Around Swedish America in 
Day 86 - Salvation Army
The Salvation Army had barely got a footing in St Paul before Captain Arnie Olson arrived from Sweden in 1888 and started the all-Swedish Salvation Army Temple Corps #2 near Cedar Boulevard. The old church he rented was situated right at the center of the Scandinavian quarters near “Swede Hollow” where “you had no business being if you couldn’t speak Swedish”. A stroll along Payne Avenue, where the Salvation Army is still located, would have taken you by Carlson’s bike shop, Lindquist’s blacksmith shop, Erikson’s shoe store, Anderson the cigar-maker, the Dahlquist dairy and Kjellberg and Lofgren, grocers. Today they are all gone, but you still hear Swedish at the Salvation Army meetings even though it is an English-speaking congregation. One Salvation Army pioneer who always kept up the Swedish language was Brigadeer Ekström who well into the 1990s, in his 90s, hosted a weekly Swedish radio program.