What did Dick Dibble own and when did he own it?
In 2020 I completed the most thorough investigation of this topic that I believe it's possible to perform using only readily-available resources, including both online searches and perusal of several books of Cannon Falls/Goodhue County history. I have not been able to interest either of the local historical societies in helping me with this research, and I haven't been able to travel there myself to look up deed transfers or other records in person. That may be a project for my retirement years. In the meantime, here's what we have to work with:
Dick's grandson Richard Kenneth Dibble (my father) had a lot to say on this topic: "Dick did very well by selling meat to the Army during WWI and prior - which started him on the way of buying buildings in downtown Cannon Falls and later a farm to raise his own meat (without middlemen). As Dick moved to real estate he knew his brother, Dan, couldn't handle the butcher shop - so Dick set him up in the liquor store business.[Dick's wife] Bertha had a sister, Eve [Edith], and Eve's husband Ed [Wilson] was the local barber. I remember Dick setting him up in one of his buildings [in] downtown Cannon Falls, rent free. He still couldn't make a go of it so he gave Ed cash every week at the end of the normal Sunday night lemonade parties." In describing a photograph (which I no longer have and can't identify) R. K. Dibble also wrote that "From the picture you can't see my granddad's buildings. The brick building on the left is the local GM car dealer. On the far side of him is the 'sweet shop' and then the 'Butcher shop' which my grandpa owned. Then across the street from the butcher shop is the dry goods store which he also owned. Now, the first building on the right is the liquor store and on the far side on it is the post office--both of which he owned."
We must first bear in mind that my father was a man of strong opinions, and he took a pretty jaundiced view of nearly all of the members of the Dibble side of the family except for his grandfather Dick. Some of the facts I've collected don't square with his statements about Dan Dibble and Ed Wilson. For one thing, Dick seems to have been off-and-on with the Dibble Brothers butcher shop, at one point apparently selling out his share to Charles Benway (Cannon Falls Beacon April 4, 1919, reprinting a story originally from August 1893) and later buying it back, and later retiring from that business entirely, while Dan was consistently involved from 1889 until at least 1920. Dan himself dabbled in real estate as well; he owned 52.5 acres of land along the Cannon River in northeastern Stanton Township in the 1890s, and he bought and sold several residential properties in Cannon Falls over the years. Ed Wilson was also a landowner; he owned at least 5 residential lots in Cannon Falls in the 1890s, and lived on a farm "near Oxford" that he may have owned in 1919 (assuming "near Oxford" means somewhere close to the old Oxford Mill ruins, I could not find any plots with his name on them in plat maps for that area at that time). His barbershop was doing well enough in 1894 to employ at least two "assistants".
As for the locations my father described:
"The local GM car dealer" was probably what became Kruse [Chevrolet] Garage, 421 Mill St. W., which is on the south side of Mill St. However, that location was largely empty until some time after 1905. The Sanborn Fire Insurance map for 1921 shows a large "Garage" there. The 1938 Sanborn map labels the location as "Auto Sales & Service".
The Meyer and Johns Dry Goods building stands on the southwest corner of Mill St. W. and 4th. St. It is separated from the car dealer at 421 Mill St. W. by an alley. It was probably built immediately after the 1887 fire. It appears on the 1893 Sanborn map as "D.G. & Clo." (dry goods & clothing). On that same map the Westman & Danielson building, one building north of Main St. on the west side of 4th. St., is labeled the same way. On the 1899 map the Meyer and Johns building is labeled the same way, but the Westman & Danielson building is labeled "Gen'l Mdse.", which is a common synonym for "dry goods". In 1905 Meyer and Johns is still "D.G. & Clo." while Westman & Danielson is "D.G." and Van Campen is labeled as "Gro., B & S, etc.; Gro. & Crockery" ("B & S" likely stands for "boot & shoe"). By 1921 Meyer and Johns is labeled "Dry Goods", Van Campen is "D.G." and Westman & Danielson is "Gro." There are also a clothing store and a millinery shop on the east side of 4th. St. between Mill and Main in that year, either of which could be considered "dry goods". The 1938 map labels all of these locations simply as "S", for "store" or "shop", or "rest", for restaurant.
