News

Willow City is a town of success and good people

By Scott Wagar

06/19/2012

Editor’s Note: Willow City will be celebrating its 125th Anniversary June 28-July 1. In celebrations of the Willow City special anniversary, the Bottineau Courant will be writing a number of articles. This week, we start with the history of the city.

In 1884, the first settler in Willow City, Thomas Halvorson, settled on a small farm just outside of what would become one of the greatest cities in Bottineau County.

Frederick McCrea would be the next immigrant to the area and he established the first inland post office where Willow City stands today.

An interesting point of Willow City’s history is that the city had a variety of names, with the first name of the town being McCrea.

The town started out slowly, but Norwegian pioneers came steady to the area taking up homestead acts, and within a short time businesses and homes began growing around McCrea’s post office.

In 1886, Willow City experienced an incredible population increase as the Great Northern Rail Road laid tracks through its town on the railroad’s way to Bottineau and out to the West Coast.

As individuals stepped off the train, and unto the platform of Willow’s train depot, the new residents of that time were greeted with a new name, Willow City, a name that came from it residents because of the large number of beautiful Willow trees in the area.  

With the railroad in place, the land company Comstock and White came into Willow City in 1887 and made the decision to change the name of the town to Bennett. However, the residents of the town became angry over the new name change and with determination re-named the town back to Willow City within one month’s time.

The city was originally a trading center, assisting the local farmers with supplies out of Devils Lake so crop producers didn’t have travel themselves to Devils Lake for their own supplies, which was a trip that took several days to complete.

With the train bringing supplies, and the town’s businesses selling the merchandise being brought in from Devils Lake, the town saw a swift increase in growth.

The town was officially organized on April 14, 1890. The community’s first election took place one month later with Peter E. Sandie, Al Tanguay and Theodore Skotland elected as Willow City’s first trustees in its three wards. Jacob Schroeder was elected treasurer, P.O. Holland as the town’s clerk, W. Davidson as the city marshal and W.H. Thomas as the Justice of the Peace.

The city became incorporated in 1906. With the new government in place, an election was held on June 1, 1906, with D.A. Crites elected as the town’s first mayor; Walter Master as the city’s auditor; and Frank Albright, E.O Holler, J.H. Cook, J.E. Steward, James Burris and A.R. Lizotte as the town’s aldermen.

In that same year, Willow City built a city hall, a fire department, telephone system, commercial club and number of businesses and homes. The community also had a public school with eight teachers and a private Catholic boarding school called Sacred Heart Academy (also called Notre Dame Academy) which brought students into Willow from across the state and county.

The city also held a strong spiritual sense. At that time the town had four churches, which included the denominations of the Norwegian Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Catholic.

As the town moved forward in a positive manner, tragedy struck just over a year after Willow City incorporated when a fire burned through the city’s business district, destroying two hotels, four general stores, two drug stores, a hardware store, a pool room a barber shop, along with a number of confectionary and office buildings.

Although tragedy struck, the Willow City residents stayed strong, rebuilt their business district and promoted their city as much as possible. In 1912, the townspeople’s hard worked showed because the city had a population of 800 people along with two banks, two hotels, a postal saving bank, five elevators, four department stores, two hardware stores, a drug store, jewelry store, two implement houses, two harness shops, a lumber yard, fuel dealerships, a newspaper called The Dakota Eagle and number of other businesses.

When it came to social activities, Willow City was known as the place to go. Like every rural town throughout the state, Saturday evenings at Willow City was a fun time for its residents and area farmers. The stores stayed opened late, kids enjoyed treats from the local stores, the men played games in the local pool halls and women enjoyed each other’s company.

In the 1920s, Willow City had the Palace Theater where the best movies out of Hollywood played to the area folks. The city also had its own community orchestra which played for town and barn dances, along with special occasions in the city. One of those occasions was Willow City’s I.O.O. F. Lodge’s New Year’s Ball, where the city orchestra would play on the second floor of the Lodge’s club room. An advertisement in the Eagle on Dec. 29, 1911, stated that the I.O.O.F. Lodge’s New Year’s Ball would cost $1 a ticket and that Mrs. Thomas Lean would serve a hot dinner at midnight for 50 cents.

Over the past 125 years, Willow City has seen its good and bad times, but overall the good times have been much better than the bad times. Today, Willow City continues to be a progressive city with a cafe, two banks, a credit union, gas station, a bar, trucking business, an auto body and towing company, three churches, numerous elevators, and the business that started it all for Willow City, a post office.

Willow City is also the smallest community in the nation which holds an annual Relay for Life event to raise money in finding a cure for cancer. The money the community members raised in the Relay for Life per capita ranks high in U.S. cities which participate in the annual event.

For the first 125 years, Willow City and its residents have added greatly to Bottineau County’s prosperity, humanitarian ideology and love for life. One can only expect great things from this city in the next 125 years.