Brightwood Beach Cottage
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Brightwood Beach Cottage is an octagonal building on the southern shore of Litchfield, Minnesota's Lake Ripley that once was a part of the Brightwood Beach Resort of the late 1800s.
For a brief period, Brightwood Beach was one of the resort “jewels” of Minnesota. The following is from Terry R. Shaw's book Terry Tales 2:
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[edit] Planning and Preparation
"A small article in a June 27, 1878 Litchfield newspaper asked the question, “Why don’t some fellow, who has got more wealth than he knows what to do with, build a handsome summer resort hotel on the banks of Lake Ripley? We believe he would realize a handsome interest on his investment.”
It took ten years for somebody to heed the newspaper’s advice. In 1888, two young enterprising Litchfield businessmen got together and made plans to make the “good ole days” a little better. They knew they were living in an ideal place in Litchfield, unless you wanted to count the terrible winters, oppressively hot and humid, bug-infested summers, and wild west atmosphere of their multi-salooned (there were eight) infant town, and they wanted to turn the area into a Minnesota resort haven.
Litchfield was growing rapidly with a population of two thousand, the railroad’s passenger trains serviced the town and just a mile away from downtown Litchfield was beautiful Lake Ripley. The industrial revolution was freeing up people to enjoy the fruits of their labors. The five hotels in town were flourishing. “Why not,” the two men asked themselves, “build a summer hotel on the south shore of the lake and invite people from all over the country to come to the relatively cooler Minnesota and enjoy one of our 10,000 lakes?” Ripley was said to “abound in the finest Black Bass, Silver Bass and Crappies”. Why not indeed?
Charles A. Greenleaf and Hiram S. Branham were the two men who stepped up to the call. Charles, a stockbroker, was the son of lumberyard owner, businessman and realtor William H. Greenleaf, who would have a town just south of Litchfield named after him. Hiram was the son of Litchfield’s first mayor and Sioux Uprising hero Jesse V. Branham, Jr. and Hiram had money at his disposal. He was co-owner, with Hamlet Stevens, of the Stevens and Branham bank in Litchfield. Hiram had just been elected mayor, although the history books don’t show that fact, for a reason I’ll get into later.
The two gentlemen finalized their plans over the winter and in February of 1889 they hired Architect G. B. Phelps to plan the main hotel for the resort. It was to be forty-two feet by fifty-six feet and two stories high. In addition to the main hotel, the resort would have a dozen cottages, a dance pavilion, tennis courts, croquet and softball grounds, curving drives, winding walks, and beautiful flower beds. Work on the buildings was started. A steamboat was ordered from Little Falls and it arrived in early May of 1889. Christened “LuLu”, after Hiram’s sister, it was thirty feet long. It was chugging across the lake on June 1. Israel Miller, a Civil War veteran who owned the Litchfield Feed Mill, operated the boat. Four years earlier, Israel had built another steamboat, which he took people around the lake on. During the off-season, he took out the steam engine and used it in his feed mill.
LuLu took guests to the resort across the lake from a landing at the site of today’s Anderson Gardens. In those days, a road came to the lake from downtown, but there wasn’t a road around the lake. Tokens to ride LuLu could be purchased in downtown Litchfield and a long horse drawn carriage, named the “Brightwood Bus”, took the patrons to the boat landing. Most of the guests were met and picked up at the train depot.
E. L. Danforth was hired to manage the hotel. Mr. Danforth also managed a hotel in Minneapolis for part of the winter and then he traveled around the country promoting the resort. I read one letter of his that he wrote to the editor of the Litchfield Ledger from Georgia in his promotional travels. He talked of the success of his trip and the interest of the southern people in our resort. Brightwood opened with a gala affair on the 4th of July.
[edit] Early years
A weekly program was set up for the first season and it was announced in the local newspapers. Lawn tennis clubs would meet on Mondays, there would be excursions on LuLu on Tuesday evenings, a musicale would be held on Wednesdays, and every Friday evening there would be a ball and social. It was also announced that private dances, dinner parties, and steamboat excursions could be held “on short notice”. The newspaper reported “Nothing can be more pleasant than a day, week or season at this charming resort. Every effort is made for the comfort and pleasure of guests. The table is excellent and charges are very reasonable.” When September rolled around, the first season of Brightwood was hailed a success. The next season was even better. The resort's 4th of July celebration was supposedly attended by 10,000 people. That figure is a little hard to believe. Tennis tournaments were held and there were baseball games played by two girls’ teams. One was called the Brightwood Belles and the other was the Invincibles. The elite from town came out for parties at the resort. Everything seemed to be going wonderfully when suddenly, Branham sold his half interest to Greenleaf. Branham’s bank was failing and he needed the capital.
