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.
July 6, 2025
For the past two weeks I read about the ambitious project of building the first enclosed skating rink in Roseau in 1925. It was in the block across the street from the current Roso Theatre, right behind what is the old Budd Apartment building and laid out lengthwise north to south. In that same area in the same year, just a little farther north, the first Catholic Church was built in Roseau. Sacred Heart Catholic Church is celebrating their centennial this year, and some of this history comes from what they’ve included in a fundraising project, a Centennial Cookbook.
Their first church was built in 1925 and was known as the “Little Church” and also as the “Doll House Church”. On one of the divider pages in the cookbook, there’s a photo of the church and this description. Father Keyser offered the first Mass in the “Doll House Church” on September 6, 1925. This small church measured 12 by 20 feet including the sanctuary, a total of eight pews, heated with “a big barrel” stove, stoked by Jack Delmore, Jr. Dr. J. L. Delmore is mentioned as the first organist.
On August 21, 1925, the Roseau Times-Region told about the building of the “Little Church”.
Roseau’s Catholic church is completed so far as the carpenter work and plastering is concerned, Axel Johnson, who had the contract, having turned over the edifice to the congregation this week. The decorating of the church is left to be done. The interior wood work is being varnished by volunteer help of the parishioners.
The building is not a pretentious one, but it is an inviting place of worship. The main building is 20×20, to which is added a sacristy 10×10 and an entry 6×8. The wood work is of fir while the walls are plastered and finished in a hand-float coat. The church is completely furnished with altar and pews, and the capacity of the building is about fifty people. The tower will be equipped with a bell. A concrete walk has been built to connect the church entrance with the line of walk to be built from Meyer’s garage and north past the Memorial Skating rink.
Definite arrangements as to the first service has not yet been announced, but it is believed that the first high mass will be held Sunday morning, August 30th, by Father C. A. Kaiser of Badger, who will have charge of the congregation here. The Badger and Greenbush congregations will be invited to attend the opening service. Formal dedication services will be held at some later date.
Again, in the cookbook, it tells that by 1942, the tiny first church had been outgrown; at about the same time the mission at Mavie was closed. Their donated church was moved to Roseau at the expense of $350. Repaired, painted and made ready for use, Father McMahan celebrated the first Mass in this church on Christmas Eve, 1943.
In another coincidence of timing, the same year that the Catholic Church was being replaced by a bigger church building, there was a need to replace the first Memorial Arena, but for a far different reason. A huge storm had wrecked the arena. On July 15, 1943, a long article listed the many places in Roseau County that were damaged by a terrific windstorm that hit Roseau County just after 2 o’clock the previous Tuesday morning. The story said that no human lives were lost in the storm, but more than a hundred barns were casualties. Here’s the article:
Roseau county was digging itself out of debris Tuesday morning caused by the tornado that swooped down upon it during the night from the southwest. Reports in the morning indicated that
its main path was through the central part east and west, hitting Greenbush and along the railroad and the territory adjacent and east past Roseau the hardest.
High wind and electrical disturbances accompanied by rain showers was the story during the fore part of the night. At 2:10 in the morning the official check at Hegland’s observatory showed the wind velocity of thirty-eight miles per hour. Need for tending to window closing and making the house ship-shape for the storm took the attention of the observers away for five minutes. Then the storm had reached a fury that cut electric service and consequently the wind meters’ twirling could only be guessed at. Mr. Hegland said it could have been an eighty-mile gale.
The storm wrecked the Memorial Ice Skating Rink in Roseau, flattening it to the ground and carrying parts of it some distance. It also damaged the frame garage of the county on west Pearl Street.
The plate front window on the left side of the entrance to the ladies’ department of the Sjoberg Bros. store was blown out, as was the plate front of Clarence White’s store and part of the window in the front of Brastad’s Hardware. Several roofs were damaged, windows in residence section broken. Trees were uprooted, broken or twisted all over town and out in the country. Numerous barns on farms were flattened, according to reports continuing to come in.
Roseau’s light and power service was cut off, first by the trees falling on distribution lines, then by action of the power plant employees for the safety of the public. Telephone service in town was not greatly disrupted but no contact could be had on long distance lines or over farm lines Tuesday morning. Telegraph connections could be had east but not west that forenoon.
It is likely that when the total check can be made it will be found that this is the worst storm in the history of the county.
While temperatures have not climbed higher than 89.9 degrees, and that only on Friday, and 89 on Sunday, the atmosphere has been very degressing. Folks felt something was cooking besides themselves. Rains did not seem to clear the atmosphere.
The Times-Region endeavored to get as complete a list of farm buildings damaged in the storm as possible, but realizes that it is not complete. Several column inches listed specific buildings damaged throughout the county, mostly barns lifted off foundations and twisted, roofs torn off, chimneys, boats, vehicles, and some farm animals also injured or killed.
Falling trees and limbs put 66 telephones out of commission in Roseau alone, and 200 telephones served by the NW Bell Telephone Co. were out of commission in the area over which A. J. Rau has charge.
The article went on and on about the damage in the region. It was estimated that better than fifty per cent of the farm buildings destroyed were covered by tornado insurance. The Roseau Memorial Rink had tornado insurance in the amount of $2,000.
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.