The Lumber Yard Building
The “Lumber Yard Building” now occupied by Anna’s Bistro is just the most recent of many historic structures and businesses once located on this corner. The first building located here appears to have been a very early apothecary (drug store).
The drug store may have been built by Charles Westergren, who was the town’s postmaster from 1885 to 1892. In these early days of mail service, the post office was always located in a business owned by the postmaster. Westergren moved the post office here after it was destroyed by fire in another building in 1887. So Westergren probably owned the drug store from 1887, if not earlier.
Soderlind Medical Clinic
In 1898, the drug store was purchased by town physician Dr. Anders Soderlind, who was an early graduate of the U of M Medical School. He remodeled the building to include medical offices and a two-bed hospital where he tended patients.
Soderlind’s drug store and hospital burned down in 1901 destroying not only his business but his large medical library. After the loss, Soderlind moved his family to Minneapolis but retained a summer home in Marine.
In 1905, Fred Hansen constructed a new building on the Judd & Linden corner for his photography business. After ten years, Hansen’s building was sold to Charles Strand who used it for storage and later moved it closer to his store, leaving the corner vacant for several years.
The building you see on this corner today was designed and built by Martin Checklund in 1921 for Nels Hockerson, who opened a summer meat market here. Prior to this, Hockerson and his father had operated a full-time meat market on Linden St. where the post office is today.
The summer meat market closed in 1930 after Strand’s general store added a meat counter that out-competed Hockerson. The Belisle-Peterson Mortuary then located here from 1933 to 1939.
In 1939, the building became an office for the Consolidated Lumber Company, which sold building materials and hardware from its lumberyard on the surrounding property.
The lumberyard property was remodeled into several “Lumberyard Shops” by Donald Lind in 1975. In 1977, Lois Balfanz leased the former office building and opened the famous Village Scoop ice cream store on its first floor. On the second floor, Balfanz opened Nature’s Pantry for a few years, which sold soup and sandwiches and later primitive antiques.
When Balfanz retired, Doris and Chip Strand decided to buy the Village Scoop. Doris recalled making this decision:
I called the woman who owned Selma’s (Ice Cream Parlor) in Afton and asked what she thought about it. She said, ‘Well, if you never want to have a family weekend or a holiday off and you want to work really hard …’ And we did it anyway. It’s just so interesting. You meet people from all over. It’s a great kind of gathering place. [Divine, Mary. “Saving the Scoop.” St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN), July 3, 1999: 1B.]
Doris served countless ice cream cones here from 1984 to 1999 before moving the Scoop to a former chicken coop behind Marine General Store.
Since then, the “Lumber Yard Building” has been occupied by several cafes and wine bars, Olive’s pizza restaurant, the St. Croix Chocolate Shop, and now Anna’s Bistro. Its exterior has remained largely unchanged. However, the owner of Olives removed the second floor, revealing a lovely, vaulted ceiling.
— Andrew Kramer and the Marine Historic Signage Committee