One night in December of 1890, Delaney Ezra or “Abe” Branham, who owned the City Grocery in Litchfield where the Ed Olson Agency is today, visited his brother Hiram. Later that evening, Hiram excused himself, went into his bedroom and put a bullet in his chest just below his heart with a .32 revolver. He lingered until the next morning, when he died at the young age of thirty-four. One of the officers of the bank was subsequently arrested for embezzlement and many people lost their money. Hiram’s name was permanently removed from Litchfield’s list of mayors. Brightwood had a fairly busy summer in 1891. Danforth had arranged for the Minnesota Editorial Association to hold their annual meeting at the resort. Over one hundred editors and their families were guests. The next summer in 1892 was the busiest summer so far, but not financially. Greenleaf decided to get out, or at least bring in more investors. That winter he put the resort up for sale. Eighty-six people from town, including Greenleaf, formed the Brightwood Association, Inc. and bought the resort for $25,000. They fired Danforth and hired W. T. Hoopes for the summer of 1893.
On a Tuesday afternoon in May of 1893, two young ladies reported a story to the local newspaper. I don’t know if the event they reported actually happened or if they made it up to help the struggling resort’s business. The ladies and their male companions were out on the Brightwood pier fishing one beautiful spring morning, when they suddenly heard a roaring, buzzing noise. “Terrified”, they looked further out onto Lake Ripley and saw a large dark object, looking very much, they said, “like a sea serpent”. Were the young couples familiar with the looks of a sea serpent? “The fishers”, the newspaper reported, “were so frightened that they lost no time in getting back to town and it is doubtful if they have as yet recovered from the fright.” Then came the “kicker” in the article: “The Brightwood managers can now advertise a sea serpent and will no doubt succeed in getting hundreds of people here to come out and see the monster of the deep.” All I can say is that it’s a good thing my brother Pat and I never knew about this sea serpent in the late fifties or we would’ve never set foot into the murky waters of Ripley’s swimming beach again. Many employees of the Great Northern Railroad came to the resort the summer of 1893. A toboggan slide was added. A person could climb to the top of the slide, sit on a toboggan, much like an auto mechanic’s “creeper”, and zip down the slide, shooting out over the water several feet. Lake Ripley beach had a similar one in the thirties.
[edit] The 1893 Balloon Festival
It seems the owners were pulling out all the stops to make the 1893 season at Brightwood a success. For the upcoming Fourth of July celebration, an “aeronaut” named Professor T. I. Cash and his companion Miss Eva Daniels were hired to take a hot air balloon up to 3000 to 5000 feet and then have the young lady jump with a parachute. Over five thousand people showed up for the celebration on the Fourth, which began with the customary speeches. Then there was singing by a girls’ quartet, a shooting tourney, won by real estate broker Peter E. Hanson, a bicycle race, won by Willmar’s W. T. Markus, running and hurdle races, both won by downtown restaurant owner Percy Vorys, and a baseball game pitting the Leans against the Fats. Yes, that’s right. To play for the Fats, you had to weigh over two hundred pounds. Local lamplighter and courthouse custodian, and Litchfield’s sole black man, Van Spence pitched for the Fats. The Leans won the game.
It came time for the grand finale…the balloon ascension and parachute drop. But, the wind was so strong that Professor Cash wisely insisted on waiting till late evening. Unfortunately, by then, the majority of the crowd assembled had gone home. Only 120 people remained. They had stayed for the grand ball complete with Griffin’s Orchestra from Minneapolis. Nevertheless, the balloon started its ascent. It went up about one hundred feet and then suddenly fell to the ground. Shaken, Professor Cash climbed out, but Miss Daniels, still in the balloon, found herself tangled in the balloon’s ropes. As soon as she got herself free, the balloon and she suddenly shot up to about two hundred feet and sailed away. She was able to bring the errant balloon down, however, in the area of today’s R.V. camp.
