GOLLENBECK STAGE STOP

The present Stagecoach Museum on Highway 101, a few miles west of Savage and 1 mile south of the Bloomington Ferry Bridge was actually a stage stop The Yellow and Red Line coaches came from St. Paul and Fort Snelling via Old Shakopee Road, crossing the Minnesota River on the Bloomington Ferry, a major river crossing. From this stop, some stages went to Mankato and others took off on branch lines. Stages were called "swift Wagons" by the Indians since they generally kept up a speed of 15 miles per hour, making it necessary to provide a relief station 10 miles. Stagecoaches flourished until 1865 when railroads became the mode of travel just as "iron horses" put an end to the steam- boating heyday on rivers.

One of the stages presently at the museum made runs from Medora to Deadwood, South Dakota, having carried Calamity Jane and Teddy Roosevelt as passengers.

Today the Stage Coach Museum marks the stage stop very well. Ozzie Klavistead and his wife, Marie, have restored it as authentically as possible, featuring an antique gun museum. A four barreled gun given to Shakpay from the Indian agent, Taliaferro, in displayed. Indian Minnie's picture can be seen there, having been secured by Ozzie from Minnie's daughter. She was a familiar figure in this area, talking mostly in grunts, being unhappy with any communications she had ever had with white people. Her appearance belied the fact that she fashioned beautiful handmade articles to sell along with watercress from Boiling Springs.

Behind the museum is Sandburr Gulch which is a replica of a western town with 20 buildings containing animated life-size figures synchronized with recordings in appropriate settings. Hew additions in 1976 are the Busted Rump underground gold mine and the Palace with an animated band playing Sousa's music. Next to the museum is the Opera House where stage companies put on the "mellerdramas" of yesteryear where the audience can hiss the villains and cheer the heros as loudly as they desired.

When the Four Mile House was still a stagecoach rest, another event in history took place just north of the stop in April of 1861. Fort Sumter was fired upon and President Abraham Lincoln sent out a call for 75,000 volunteers, Governor Ramsey of Minnesota was in Washington D.C. at the time and wired Lt. Gov. Donnelly, in St. Paul, to get volunteers immediately. The coll was sent out and resulted in the famous Minnesota First gathering north of the Four Mile House. The men marched from this mustering point under Gorman along the stage route to the vacated Fort Snelling. The courageous Minnesota First in commemorated with a fitting monument at Gettysburg.

Bea Nordstrom