In 1892, Haines, Stone & Co., a Little Falls publishing company, took on the momentous task of putting together the first city directory, just thirteen years after it’s establishment. They found and recorded the names, addresses, and jobs of every person living there, as well as every business’ location. At the time, Little Falls had a population of 5,699, having doubled since the 1890 census (2,354).
That’s not all! Being the first ever city directory, it also functioned as a reference for information on local clubs, church times, and Little Falls itself. Towards the beginning is a large section detailing the city ordinances, boundaries, election districts and officers, basic new town stuff (in our copy, the pages in this section are out of order!). They also added what’s essentially a fluff piece advertising Little Falls as a quickly developing place with a wealth of opportunities for new arrivals.
Directories like these have always been a great resource for most people researching; there’s a lot of enjoyment that comes from finding the exact address of family members or a business you forgot about. What makes this one just a little more fun to me is the variety of fonts used for everything. Especially in the advertisements found on margins and full pages are many unique fonts that differentiates between and highlights each business, like the two pages below.
There’s one more part of this directory that, on paper, does not seem exciting or groundbreaking but was immediately fascinating when it was discovered: The official ordinance re-naming city streets. Approved on August 11, 1892, it effectively made Little Falls into the numbered grid system it is today. It first extended Broadway by combining it with what was “Oak Street,” then it added the cardinal directions to streets already numbered 1-9.
After that, though, we learn just how many streets were lost to the grid system. Some were named by single letters of the alphabet, “F” through “O”, the ever popular tree streets, and even those named after the earliest European settlers in the area were changed to 7th to 11th Avenue Northeast. In addition to finding out who used to live in your house, now folks can find the original street it was on!
For the first city directory of Morrison County, Haines, Stone & Co. had a large responsibility and task at hand. Not only did they, with great confidence, collect information on the people in Little Falls, they also advertised what the community offers to new and current residents by way of business ads, town fluff pieces, and meeting times and locations of local churches and clubs. Their hard ultimately created an invaluable resource that people are using over 120 years later.
Thank you for this very fantastic article. Made my day reading it. What a wondeful city Little Falls is. I am glad to call it my home town and to have grown up in Lttle Falls.
Very interesting! is there any chance that this will be put online?
Hello J. We’re glad you enjoyed, thank you! While we’re happy sharing this sneak peak into the directory on our website, we will not be posting the full book. If there is anything you’d like to find or check in the book, you may visit us and read the book right off the shelf. Or you may email us at staff@morrisoncountyhistory.org and we will check for you.