Around Swedish America in 548 Days - Day 72

Day 72 - Hay Lake

About one and one-half miles south of Gammelgården near Hay Lake is a twenty-two-foot obelisk honoring the first Swedish settlers in Minnesota. The monument commemorates the arrival of Oscar Roos, Carl Fernström, and August Sandahl from Västergötland in October 1850. They walked about four miles west from Marine on St Croix and built a cabin by the shore of Hay Lake.

In 1855 settlers organized a school district. A one-story brick Victorian Hay Lake School was constructed in the 1890s for a single teacher who taught eight grades. It was used as a school until the early 1960s. In the early 1970s ownership passed to the Washington County Historical Society; which displays school memorabilia here. The chandelier was rescued by one of the last teachers, who found it under the schoolhouse. The Johannes Erickson Log House, also owned by the historical society, was built in 1868. The 20 by 28 foot house of hewn oak logs with a shingled gambrel (hip) roof is now covered by red-painted vertical wood siding and is fully furnished with nineteenth-century items, but the cupboard is probably the only piece original to the dwelling. The Johannes Erickson family emigrated from Dalsland to Scandia in 1866.