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 13, 2025
In 1925, the September 4th Roseau Times-Region had this story about the Roseau County Exhibit going to the State Fair.
Christ Houtvet and Erick Holm left Tuesday, for the cities, with the 1925 Roseau county agricultural exhibit to the state fair. For variety, quality and quantity it was one of the best ever taken from the county and Roseau county has had some great displays at the big show in years past.
More than a thousand items of every variety of product from field and garden are in the exhibit and all some mighty fine samples of what is grown and raised on the north edge of the state. There is over 150 samples in grasses alone. One is a single root of Cossack alfalfa from the Nels Carlson farm in Malung, which has over 200 stems and measures 7 feet from root to top. This was grown from seed and represents one year’s growth. Hundreds of grain sheaves as well as seed grains, r=vegetables and fruits completed the exhibit.
Gathering the best of everything from all sections of the county was in itself no small task, but the big job was properly preparing it for display, and this is particularly true with the grasses and sheaf grains. Here is where experience and expert knowledge counts and that is just what Mr. Houtvet and Mr. Holm have. They have worked early and late for quite a while gathering and preparing each item and for several days before leaving, they had four girls assisting with the final touches.
The whole exhibit was shipped by express and weighed over 5,000 pounds. On arrival at the state fair grounds there was the next big task of unpacking and arranging everything in the booth. This is as important as the articles themselves as beauty of display is a big factor on the score card.
With an exhibit larger and better than the one of last year which came close to first, and by many was thought the best, it will not surprise us to see Roseau county land the prize. After the exhibit is in place, Mr. Houtvet will remain in charge of the booth while Mr. Holm will go on duty as a guard at the agricultural exhibit hall.
A week later, the results were in and the Times-Region reported the placing.
The Roseau county exhibit at the state fair won second place for the northern division, scoring 1134 points, or only 9 points below Aitkin, which won first honors. It came fourth in the state out of a total of 40 counties exhibiting, being headed only by Rice, Aitkin and Renville. In the matter of beauty of exhibit it carried off first in the northern section and was only headed by Scott county in this respect for state honors.
That is a record to be proud of for there were a lot of mighty fine county exhibits this year, every booth available being used for the forty counties showing, and the competition was very keen. In fact, the northern section made a record by having six counties score over 1100 points each for the highest average ever attained. It was the largest number of entries in years with greater effort to make beautiful displays and hence it brought unusual competition.
Placing of the counties in the northern division was as follows: Aitkin, Roseau, Koochiching, Clearwater, Norman, Crow Wing, St. Louis, Carlton, and Pennington. In the “beauty contest” the placing was Roseau, St. Louis and Crow Wing.
Speaking of the Roseau county booth the Minneapolis Journal said: “Roseau county, second in the northern section , has a canoe of potatoes for a keynote. The residents wished to emphasize the undeveloped possibilities of dairying, according to Chris C. Houtvet, Roosevelt, in charge of the booth. He has on display 24 varieties of grain; 21 bottles of grass and garden seed; 65 varieties of wild grasses; 18 jars of preserved berries; 15 varieties of cold pack vegetables.”
Several of the photos of Roseau County exhibits to the State Fair are on display at the Roseau County Museum. They’re all very beautiful and intricate. I hope you go check them out.
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.