Historic Homes and Businesses in Carver - Carver County Historical ...

On Aug. 21, 1943 at the league‟s 40 th anniversary librarian and sometimes poet Alma
Trieloff (1881-1962) composed a poem entitled “Members, Charter-Members and Men
of the Mount Hope Improvement League, Inc.”, which commemorated the first 40 years
of the league‟s existence. Alma‟s poem was printed in the Chaska Herald newspaper on
Dec. 25, 2009. The original of this document is in the hands of the owners of Hilldale, at
412 Third Street West in Carver, which was Alma Trieloff‟s parent‟s home, and her full
time home after retirement as librarian in the Winona and LeSueur School Districts.
About 2005 the Carver Lions Club replaced a deteriorated iron fence with a new iron
fence and gateway entrance to the cemetery. Maintenance of the public cemetery and
sale of cemetery plots has been taken over by the City of Carver.
Snake Road and Trail. A winding road stretching north along Spring Creek from
downtown Carver and ending in a nature trail and plain in north Carver. Technically
most of the road is called North Broadway, and is actually a continuation of it. For many
years it was designated Carver County Road #147, but it is usually called Snake Road by
the locals due to its looping, winding character. For many years it was known as the
Carver and Waconia Road and was the main rout of travel and trade between the two
pioneer towns. The road and trail run generally north-south and course on a shelf near
the floor of a large, deep ravine, with high bluffs and intersecting smaller ravines on
either side.
The main gorge and smaller side ravines along Spring Creek were formed by erosion at
the end of the last ice age, some 12,000 years ago, and continue to erode today.
Following mostly along the east side of Spring Creek, prehistoric peoples probably laid
down a foot trail stretching from the Minnesota River at Carver Creek to upland hunting
and gathering areas and lakeside encampments. A trail along Spring Creek and
intersecting with Carver Creek and the Minnesota River would have been easy to find
and avoided crossings of swamp, floodplain, and Carver Creek on destinations to the
north and northwest.
The Carver area opened for settlement after the 1851 treaties of Mendota and Traverse
des Sioux between the U. S. Government and Dakota Indians. Pioneer settlers quickly
flooded the area to claim cheap farmland and began traveling the old Indian trail from the
Minnesota River to settlement sites via oxcart, horse, wagon, and on foot. From an early
date it became the Carver and Waconia Road, due to its either-end destinations. In the
1860s Carver pioneer resident Charles Gebhart lobbied for an improved road to be built.
Sadly, Gebhart would have little time to travel the road. In May 1867 Gebhart and
another man were killed in Chaska when scaffolding gave way and they fell 24 feet while
raising timbers for the new German Singing and Turning Hall, which later came to be
called Concordia Hall.
The Carver County Board at length approved work on a Carver and Waconia road, and in
1865 returning Civil War veteran, Capt. Herman Muehlberg, also from Carver, surveyed
the primitive road for upgrading into a county road, which years later became Carver
County Road #147.