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

probably as a renter. In 1874 Stockman relocated to Norwood in western Carver County,
in that year selling the store to John Hebeisen, whose family would own and operate a
business in the building for most of the next century. In 1874 Stockman also sold his
house, Springside, today still located at 113 Fourth Street West in Carver.
After returning from the military service in the Sioux Uprising of 1862 and the Civil War
John Hebeisen opened a hardware store in Carver, which relocated here in 1874, and
which evolved over the years into chain of hardware and farm implement stores in Carver
County. He became the largest farm implement dealer in the area and provided many
settlers and immigrant farmers with the equipment to make their tasks easier, safer, and
faster. In 1880 John Hebeisen created an engraved map of Carver County which showed
the residence and name of every person who purchased a Champion reaper. Among
products Hebeisen distributed in the early 1890s were McCormick steel binders and
mowers, J. I. Case engines, agitators, and swinging stackers, Scott engines, Aeromoter
windmills, pumps, feedmills, and sugar cane presses. He was also a leading distributor of
sewing machines, and heating stoves, which were much more efficient than fireplaces.
John Hebeisen was the first person to exhibit farm implements at the Carver County Fair
and was one of the leading figures in running the 19 th Century Carver County Fairs, as
were his sons in the 20 th Century. In early fall 1883 a serious fire broke out in the store‟s
rear wareroom and spread to the adjacent Basler House Hotel‟s stable and barn,
destroying them, and scorching several other businesses before the townspeople and
Carver firefighters came to the rescue. Upon his death in 1924 the business was taken
over by John Hebeisen‟s sons, George, John, and Fred. From the early 1880s the
Hebeisen family lived in the Gables, a large Eastlake Queen Anne Victorian Revival
home at 201 Fourth Street East. In addition they owned land in what is today Carver‟s
Riverside Park, as well as tracts of farmland in Carver County and South Dakota. Oil
was struck on the family‟s South Dakota farm, adding to already ample prosperity. In the
1920s there was a curbside hand gasoline pump situated near the front entry of the store.
112 Third Street East, Anton Knoblauch House. The earliest part of the house may
date to about 1860. In July 1867 Anton Knoblauch seems to have greatly expanded it in
a Greek Revival style. Joshua Torrey, a carpenter and boatbuilder who lived nearby at
201 Fourth Street East in Carver, performed the construction work along with a certain
man named Pike. In Oct. 1867 Knoblauch added fire protection by adding lightning rods,
installed by James Hankerson. In 1882 the house was again expanded by owner Anton
Knoblauch (1835-1921), who was one of Carver‟s pioneers, arriving in Carver in 1856,
and prospering on many fronts as the years went by.
Anton Knoblauch was born in Nereheim, Jagstkreis, Würtemburg in the German States
on August 24, 1835, the son of Joseph Anton Knoblauch (1779-1843) and Barbara Zink
(1799-1869). In 1854 he came to America, living first at Ohio for two years before
moving west to settle in Carver in 1856. In 1856 he was one of the laborers building the
Carver House (Planter‟s House) Hotel for Levi Griffin. He clerked for eight years in the
Carver store of Edmund Walton, and then about 1864 went into general merchandising
for himself. In the Minnesota Gazatteer and Business Directory for 1865 Knoblauch is
advertised being in the dry goods and groceries business in Carver on Broadway, though