Dibble Brothers meat market was in the Hawkins building, built soon after the 1887 fire; it originally had two entrances on 4th. St. and housed four small shops. The meat market was four doors south of the Meyer and Johns building on the west side of 4th. St. in 1893 according to the Sanborn map from that year. On that map, the shop just north of Dibble Brothers was "Conf."--a confectionary shop. The 1899 map for that location shows "Rendering Rm. Meat." for the Dibble Brothers shop, and "Rest, Candy, Fruit, etc." for the shop north of it. In 1905, the "Meat Rendering Rm." is still in the same place, and the shop to the south of Dibble Brothers was labeled "Confec." In 1921, "Meat" is still the business in the fourth shop south of the corner. Unfortunately the 1938 map only labels these locations on 4th. St. as "S"--presumably for "store" or "shop"--except for one "Rest."
The 1899 Sanborn map shows a "Barber B." in the Van Campen building on the west side of 4th. St. at the corner of Main St., probably on the second floor. The 1905 Sanborn map shows a "Barber" just north of the Dibble Bros. "Meat Rendering Rm." in the Hawkins building. A "Barber" is in the same location on the 1921 map. However, that map also shows a "Barber" on the east side of 4th. St. about halfway between Mill and Main streets.
A post office appears on the east side of 4th. St. south of Main St. on the 1938 map in a location that was labeled "Office" in 1921. However, there was a "P.O." on the Sanborn map for 1921, on the north side of Mill St. W., across the street from the garage.
None of the Sanborn maps show a liquor store. There was such a store in the N.C. Olson Building, on the east side of 4th. St. N., just north of Main St., in the 1880s. The city of Cannon Falls went "dry" via local ordinance in April 1912, and remained so until Prohibition ended in 1933. However, Chronicles of Cannon Falls (page 53) contains a reference to advertising in the Beacon of a saloon or liquor store operated by D. S. Dibble, but no date is given.
I do not think the Sanborn maps show every building or commercial location in Cannon Falls at the times of their publication, and there are, of course, several years between each one during which things could have changed. However, using all of the information available I can't assemble these physical locations into any geographic scheme that matches my father's recollections, which I think were likely inaccurate. He was born in 1925 and lived in Minneapolis; he only visited his Cannon Falls relatives on occasion. He probably was thinking of things as they were in the mid-to-late 1930s and remembering his grandfather Dick's stories (Dick died in 1940), when he wrote about them at the turn of the 21st. century. He certainly can be excused for failures of memory. I also can't fully vouch for his claims that Dick Dibble "owned" all of the commercial buildings under discussion, but we have more information on that.
One would think that he owned the location of the Dibble Brothers meat market, but I can find no documentation for that. Dibble Brothers was established in 1889, when Dick returned to Cannon Falls from St. Paul, where he had gone to live a few months after the 1887 fire that destroyed the wooden building that housed the Tanner & Dibble butcher shop. Dibble Bros. stood very near to the location where Tanner & Dibble had been, but it doesn't seem likely that Dick owned that city lot (people can build and own buildings on land that they lease from others, so it's not completely impossible, just not likely given the fact that Dick had left town after the fire). The one-story limestone building that occupies that location, the Hawkins building (now part of Althoff's Hardware), "was probably built soon after the fire of 1887" by O. J. Hawkins, "proprietor of a confectionery and harness shop here" and originally owned by him (according to an application to establish a federally-protected “Cannon Falls Commercial Historic District” made to the National Register of Historic Places in December 1999, which was completed by Gemini Research of Morris, MN, based entirely on “other” information in the possession of the Goodhue County Historical Society; I have a PDF copy of this application in my records with file name "Cannon Falls Historic Buildings.pdf", which I refer to as "CFHB"). CFHB says that Dibble Brothers was located in the Hawkins building "in the late 19th or early 20th century", and the Sanborn maps support that contention. There was still a harness shop in the southern-most bay of the building on the 1899 Sanborn map, and the meat market was in the bay just to its north. CFHB has a bit more information on the history of the building but not on its ownership. So it is possible that Dick Dibble bought the building at some point, perhaps around the time that Hawkins moved his harness shop into the building now addressed as 406 Mill St. W., shortly after it was built in 1899.
