Minnesota River Interviews -John Fritsche

Minnesota River Interviews
John Fritsche
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"

There is a 52 and a half acre island on the Minnesota River, the only island that size that is completely surrounded by the Minnesota River in the valley

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John Fritsche pointing to island
 
Fritsche pointing to island
 
Fritsche Island on Minnesota River
 
Island in Minnesota River
 
Interview Transcript

Video Text: "There is a 52 and a half acre island on the Minnesota River, the only island that size that is completely surrounded by the Minnesota River in the valley, that I know of, and I happen to own it.  I haven’t done anything with the island right now.  I’m enjoying sitting back and paying my taxes for it and saying to people that I own an island in the middle of Minnesota River...do you own one? That’s the way it’s going right now.  Eventually I will have to make up my mind as to what we are going to do with the island I don’t know if we will sell it to the DNR or to the federal DNR or whatever we are going to do with it, that hasn’t been decided yet.

I have some guys bugging me terribly heavy to buy it for hunting ground. If they want hunting ground I can sit here and look at it and let them hunt it anyhow. They will hunt it whether they own it or I own it. [It used to] have wood on it and if they wanted wood for the house they would go down to the island and make wood for the house and would bring the wood up from down there. They used wood to heat the house, that’s part of the reason why you wanted wood lots close to home. They would just go down with the horses to cut the wood. You would just drag the wood up here with horses to get the wood to heat the house."

 
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This page was last updated 8/08