City of New York Mills

09/01/2026

Reino Heino, son of carpenter "Vic" Heino and his wife Selina (Matala Maki) went to work at an early age for Charley Matala in and around Matala's Cafe, and was soon nicknamed "Ole". The story is often told that when Ole earned a dime he bought a loaf of bread and took it home to his mother to help feed his 10 brothers and sisters. Later Ole helped Norm Venable who was trading and dealing in horses. When he was 16 he began helping Art Mobius, owner of Arthur Trux and was son behind the wheel. From 1942 to 1946 Ole was in the Army Discharged on January 14, 1946, he went back to driving for Art. In April, Art died; In May, Ole was married and in October the trucks were sold. The next day, Ole borrowed enough money from "Old" Mr. Buerkle at Farmers & Merchants State Bank, and from this, the Ole Heino Truck Line grew. First one truck, then two; then several. Corrals were built first in the village, and later in Newton Township to hold the livestock gathered all day long. At night the small fleet took off for South St. Paul to deliver the animals, wash the trucks, pick up freight and return only to repeat the procedure the following day. When other drivers were not available or did not show up, wife Ethel pitched in to chase, load, drive, wash and haul. Long hours of hard work and a succession of hardworking helpers went into 30 years of serving farmers, businesses and townspeople; of hauling pasture cattle, locker animals, hay, machinery, groceries, carpeting, furniture and much more. Return trips to New York Mills were loaded with a variety of freight for area businesses. Ole's reputation for fair dealing, careful work; scrupulously clean trucks, manicured yards and neat buildings built his reputation. When other truckers dropped livestock hauling because it was too costly, dirty and time consuming, Ole's territory grew adding Sebeka, Menahga, Wadena, Deer Creek, Wolf Lake, Frazee, Snellman, and Osage. Ole realized farmers had to get their livestock to market or they could not raise them profitably. In 1976 the trucking outfit was leased to Dale Thompson and five years later in January of 1982, it was sold to him outright. Dale, Sharon and their children carried on the 37 year old tradition of fine service and fair dealing begun with Ole. Dale continued to ship livestock to South St. Paul on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays with other freight and general hauling filling up their work week. Dale has since passed away, but Sharon and daughter Michelle (Frost) still live in the New York Mills area.

09/01/2026

We had a request for the names of the history books that have been used for these historical posts which were printed by Parta Printers (NW Publishing Company). The books are no longer in print or available for purchase, at least new as far as we are aware. You may find copies on Ebay or similar sites.

08/28/2026

08/28/2026

New changes are ahead for Hidden Trails Park! A new little league softball/baseball/kickball field is being installed on the grassy area to the south of the playground. This means that the soccer nets which are located there now will be moved to area in Smith Park where the ice rink is in Winter.

08/28/2026

08/27/2026

Harvest time meant hard work for the farmer. The grain was cut with horse-drawn binders, which tied it into bundles and then was set up into shocks. The shocks were then put on rocks and hauled to an area where they were stacked. The stacks had to be made in a very special way so that they shed the rainwater and stayed dry inside. Five men- an engineer, fireman, water man, separator man and sacker (all the grain was sacked) were needed to operate the steam threshing rig. Four to six men acted as pitchers to throw the bundles from the stack on the conveyor belt. The neighbors helped to haul the grain to the granary. This was hot, dusty and hard work which resulted in long days in the scorching sun for farmers and their horses as they brought in their harvest.

But even before threshing machines were available, families threshed by hand. The 75 Years of Progress book includes an essay by Julia Tumberg about Pioneer life in Newton Township. In her essay, she spoke about the family threshing grain inside the bath house. She says, "Later on when grain was grown it was threshed inside this hut. Shelves were built close to the roof and the grain was dried on them. When thoroughly dry it was taken down and threshed with the flail. The straw was picked up and carried away and the seeds swept up in a pile on one side of the hut. The threshers now seated themselves beside this pile and threw handfuls from it to the opposite side of the hut. The chaff dropped near the threshers while the seeds and heavier bits of straw went further. When through with this, the chaff was cleared away and the pile now left cleaned in a sort of oblong box they made themselves. The bottom of this box was higher at one end and had a handle at either end for holding. When this was shaken up and down, the seed in it was left on the bottom and the its of straw rose to the surface and was picked away. The grain was cut with the cradle, an implement for reaping by hand. " Below, are several pictures from the history book and information on each.

08/25/2026

The Legried Community Pool is now closed for the season. The lifeguards and manager are on their way back to school. Violet and the rest of the crew would like to thank you for helping to make this a great season. See you next year!

08/19/2026

REMINDER: 🌽🌽🌽🌽🌽 the NYM C&C Corn Feed is coming up Friday August 21st at the NYM VFW Post 3289 4-7PM. We are looking for volunteers to help shuck & serve corn. Click on the sign up sheet below or feel free to comment here on FB or message us if you're willing to help!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZBsdJBeP8wcaSADz8qIASq6d5H5HO-bTLrJycUUSDEo/edit?gid=0 =0