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.
September 15, 2024
Last week I told you about a road trip I took with my sisters, niece and great-nephew during which we
stopped at the Twin Lakes Wildlife Management Area’s observation platform along Highway 11. As we
drove east, we came to where the town of Pelan once stood.
A little farther along we came to the site of the old Pelan Park, which has mostly been dismantled now. The
park was created to be a place to celebrate community events on land that is said to be the site of the last
great battle between the Sioux and Chippewa Indians.
The members of the Greenbush Community Band took hold of the site of the park in 1937, and hewed this
beautiful park out of the brush. In 1939, Roseau County secured title to the land covered by the park, and ,
delegating the Greenbush Band to operate it, assured its use as a park for the people of this county.
Work was done as income was accumulated. The Band did not receive governmental aid in making this
park. Two organizations, the Greenbush Farm Bureau and the Roseau County Farm Bureau, had very
generously given donations, but most of the money needed was raised by putting on a series of
entertainments during the years. In addition to smaller celebrations, in 1938, the Warroad Indians were
brought down to stage their pow-wow and celebration of their victory over the Sioux on the site of the
battle. A crowd of over 5,000 people were present. In 1939, the Roseau County pioneers who came to this
county in 1899 or earlier were decorated there by Governor Harold Stassen before a crowd of 12,000.
Several people from my home community of Pinecreek were in that group of honorees. In 1940, the Band
staged an original opera in five acts. This opera was called “Wannaska and Waunda,” and it was based on
one of the most fascinating Indian legends with which Roseau County abounds.
In the fall of 1939, a swimming pool nearly 200 feet long was excavated out of the south branch of the Two
Rivers, which flowed through the park. This pool was 9 feet deep in one place at high water and furnished
excellent diving facilities. In 1940, through the cooperation of Albert Anderson, county commissioner from
the Greenbush district, an excellent parking ground was graded up and a good ball diamond laid out.
After 1940, much of the interest in the park was spoiled due to our country’s involvement in World War II,
and the rationing of gasoline and other products and the lack of funds. It didn’t receive much use until 1972
when a Pelan Pioneer Park Board was appointed and they held their first meeting. Clearing was done again
in the park area and buildings were brought in to make it an interesting place to visit again.
One of those buildings was the Pauli Lutheran Church. It had been planned for several years and finally was
able to be used for services in 1906. Before the congregation was organized, visiting pastors traveled
through the territory. They held religious services, baptized children, and officiated at any of the regular
church events they were requested to do. Services were held in school houses and homes. Among the
visiting pastors were Kleveland, Bestul, Njus, Birkel, Askeland, and Andreason.
A history of the church says that at one time, Hans T. Olson wrote to Pastor Askeland asking him to come
down to Pelan to baptize his three children because “he didn’t want them to grow up as heathens.”
Records from the early days of Pelan are incomplete, and those baptisms don’t seem to be recorded in
Pauli record books. The first recorded baptism is Calma Hanson on January 22, 1899. After the church was
built, Noel Hagen was recorded as the first baptism in the Pauli Church building.
It wasn’t easy to start a congregation. Money was scarce and different groups had various ideas about how
to do it. Ten families lived southeast of Pelan and offered to pay $2 from each family for the support of a
minister, only $20 total but that was all these families could pay. At first Pastor Cleveland thought he would
accept the proposition, but after thinking about it, he decided he could not accept the offer. He said the
twenty dollars would be enough only to pay for the grease of his buggy. One of the settlers told him that a
word is a word and a man is a man, meaning that it was his moral duty to take over the work in the
congregation. But argument was of no avail.
One of a group of Swedes living northwest of Pelan, Oscar Roos, placed a lengthy article in a paper
concerning the importance of getting a congregation started. They invited the Norwegians living around
Pelan to join them in their project. That did not work out.
A group of people from Hatton, North Dakota, had settled along the sandridge east of Pelan. Two ministers,
one from the Hauge Synod and one from the United Lutheran Church were contending for control of that
group. The majority of the people from Hatton were of the United Lutheran Faith, so in 1898 they
organized a congregation in accordance with that. Mrs. Kari Tandberg held out for the Hauge Synod and
had her daughter Olava confirmed at her house in 1899 by a Hauge minister. The Tanbergs didn’t join the
Pauli Church until 1910.
Then came fundraising for building the Pauli Church. Some of the Hatton people had wealthy relatives left
in Dakota. Solicitations went out and Hatton church and Ladies Aid sent $155.50 to help. Because of the
difficulty of obtaining more funds, an original plan didn’t include a steeple. The people felt it was
important, though, so plans were changed to include one. Mrs. Amalia Lysne Pederson, a member of the
Pauli Ladies Aid, had given some land for a cemetery with the understanding that a church would also be
built there in time. In the winter of 1904, stones were hauled to the site to make a stone foundation three
feet tall. Carl Gustafson, a stone mason from Sweden, built the foundation.
In 1957, the ELC wanted rural parishes to move into town and form one church. Pauli chose not to merge
and continued as part of a seven-point parish until 1972, when they voted to merge with Bethania and Zion
and build a new church in Greenbush, United Free Lutheran Church. Those old church buildings were
offered on bids. Pauli was sold to Leonard Thompson. In 1976, Pauli was moved a short distance across the
highway to the Pelan Pioneer Park. It fell into disrepair over time as many of the old Pelan Park Board
members aged and passed away. A new Board was active and began renovating the church, completing re-
shingling in 2003. Additional repairs made it available for events. In recent years, it was moved to the site
of the Kick’n Up Kountry music festival near Karlstad, Minnesota, where you can see it from the highway
again.
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.