However, he may simply have leased a store bay for the meat market from Hawkins, or he could have leased the entire building. Both ownership and a full-building lease would be consistent with my father's recollection that Dick "set up" Ed Wilson with a barbershop "in one of his buildings"; there was a barbershop in the Hawkins building bay just north of the meat market in 1905 and 1921, and could still have been there in 1938 if "S" stands for "shop". A photo that Roots and Wings says is from "the early 1900's" (on Page 8 of this site--"Between Two Wars"--as "West side of 4th. St. looking north from Main St. Cannon Falls, early 1900s") shows a barber pole outside the building that the late 1800s photo's Roots and Wings caption seems to indicate held Dibble Bros.
Although I can't find evidence that Dick Dibble owned a "dry goods store" anywhere in Cannon Falls, a Dibble was involved with a dry goods business. On August 26, 1921, the Beacon reported that the Cannon Falls Dry Goods Company changed its name to the Fred C. Carlson Company; the Stanton Township farmer and local politician, E. A. {Edward Alonzo) Dibble, Dick's cousin, was vice-president of the company. We can't be sure where this business was located but members of the Carlson Family operated a dry-goods store in the Van Campen building, and John H. Carlson, possibly Fred's older brother, ran a hardware business in the two-story limestone building between the Hawkins building and the Meyer and Johns building (now the northern part of Althoff's Hardware and designated the "C.B. Johnson Hardware" building). CFHB has a full ownership history of the C.B. Johnson building from its construction in 1887 to 1996, which doesn't include any Dibbles. According to CFHB, the Van Campen building was purchased by "Cannon Falls' Masonic Order, the Oriental Lodge #34" in 1927, but does not state who owned it between then and 1899, when it ceased to contain a Van Campen-owned business. Dick was also a Mason, but he belonged to Asa Chapter 75 of the Royal Arch Masons. I've found nothing precluding his ownership of that building between 1899 and 1927. I also can't rule out his possible ownership of the Meyer and Johns building. CFHB says only that the business, not necessarily the building, was owned by Fred W. Meyer in 1919, and that the building underwent "several changes in ownerhip".
The Beacon and other sources contain numerous mentions of a "Dibble Block" or "Dibble building" in Cannon Falls. I think I have fairly conclusively established the facts on this building.
The earliest description of the location that I have found is attributed to E. L. Clark, a writer for the Cannon Falls Beacon circa 1903, in Chronicles of Cannon Falls: "Mr. E. [Eli Ellsworth] began business under favorable auspices and continued in the log building about a year when he realized that more room was absolutely essential. He accordingly erected a frame store building on the north side of Mill St. seventy by sixty feet, two stories in height with one story for a living house. The site of this building is now occupied by the R. Dibble, Aug. Eklof and O. F. Peters block." We don't know precisely when Ellsworth's frame building was erected, but something happened to it because everything between the bank building (in 2014 the law office of Timothy Dillon) on the northwest corner of Mill and 4th. streets and the location of the Lampert lumberyard (the Body Works chiropractic clinic in January 2021) was an empty lot in 1899 according to the Sanborn map. Shortly after that map was published, the two-story Eckloff & Hawkins building previously mentioned, and its twice-as-wide two-story neighbor to the east, the Peters Block, were built just west of the bank. At some point after that a one-story, 3-bay limestone, brickfaced store building was constructed just west of the Eckloff & Hawkins building. CFHB calls this the "C. O. Lundquist Grocery/Lars Quale Cafe" building and says only that it was "probably erected in the mid-to-late 1890s." However, on April 25, 1903, the Minneapolis Journal reported: "Cannon Falls, Minn....Building operations have commenced in town and are going on with a rush... Richard Dibble is constructing a store building in the business portion. It is to be of stone, with brick front, one story high." I have collected a great deal of evidence from Beacon stories beginning in 1906 that positively indicates that this building, currently addressed as 408-410 Mill St. W., is the "Dibble Block", and I believe it was what Dick was building in the 1903 Minneapolis Journal story. If only Beacons earlier than January 1906 were available online, I am sure I could find stories detailing its construction there. This building, among other things, was the location of the Cannon Falls Post Office from January 1915 to some time in 1925, when it moved to the location south of Main St. mentioned above. So my father's story that Dick Dibble owned the Post Office was true.
