The city's cabin rental business

Brookings County Now & Then

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More than 90 years ago, the City of Brookings went into the log cabin rental business at its tourist park business, then located on the east side of what is now Hillcrest Park. 

One of those log cabins is still standing at the well-kept farmstead of Gene and Lois Kleinjan, 4 miles north of Volga on County Road 5.

“My dad bought it at a Brookings city auction and moved it to the place,” Gene said. He wasn’t sure of the date of that city sale, but a small story at the bottom of page one of the March 10, 1941, issue of the Register told of the $643.35 the city made auctioning off the eight log cabins it owned. 

Gene’s father, J.D. Kleinjan, is listed with other buyers, Carl Gunderson (who bought two), A.J. Messerschmidt, H. Schulz, Theodore Hill, Earl Pittenger and G. Sherman.

The cabins sold from $54 to $105. Gene Kleinjan’s dad apparently picked a good one, because it still stands straight and tall and has served for all these years as a tool shed on the Kleinjan farmsted. 

The city went into the tourist park business in the early 1920s, joining with other communities along the dirt or graveled Highway 14 that passed through town. 

The highway in 1914 was dubbed the “Black and Yellow Trail” as a promotion for the meager tourist trade at that time heading to the Black Hills and Yellowstone.

In the early 1920s the city’s only park was Eastside, now Hillcrest. To entice tourists headed west, a campground was established on the east side of Eastside Park.

For 25 cents, tourists could set up their tent or sleep in their car or in the open. The city provided a shower room, toilet, drinking fountain and fire pits. The price was raised to 50 cents in 1926. 

The city owned an old house on the tourist park property that was the caretaker’s home and office. 

A caretaker’s report in 1925 claimed cars from 42 of the 48 states had stopped at the park. Iowa visitors were the most numerous. Minnesotans were second.  

In 1923 the city built the first log cabin of ash logs harvested in the park. During the next few years, more were added.

A 1925 Park Board report estimated tourists stopping in Brookings spent $7.50 for gas, groceries and other items. The Park Board multiplied the $7.50 by the 885 tourist cars at the park during the season and concluded $6,637.50 new dollars were added to the Brookings economy.

So in 1932, a second rest cabin, as the city termed it, was built. It was 12 feet by 14 feet, also of ash. In 1933, six more smaller cabins were built.

These cabins were about 10 feet square, matching the size of the cabin at the Kleinjan farm. 

Apparently by late 1940, owners of privately-owned hotels in Brookings complained to the Junior and Senior Chambers of Commerce. Both organizations passed polite resolutions urging the city to get out of the log cabin rental business. 

The city complied. 

Now all that’s left is the determined little tool shed cabin north of Volga.

If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.