These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
February 15, 2026
Recently, a classmate of mine from Roseau High School, Muriel Odegaard Olin, passed on to
me two albums of photos and a small box full of loose proofs her mother Phyllis had bought
when the Ole Lund Studio closed shop in Roseau. These photos will eventually be given to the
Roseau County Museum, but in the meantime I’ve scanned them and am posting them on
Facebook, hoping for help with identifying some of them. They’re from the 1940s and 1950s so
most of the adults in the pictures are no longer living, and even the children pictured would be in
their 70s and 80s. One of the photos posted was labeled “C Arthur Johnson”. Very quickly, I
heard from the wife and kids of Phil Johnson, who identified him as Phil’s dad. I looked into the
family files in the museum’s research area and found this story written by C Arthur Johnson
about his own ancestors’ arrival in the United States. He named his story “Oak Lane Farm”.
This all began in 1886 when a man in his middle fifties living in the small hamlet of Wilhelmina,
Northern Sweden, succumbed to the fever to emigrate to the “land of plenty” and “golden
opportunity”, as the ads said, namely, America. There were other strings that pulled west;
friends and relatives were already there. Things were not too good in his native land, and even
at that stage of life, it was not too late to try something new. In those days there was no such
thing as a man being shelved at the age of forty.
And so, in April, 1887, Mikkel Johnson arrived at Pelican Rapids, Minnesota with his good wife,
Anna, and their five youngest children, Alex, Oscar, Huldah, Peter and Josephine. The older
ones were to follow at a later date. Here he acquired forty acres of land and started to hew out a
patch of ground. But he was not too well satisfied because he had heard of the good level land
up north with plenty of hay for the cattle and oxen; and also there were more of the old friends,
as well as a half-brother, N. E. Nelson, already there. It was then called Kittson County, near the
Roseau River. In 1889 he set out alone, and by walking mostly, arrived in the Roseau River area
and stayed with the Nelsons until he had chosen a parcel of land. It was an ideal location. The
Indian Trail ran right through it; it adjoined his brother Nelson, to the west, and boy! Talk about
hay! A native legume, the pea-vine, and other grasses grew many feet high. Truly this was the
land of milk and honey. He arranged to have a log house built so that the family would have a
place to live when they arrived, for he had decided to settle here. His brother agreed to build this
for a nominal charge. It was about 14’ x 18’, one room, with a loft, made of hewed logs.
Back in Pelican Rapids he disposed of his land and prepared to migrate north with the cattle
and household goods. This consisted mainly of four cows, two yokes of oxen (four oxen), and
two wagons. The wagons were heaped with the necessary household goods, the family riding
what we would call covered wagon style. The cows were driven along by the children who
alternated herding them. Nice fresh milk with their meals was their reward.
Leaving Pelican Rapids in the middle of May, 1890, they followed a route across country along
trails which necessitated fording rivers. This was quite a feat with the heavily loaded wagons. If
the water was high, the wagon box wanted to float up and go downstream. Tying the box to the
wagon gear solved this.
This trip went on without any unfavorable incidents, and they arrived on the chosen parcel of
land here June 16, 1890. They were pleased to find that the settlers had already started to build
a church on the N. E. Nelson farm, and from then on, Mr. Nelson, a genial sort of a chap, was
known as “Church Nelson”. This church site is now known as Spruce Cemetery. The church is
no longer there but a marker has been placed at its original location. It might be well for us to
pause and realize that these early settlers felt a need for a spiritual home for the rest of the soul
as well as a material home for the rest of the body. Their main reading matter was their Bible,
Psalm Bok, and Postilla, brought along from their native Norway or Sweden.
I’ll continue with C Arthur Johnson’s family immigrant story next Sunday. Thanks to WILD 102
for this time to tell these county stories.
Thank you to 
for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.