I am tempted to present all of the detail that I have on this building; some stories published in the Beacon and in some local histories about the various tenants of the building, which bays they occupied and when, conflict with each other and cannot be true. But I doubt that anyone is interested except me, so I will refrain. I will simply say that although there were, on occasion, saloons and/or cafes that sold liquor in the Dibble Block before the town went dry in 1912, the only such business that might have also been a liquor store was not owned by Dick or Dan Dibble, and there was never a dry goods or general store in the building.
Dick Dibble also owned a few other pieces of real estate at various times.
He owned the house at 121 Mill St. from January 1908 until his death in 1940 (Cannon Falls Beacon January 17, 1908: "Charles Krabiel has sold his home property to Richard Dibble and Mr. Dibble has sold the corner property occupied by Emil J. Holmes to Mr. Holmes."); his widow, Bertha, lived there until she died in 1960. Emil Holmes was a local real estate agent; he was the father of Milton Holmes, first husband of Dick's niece Jean S. Dibble (Dan Dibble was her father). I have not been able to establish where the "corner property" that Dick sold to Holmes was (121 Mill is also a corner property). ***NOTE: I may move some of this to the main page later*** According to Chronicles of Cannon Falls, the architect of the house was Abraham Doner, the same man who designed the post-fire Van Campen and Westman & Danielson buildings. Its beautiful wrap-around porch was apparently not original to the building; the Beacon reported on September 11, 1908, that "Richard Dibble is improving his residence with a wide porch and other minor improvements."
Dick also owned a 160-acre cattle farm on Spring Valley Road just southeast of Cannon Falls, at least between the years 1914 (Historic Map Works: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/487020/Cannon+Falls+Township/Goodhue+County+1914/Minnesota/) and 1933 (Historic Map Works: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1578439/Cannon+Falls+Township/Goodhue+County+1933/Minnesota/). I can't definitively establish when he purchased the farm beyond the fact that the land was owned in 1894 by Mary J. Swenson and Gustav Westman. However, it may not have been too long before the 1914 plat map was printed; the Beacon reported on September 10, 1915: "Alfred Widholm is building for R. Dibble a house on his farm, on the Spring Garden road. The house is 16x26 and 14 feet high with an L 14x22. The cellar is the full size of the building. Mr. Dibble also built this season a stone barn 35x70. The stone work was done by Andrew Halvorson and the carpenter work by Mr. Widholm." It's not unreasonable to think that he began those improvements shortly after he bought the land. He may or may not have sold it before he died. By 1954, though, it was not in his widow's possession; it was owned by Arnold & Maxine Rude.