Cash told the few people left that he would retrieve the balloon and make an ascent and jump on the next day. He went off with helpers to get the balloon and his companion. They found Miss Daniels standing next to the deflated balloon, which was ripped to shreds. She had brought the thing down on a wire fence. Demoralized and embarrassed, Professor Cash came to town and telegraphed his partner in St. Paul, asking him to bring out their other balloon and have it here by the morning.
When the second balloon didn’t arrive by noon the next day, Cash turned to Litchfield’s excellent tailors, headed by Andrew O. Palmquist, for help. Andrew and a helper went to work feverishly on the balloon and by 5pm they had it sewn back together. A large crowd was assembled again at Brightwood and Cash fired up his burners to inflate the repaired balloon. The huge colored cloth balloon slowly rose up off the ground as it filled with heated air, slowly, slowly, getting rounder and rounder. Suddenly, just as the balloon was almost filled, it burst into flames. In seconds, the balloon’s ashes snowed down onto the crowd. It was gone. “No problem,” red-faced Professor Cash announced to the assembly, “My other balloon is still on its way. We will ascend tomorrow. I assure you.” A mumbling crowd of Litchfield’s citizenry turned and left.
The second balloon did arrive and the following day the Professor and his partner actually got it up into the air, although they took off from a vacant lot by Israel Miller’ feed mill, located where the Rainbow Body & Paint Shop is today, instead of from Brightwood. Miss Daniels climbed out of the balloon’s basket and slid down to a trapeze when they reached about 2000 feet. The trapeze she sat on was attached to a parachute, which was attached to the side of the balloon. The young lady was supposed to set the chute free and fall for a bit before opening the chute, but instead, to the dismay of the crowd, she opened the chute first, inflating it, and then cut herself loose from the balloon, floating gently down to Waller’s pasture north of Litchfield. I think she was thinking that this fiasco was doomed and she wasn’t about to tempt fate any further.
Professor Cash was paid the $80 he had been promised, ($125 if he had gone up on the Fourth), and he went away knowing that he had lost his main balloon, which he said would cost $160 to replace. Not every businessman who comes to Litchfield is successful, you see.
[edit] Closure
A financial panic in the United States and the failure of both the sea serpent and the aeronaut to draw resort customers caused the 1893 season to be a failure. The resort shut down on August 28, never to open again. At various auctions, the Brightwood Association sold the nineteen acres of land, the ten cottages, the hotel, all the furniture, and the dock for LuLu and the other boats. The furniture auction was held on June 13, 1894. The cottages and hotel were auctioned off in February of 1896. Many of the cottages were moved into town for sheds or parts of homes. One large one stayed and it was the home of Christ Peterson in the sixties. The hotel was taken down in June of 1896 and the wood was moved to the farm of Patrick Joseph Casey, Sr. near Darwin where it was used to build a barn. The dance pavilion followed.
By July of 1996, only the steamboat LuLu, six cottages and twenty-five lots still remained. Slowly they were sold off. LuLu became part of a home in town at the corner of 4th Street and Ramsey Avenue where the J. C. Jacks family lived. When Northwestern Bell Telephone bought the lot for their new office in 1959, the house was moved to the corner of South Street and Davis Avenue. For years, Lawrence and Helen Wisdorf occupied it at that location. One of the cottages was moved to 420 North Armstrong where it became a home. Today it has been replaced with a larger home. Part of one of the buildings became a barn on the Peter E. Hanson farm. The building became a machine shed on Hugh Benjamin’s farm in the late seventies. The octagonal cottage, christened Brightwood Beach Cottage, that was used as a steamboat waiting area and landing station remained on Lake Ripley. It was sold to Dr. Frank E. Bissell and later to T. F. McClure in 1907. The McClures rented it out after enclosing the south side with screens and making a kitchen and bedroom in the main part. Vern Sederstrom bought the house in 1950 and he sold it to Raynold and Myrtle Allen. Raynold was the son of John Algot Allen. For many years, the octagonal cottage was the Allens’ summer home. The Allens had requseted that the cottage be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it was added in 1978.
