Citizens State Bank / Old Berry Shed

Tour Site #3

3321 St Croix Trl S | Google Maps
City of Afton Designated Historic Site

Built in 1913, the bank was robbed in 1921 by Red Wing real estate dealer, P.J. Belz, who had a $4,000 mortgage payment due. Belz had gotten away with the Afton robbery but was caught after he robbed the State Bank of Stockholm. He was found with Citizens State Bank bonds. Original bank bonds are in the Afton Historical Museum archives (2017.01.069). A news article in the same file recounts that Belz –

“stopped his car in front of the bank and entered the door with a revolver in one hand and a handkerchief over his face and ordered Swenson [the cashier] and his assistant Miss Esther Schultz, into the vault …. [Belz] jumped into his car, making a clean get away.”

The bank closed on December 5, 1928, after Judge Stalberg issued an order with only 63% of funds returned to depositors due to embezzlement. In the 1940s and 1950s, the building housed a grocery store, “Afton Market,” then became Baglio’s until they moved across the street. Dwell Furniture currently occupies the building.

Bank Deposit Books & Original Building

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Document location: “Citizen State Bank of Afton,” IF Box 16, 2017.01.069, Afton Historical Museum

1921 Robbery and Getaway

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Document location: “Citizen State Bank of Afton,” IF Box 16, 2017.01.069, Afton Historical Museum

Berry Shed behind the bank: Extending all the way to the railroad tracks (now a levee) was a berry shed known as the “Afton Berry Market.” According to historical accounts in the museum, workers picked 154 crates of raspberries (with 24 pints to a crate) in one day. Crates sold for $1.00 to $3.00, and workers were paid just 3 cents per pint. In June each year Afton celebrates Strawberry Festival.

Berry Commerce and Trucks

Afton resident Lincoln Nelson was interviewed in 1976. He described berry commerce in the village and transport by Ford trucks:

“Another thing they had was the Strawberry Association down here. And they had their building behind the bank. That was a busy place for a few weeks in the [summer time?] during the strawberry and raspberry [seasons]. … Well they tell me that our house, our 10 acres is where all those strawberries and raspberries [sic] and if you look up on the hill, which is not heavily wooded, you can see where it was all terraced. … There were an awful lot of people around here, they have a half acre or a quarter acre and could produce an awful lot of berries on that size. And the association they had, Nels Lind, could haul berries to St Paul in his truck. He had a little Ford truck, as I remember. He got up every morning with a load” (Oral History Project, Oct 1976, Lincoln Nelson, IF Box 65, 2017.01.340, Afton Historical Museum).

Bicentennial Strawberry Pin

The interviewer told Lincoln Nelson that there was an Afton Bicentennial pin for sale for $2 in all the local shops (1976). All proceeds went to the Bicentennial Committee that was planning the first 4th of July parade in downtown Afton.

See an online photo of the pin “Afton 1858 Early Strawberry Capitol” at the Minnesota Historical Society