Ware Auditorium/Grand Theater

Ware Auditorium/Grand Theater

Ware Auditorium/Grand Theater Joy Riggs The Ware Auditorium on the corner of Washington and Fourth Streets has been a hub of the Northfield entertainment scene for more than a century. Now known as the Grand Event Center, it was built in 1899 by A.K. Ware. Ware served...
Turning the Eagle

Turning the Eagle

Turning the Eagle Melanie M. Jones What do St. Olaf College, Carleton College, and a downtown Northfield Civil War monument adorned with an iron eagle all have in common? Jim Walsh, a blogger for the St. Olaf College Ole Touchdown Club, explained in a blog post after...
The Northfield Library

The Northfield Library

The Northfield Library Joy Riggs The history of a library in Northfield goes back to the winter of 1856, a year after the city’s founding, when a group of pioneer women organized a modest reading room in the schoolhouse at Third and Union Streets. The reading room...
The Lyceum

The Lyceum

The Lyceum Hayes Scriven Education was an important part of the vision John Wesley North had for the city he founded in 1855. In fact, the Lyceum—the oldest building in town—originally served as a reading room, circulation library, and debating society. It was devoted...
The Ames Mill

The Ames Mill

The Ames Mill Hayes Scriven Town founder John North sold his flour and saw mills to Charles Wheaton, and in 1865, Wheaton sold the flour mill at the edge of Bridge Square to Captain Jesse Ames, a newcomer to Northfield. Ames was a ship captain from Maine and Cape Cod...

Bjoraker Building

Bjoraker Building Hayes Scriven The limestone Bjoraker Building was built before 1870. It most likely replaced another first-generation wooden commercial building built before the Civil War. Unfortunately, not much is known about the building’s early history. A.J....