 1930)
The decade of the “forties” will never be forgotten because of World War II. Local events included the opening of a hospital in Robbinsdale, registration of voters, municipal liquor, new clubs such as the Diggers and Jaycees and the opening of Lee Elementary School.
In January, the new Victory Hospital was opened, a marble laced, three story building. It was built by Dr. S. Samuelson and was the first hospital in our area. It would have five operating rooms and seventy beds when completed and was an open-staff hospital.
Also in January, John Bloberger, who had been born in Austria and had come to Robbinsdale in 1894 to work for the Great Northern Railroad, died at age 77. He had been village constable (shooting one of the bank robbers), street commissioner, chief of Police, one of the organizers of the Robbinsdale Volunteer Fire Department, and a friend of Captain Billy often made some teasing reference to him in his Whiz Bang magazine.
On February 7, 1940 Captain Billy died of a heart attack in Hollywood, California. A few weeks before his death his children and their mother joined him for a family reunion. Newspapers marked the publishing giant’s passing on front pages. Funeral services were held in Minneapolis and Captain Billy was buried in Lakewood Cemetery next to his brother, Roscoe Fawcett. He was 55 years old.
In Afternoons in Mid-America, Erskine Caldwell wrote, “It’s a rare thing for a dynamo of a man like Captain Billy Fawcett to leave behind a world so full of friends when he dies and so few–if any–detractors.” Caldwell went on to speculate that Captain Billy might have accumulated a few enemies had he lived out all the years a man like him was entitled to.
A 1940 paper said it had been 19 years since Haakon Christensen had shod a horse. He had turned to repairing the City’s machinery and manufacturing parts for City equipment.
On April 10, the second annual meeting of the Hennepin County Historical Society was held here at the Congregational Church. The banquet was sponsored by the Lions Club. Governor Harold Stassen was the main speaker. J. Donald Ruble, first president of the Lions Club, welcomed the guests and W. R. Ambrose introduced honored guests, including H. E. Westmoreland, publisher of the RobbinsdaJe Post and president-elect of the Lions Club. The Robbinsdale City Band, under the direction of Paul Larson, played before the program.
The May 16th RobbinsdaJe Post reported the City Council, under Mayor Roche, passed an ordinance for the registration of voters to conform with state laws and set up a Commissioner of Registration to keep records and supervise elections. In the 1970’s the previously very “loose” voting procedures in school board elections were required to conform and use the voting lists of the municipalities.
On Armistice Day a blizzard, with 16.2 inches of snow and wind of 30 to 60 miles per hour, closed down all activities. People could not get to work, the streetcars couldn’t run, and people who were at work couldn’t get home. Many had to work an extra shift. They then, of course, got an extra day off, called “Snow Day”. The City Hall sheltered some, about 20 stayed over night in the Schwartz Motor Company garage and many homes offered overnight stays. People will always remember this blizzard because it hit so suddenly with a sudden drop in temperature. In Minnesota 59 people died, including many hunters in shirt sleeves and light jackets who froze in their duck blinds.
This post is part of a series loosely based on the book Robbinsdale Then and Now by Helen Blodget. The image at the top of the post is a snowy scene of West Broadway during the Armistice Day Blizzard.
the picture of mr. adair shoveling his driveway, should say digging out on the west side of highway 52, not east, because the robbins mansion faces west. and the mansion was on the west side of twin lake, so if you were looking east you would be looking at the lake, am i wrong?
You are correct!