Basic Commercial Activity- Early Railroad Era Anoka
After northern expansion of the railroad, settlers in present day Anoka were able to take advantage of both site and situation to assume a more profitable position in the timber industry. Harnessing the power of the falls on the Rum River to run sawmills and then shipping the finished product to market by rail (to Minneapolis), Anoka advanced from an extraction site to a processing site. This would lay the foundation for future industrial and commercial development. The first dam and mill began operating in 1853. Three additional mills were up and running by 1855, spurring the development of an early downtown. These mills experienced limited growth as result of a sparsely populated hinterland and limited connections on the still infant railroad network in the Upper Midwest. At this point, northern and western rail connections were highly limited. |
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| Photo of the falls on the Rum River in 1894. The falls would have appeared much differently in the 1850s. The earliest industrial development was very basic with a much smaller dam and minimal development on the adjacent river banks. | |
Due to this limited market potential Anoka was highly vulnerable to the Financial Crisis of 1857, which sent milling activity into significant decline. The small Anoka mills on the Rum River could not compete with Minneapolis/St. Paul milling industries; which forty years its senior, were able to accumulate credit/capital and develop relationships with broader markets. While business in the Twin Cities still experienced solid, but slowed, growth, Anoka's came to a standstill.
A series of debilitating fires at mill sites and within downtown also stunted Anoka's growth. Many historians (with a pro-Anoka bias perhaps) speculate that if not for these setbacks, Anoka would have rivaled Minneapolis in form and stature. |
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Lumber Yard Fire, Anoka 1884 |
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