Prairie Skyline Foundation

1904 113 C.L. Bang Candy Manu 115 Edward Wood & Co. 117 Palace Hotel Saloon 117 & ½ Nat Campbell & Moeckel; Carpenter & Stenvick, Crookston Club, Hayes, R.M. Kirsch, M.D., McKinnon, Daniel, Rowe, W.D., Rowe, W.E., U.S. Land Office 119 Farley, Z.J. 121 Basset, Miss L.M. 123 Carpenter, Huggard & M 1908 117 & ½ U.S. Land Co., Clough & Caldwel, A.C. Clausen, Crookston Club, Daniel McKinnon, W.E. Rowe, Lee Sisters, Ernest Moeckel 119 Farley 121 J.E. Carpenter Land Co., City Realty Co. 123 F.B. Harris 1911 113 Miss Florence Huey 117 & ½ Palace Hotel 123 N.H. Yeo 1915 113 Mrs. M. B. Pierce 115 Carpenter Land Co. 119 Palace Hotel 123 N.H.Yeo 1930 113 Munn’s Music & Jewelry 115 Rosemary Hat & Hosiery 117 Palace Cafe 123 Regan’s Candy Shop 1935 113 Munn’s Music & Jewelry 115 Crookston Production Credit 117 The Dutch Room 120 & ½ Wayne Hotel 121 Northwestern Bell 123 Christines Beauty Service 1940 113 Chas. A. Mun...

Nothing but tons of prayers will save the Wayne/Palace Hotel from short-sighted "leaders."  At this time, we are preparing a proposal to the Polk County Board because we too were waiting for good news from Metro Plains Development. 

"I am excited to start chasing some of those elusive Minnesota bricks again now that milder weather has come again. I took a trip to Crookston, Minnesota, to look around what remains of Crookston bricks. Amazingly, this community still holds many of its old ties to the past. I would highly recommend a trip over to Crookston if you are looking to see what old buildings used to look like. You can also poke around antique stores looking for old gems. There are a couple of them in old historical buildings in the downtown area. If you look carefully, you can find old signs painted on the sides of some buildings and original hardware still on some of them. What a treat! I took my webmaster along for the ride, and we both enjoyed looking around town. Several days later, we took another swing through Polk County...and what a huge county it is!! I guess at one time they looked at dividing up the county, but never did. So there is quite a range from east to west, where you go fr...

We looked for the best use of the three-story Union Building and found housing with services (also called “permanent supportive housing”) to be not only much needed in Crookston, but a chance to help people.  In order to apply for grants, the project had to have a name.  We called it “KT Apartments” after Kari Thompson who passed away the year I started working on the project.  When completed the project will contain 11 units for the very low income, (single parents, students, min. wage job workers), 5 of which will be designated for the “long-term homeless” as defined by HUD, (folks who have struggled with homelessness more than a few times.)   This 1.2 million project doesn't interest the large developers and is too big for small developers.  Only a non-profit could do this project.   The goal is to rehab the three-story brick walk-up building. It is located at 111 W Robert Street in the historic commercial district of Crookston registered with th...

Before my post on the Union Building Project, I must ask, Does anyone know why the building's name was changed from the International Order of Odd Fellows to the Union building?

Every now and then, we need to check our points of reference. Prairie Skyline's point of reference for the rehab of the Wayne (Palace) Hotel project is the Taralseth Building in Warren Minnesota. A similar building to the Palace, it didn't even have a roof when the community took another look at their downtown after the 1997 Flood and decided to save it. Please empty your mind of your mental picture of the run-down Palace Hotel and replace it with a vision of the restored Taraseth Building which has on its main floor a large community center, something we need here in Crookston.

After Crookston Paint & Glass had occupied the building for 60 years, and the elderly owner, Edith Krohn, passed away, the building was vacant and listed for sale. Estimates on the sagging east wall of the basement were gathered for the Realtor. They ranged from $6,000 to over $30,000. The heir to the estate decided to donate the building to the Prairie Skyline Foundation, Inc. in Jan 07. The board worked on a proposal to the Minnesota Historical Society and in July of 08 was awarded a grant of $6,000 to be matched by local donations and labor to brace the wall to prevent it from caving in. Our contractor, Ron Geray, started building a new plate for the bracing when the bowed wall caved. Luckily, we had put in a new beam before the cave-in, saving the entire east wall. Work halted while we figured out what to do next as $6,000 wasn’t going to be enough to do the entire project now. Then, the building inspector required us to get an engineer’s drawing of the new bracing...

Stories subject to change according to donations. Check out http://tiny.cc.cdjbx