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HOME > History > History Club > Ames-Florida-Stork House - Rockford, Minn.
History of
Ames-Florida-Stork House
Annandale History
Club
Tour - Rockford, Minnesota
August 2, 2004
Rockford Area
Historical Society -
www.rockfordmnhistory.org
Seventeen
members of the Annandale History Club traveled to Rockford to the
Ames-Florida-Stork House built near the Crow River in 1860.
In 1857, George Ames and his brother-in-law, Joel Florida, began setting up a mill in Rockford.
They were assisted by their partner, Guilford George.
The partnership established a lumber mill and a flour mill along the Crow
River where the river flows north through Rockford to Dayton and the Mississippi
River. The famous woolen mill came
later.
Ames
started building the home about 1860 when Abraham Lincoln was elected president.
Ames lived in the home until he died in 1879.
Various members of the Florida family lived in the home from 1880 until
1937, when it was sold to Clinton and Meda Stork, who occupied it for 50 years.
The Storks bought the house, most of the furnishings, and its historic
collection of clothing from Jessie Florida, the only surviving child of Joel
Florida, and spent many years carefully restoring the house.
The house is now known as the Ames-Florida-Stork house in honor of the
three families who lived in it. A
historically-minded donor purchased the house for $115,000 and gave the house to
the city of Rockford in 1986 following Meda Stork's death.
The Rockford Area Historical Society was founded to oversee its
management. The house is open June
through September, Tuesday 11-2 and Thursday 4-7, and also for a Fall Festival
and Christmas Tea (763-477-5383).
A 1981
video tape of Meda Stork telling about the use of items in the rooms was
available for viewing; however, the History Club didn't have time to watch the
tape during this visit.
The tour
included the kitchen, dining room, music room, parlor, workshop, office/game
room, three bedrooms, maid's room, bathroom, attic and summer kitchen, gardens
and grounds. The home contains
family portraits, books, furniture, and dishes of the original owners.
The home also has the second largest vintage clothing collection in the
state, second only to the Minnesota Historical Society.
All of the original ornate kerosene lamps are also in the home.
There were three different very steep staircases.
Some of the original flour sacks from the mill were in the kitchen.
Mr. Florida had 49 pounds printed on the sacks, because he said that most
50-pound sacks of flour contain only 49 pounds, and he wanted to be honest about
it.
The
workshop was of particular interest because of the many tools still hanging on
the walls as if ready to be used. There
was also a trap door leading to what may have been a hidden escape route to the
banks of the Crow River. The home
was built before the Indian War of 1862, and the story is that the escape route
was added for protection against Indian attack.
This area was later filled in and used as a root cellar.
In the future, funds permitting, the Rockford Historical Society may try
to dig out that area to prove or disprove the secret tunnel theory.
One of the next projects to be paid for with grant money is restoring the
dry sink in the kitchen.
Our guide
explained the use of several kitchen items including churns, butter bowls and
paddles used in butter making and the very heavy sad irons used for the labor
intensive job of pressing clothes. The
kitchen contained a very large ice box and black cast iron stove.
The
Ames-Florida-Stork House was built on land much higher than the Crow River,
which is a good thing because the Crow is prone to flooding in that area.
The flower
garden was the last stop on our very enjoyable and informative tour of the
Ames-Florida-Stork House.
Living on the Edge in
Wright County
by Rebecca A. Mavencamp
Rockford Area Historical Society
Notes by
Secretary, Annandale History Club