Although location of the land is established, that of the house is not. A house 14 feet high is likely to be a one-story building with an attic; it would be very short for a two-story house. A one-story house at 31357 County 25 Blvd., Cannon Falls, on the norththest corner of the property, could match the description; it has an "el" and what appears to be a full basement (Google StreetView at: https://www.google.com/maps/@44.4995339,-92.8936636,3a,49.9y,197.6h,78.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s4lWJnOkww12SptV6vyK5vw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656). However, my brother Richard Scott Dibble visited Cannon Falls in September 2020 and brought back photos of a location on Spring Garden Road that is just about 3 blocks away from Dick's Mill St. house. That house could be said to have an "el" but no evidence of a basement can be seen and it is two stories tall with a steeply-pitched roof--likely much taller than 14 feet (Google Earth arial view at: https://www.google.com/maps/place/121+Mill+St+W,+Cannon+Falls,+MN+55009/@44.5044183,-92.9000748,356m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x87f7a5294aef0a73:0xdfe7b41829a1908!8m2!3d44.5077635!4d-92.9024977) There is a large barn near the house at the first location; there s a much smaller outbuilding near the second house. On the whole I'm inclined to stick with my original conclusion that the house at 31357 County 25 Blvd. is a better candidate.
Dick also acquired land formerly owned by his brother Dan along the Cannon River in the northeast corner of Stanton Township near where Highway 52 crosses the Cannon River today, perhaps in the vicinity of Sandstrom Auto and Truck Repair at 30127 59th Ave Way. In 1914 this parcel was 59.5 acres (Historic Map Works: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/487035/Stanton+Township++Cascade/Goodhue+County+1914/Minnesota/). By 1933 it was down to 12.5 acres (Historic Map Works: http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/US/1578463/Stanton+Township++Cannon+River++Cascade/Goodhue+County+1933/Minnesota/)
On June 23, 1916, the Beacon ran one of its customary "[N] Years Ago" features, this one "republished from the Beacons of January 2 to January 16, 1891", that reported: "James Elder has sold his house and lots in town to R. Dibble and on Tuesday left with his family for Tallapoosa, Georgia, where they will spend the winter. Mr. Elder will be back in the spring and resume his well drilling business." James Elder and his wife had adopted Dick's nephew Milford (son of Minnie Dibble who died shortly after the child was born) a few years before this sale. I have not been able to locate this property. There's also no evidence that the Elders moved back to Cannon Falls, though Mrs. Elder did visit there occasionally and eventually returned to live in Minnesota after James' death.
About a month after Dick bought the Elder property, the Pine Island Journal reported, on February 27, 1891: "A List of Delinquent Taxes Upon Real Estate Within the County of Goodhue ... for the Year 1889, Remaining Unpaid and Delinquent on the First Monday of January, A.D. 1891 ... Village of Cannon Falls ... R Dibble" owner of lots 1 through 10, Block 84. Per https://maps.co.goodhue.mn.us/Cannon%20Falls%20TPV/, that's in the St. Pius V Catholic Church Cemetery. This is confirmed in an article published in the Beacon on December 13, 2013, which said, "Land described in 1863 as Blocks 85 and 86, then the eastern edge of town, was purchased through donations and became the Cannon Falls Cemetery. Block 84, purchased at the same time, later became the St. Pius V Catholic Cemetery which adjoins the city cemetery." A brochure for the cemetery says "In 1889 Father Robert J. Fitzgerald received property for Calvary Cemetery," which is "now the present-day St. Pius V Cemetery", and the first burial took place there on August 12, 1889. Dick allegedly owed the taxes for that year, but the city had purchased the land for the cemetery in 1863 (and probably donated Block 84 to the church at a later date). The Pine Island Journal article can't be correct, and if Dick did owe taxes on ten lots in some block for 1889, it could not have been for the Elder property, since he didn't own that before late 1890 at the earliest. A different Dibble may in fact have been delinquent on his taxes; it wouldn't be the first time one of the local papers had gotten a Dibble's first name--or initial--wrong.
In fact, the Beacon got a whole creamery's location wrong. On August 2, 1907, that paper reported:
"A New Industry
Cannon Falls to Have a Creamery with Everything Up-to-Date.
