Colorful Find
by
Carolyn Saul Logan
There are many mysterious treasures at the Humboldt County Museum, some on display and others stored and waiting to be brought to light.
One of these mysteries was lying across the rafters in the Red Barn, full of dust and rolled up like a rug. When we dragged it down and spread it out, we were all struck by the brilliance of the colors and intrigued by the names of the businesses painted on the screen.
Mystery Number 1: What was it? Jan Funk, longtime Museum director, had thought it was a screen to be hung on the side of a barn or house for movie projection. Obviously it wasn’t that. We all decided that it had hung inside, perhaps as a backdrop on a stage. However, no-one remembered it being hung on the stage of Humboldt High School or the Humota Theater— according to the viewers who remembered these two venues back almost 70 years.
Mystery Number 2: How old was it? History sleuth Pat Baker researched the names of the businesses on the screen. The center of the screen is a large ad for Skaugstead’s Funeral Home—a lake scene with two small white sails and purple mountains glowing in the distance. Other smaller ads are for J. F. Miller and Sons in Dakota City, Burke Implement, Humboldt Ice and Locker, and others. There are thirty ads in all on the screen.
The one that helped date the screen was for Byron’s Blue Front Grocery. Pat retrieved a newspaper clipping dated June 21, 1940, showing a photo of the grocery and its caption which states, “Pictured above is Byron’s Blue Front Grocery, recently opened in Dakota City, directly east of Sawyer’s Service Station. Byron Fjetland of Dakota City, a graduate of the local high school this year is owner and manager.” Because Fjetland was in business for less than a year, this focuses on 1940 as the year in which the screen was painted.
Byron was the son of Ole and Aleda Fjetland of Dakota City. In 1942 he enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps, giving as his occupation “chain store manager.” He died in August 1987.
Mystery Number 3: We knew what the screen was—a large advertisement for local businesses, and we knew that it is was more or less 68 years old. But where did it hang?
Bill Verbrugge solved that mystery. It was the curtain on the stage in the gymnasium of the Dakota City School, when it was a high school up to 10th grade. Bill remembers seeing it when he was in grade school, playing basketball in the gym. “I particularly remember being impressed with the brilliant blue coloring of the lake in the center,” said Bill.
So, big museum mystery solved. Norm Caldwell and his crew hung the screen in the Clancy Building. Stop in and see it. It is there for you to view and marvel at its colors. And some of you will be able to recall details of the other twenty-nine people and businesses on the screen. Each ad is, like the one for Byron’s Blue Front Grocery, a lead in to the story of a life and a business here in Humboldt County.