The Wastedo Creamery Company have leased the Dibble building on Hoffman street and will immediately install a butter making plant equipped with the best machinery and appliances belonging to the trade..."
And elsewhere in the same issue: "Frank Stone is busy preparing the Dibble Building for the machinery for the creamery."
An exhaustive examination of the records indicates pretty conclusively that the Wastedo Creamery was actually established in the west bay of the Dibble Block on Mill St. W. and that there never was a "Dibble building" on Hoffman St. However, the 1921 Sanborn map shows that the Farmers Creamery Company was on the north side of Hoffman Street; that company was established in 1896, as indicated by a Beacon article from March 18, 1921 describing the company's 25th. anniversary celebration. Likely the Beacon reporter knew where the Farmers Creamery was and absent-mindedly substituted Hoffman for Mill St. in the article.
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Where and when did Archie Dibble serve?
The only record we have for Archie's military service is his Honorable Discharge paper. This document reports simply that he was wounded on October 3, 1918 and that the last unit he was assigned to was Company A, 7th. US Engineers. Our narrative assumes this was the only unit he served with, but that could be wrong.
If it's not, then a larger problem is presented by the date of his wounding. The 7th. Engineers were attached to the 5th. Division. The 5th. was involved in both the St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne offensives. However, several sources concur that the 5th. Division was taken off the line after St. Mihiel, on September 16 or 17, and did not return to the front until October 11 or 12, when it joined the post-Argonne phase of the offensive. If all this information is correct, then Archie would not have been wounded in combat. However, he received a Purple Heart medal, which can only be awarded for an injury caused by enemy action.
There are a few possible solutions to this puzzle. The Meuse-Argonne campaign began on September 26, and Pershing's forces began drawing on their reserves almost immediately. While the 5th. Division is not recorded as being part of the designated reserve contingent for that operation, it may be that men were drawn from it anyway, and Archie could have been one of them. A second possibility is that Archie's unit, while not on the front line, may not have been moved very far back while it waited for reinforcements and provisions. A stray bullet, or more likely an artillery bombardment shell, might have found its way to him behind the lines. It may also be that an error was made on Archie's discharge papers. Suppose the wrong month was entered and the wound occurred on November 3. Archie's unit, the 7th. Engineers, was definitely in combat then, having just built a bridge across the Meuse River and crossed to the east bank where withering German fire pinned them and several brigades of infantry down for a full day.
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Where did Herman Kowitz die?
Herman's obituary, probably in the Cannon Falls Beacon, says he died at Forsythe, MT, which is about 90 miles east of Great Falls. The less-reliable Roots and Wings says he was shot in Hysham, MT, some 60 miles northeast of Billings. While it's certainly possible that he was shot in one town and died in another, these two towns are a good 100 miles apart, and there were no medivac helicopters, and probably not even a motor ambulance, to take him from one to the other. In short, we don't really know where this happened.
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Della and Van Buren
Some time in 1951, the ur-Dibble researcher Van Buren Lamb sent one of his inquiry cards to Willard Dibble Sr., on the farm in Stanton Township. He passed it on to his sister Della, the family genealogist, and Della and Lamb exchanged some letters. Lamb saved them in one of his loose-leaf binders. All of the binders were scanned to electronic format by George Dibble III in the first decade of the 21st. century, after the original version of this website was published. Your author did not receive a copy of them until February 2015, when he resumed working on this website after a break of nearly 15 years.
From Lamb's correspondence with Della, I learned that Della's brother Willis had met the Indiana Dibble, Alonzo, who served on a river gunboat during the Civil War.
And, I learned that Della had given Lamb my entire family tree, from Jonathan Dibble of Cannon Falls all the way down to my father Richard Kenneth Dibble, my mother Gladys Ruth Johnson, and my oldest brother David Dibble. If this correspondence had occurred a few years later, no doubt my name would be enshrined in one of Van Buren Lamb's binders.
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