Misgen Livestock building in Ellendale under deconstruction.
By BARB MROTZ
Contributing writer
The first stock buyers in Ellendale were Pete Rasmussen, followed by Frank Randall who operated it. At that time, the hogs and cattle were loaded from the stockyard chutes directly onto the railroad cars. Those stockyards were just north of the present Misgen building.
Frank Hayek took over after Randall and ran the Ellendale Farmer’s Shipping Assoc., organized by over 31 local farmers in January 1916. Spearheading the group were: Peter Bradley, German Borchert, Lyle Sloan, Jas. McFarland, Ed Jones, L.J. Brynestad, Butler Johnson, Ed Moore, Peter M. Johnson and Andrew Anderson. It was during Frank’s management that a small office was built. (All of the above taken from the Diamond Jubilee booklet, put together in 1975 by Art Lerberg, Gabriel Ohnstad, Myrtle Dahl, Mrs. Ole Davidson and Mrs. Emery Miller.)
John Misgen (the last owner/operator of Misgen Liverstock) was born in 1916 and died in 2003. At the age of 19 and 20 he was in the salvage business; he located discarded machinery, negotiated with the farmer, took the machine apart, loaded and delivered to Faribault, where he sold it for $15 per ton. He also hauled hogs for the Berg Bros. and ice for Johanna Jensen’s ice house, which was located behind her restaurant. Sometimes he’d drive truck for Frank Hayek, hauling livestock. In 1941, he bought the Ellendale Shipping Asso. Office building and Hayek’s truck and that was the beginning of Misgen Livestock.
A year or two later, he hired Soren Thompson to build the present building – the one that is now being taken down. It had two offices, an entry, scale room, and pens for the livestock. John went out to the farms and bought the entry, scale room, and pens for the livestock. John went out to the farms and bought the entry, scale room, and pens for the livestock. John went out to the farms and bought the entry, scale room, and pens for the livestock. John went out to the farms and bought the animals and collected them here until he had a load.
The cattle went to St. Paul, pigs to Hormel’s in Austin, and veal could go to either place. During the war years it was difficult to find men to hire as drivers. Bernard Peterson and Willis Yanke worked part time, and after the war, John’s brother, Francis, joined him as a partner. They continued to buy cattle, pigs, and veal, and also rented out herd bulls and boars.
Oftentimes, farmers would bring in a pig or calf in the backseat of the family car, or even the trunk to sell for a little extra cash as farmers didn’t have trucks of their own. The business kept growing, and as it did, Misgen’s bought trucks and more trucks to fit the need.
Sometimes, buyers from surrounding states would come, one of the brothers would take them around to area farms, where they would make their purchase and then Misgen’s would do the trucking. Buying livestock also took the Misgen Bros. to farm auctions and area sales barns; Ramsey located by the Old Mill close to Austin, Geneva sales in Geneva, Spring Valley, Lanesboro and Zumbrota in MN and Garner and Riceville in IA.
As the years progressed, both farming and trucking changed, and by 1965 they quit buying hogs and the partnership was dissolved; Francis bought a semi and began doing cross-country trucking for International Transport and eventually got into the salvage business, and John continued in livestock.
As the years changed farming and trucking, so too, did the years take their toll on the Misgen Livestock building on the south edge of Ellendale. It is now being taken down and we see another reminder of our past disappearing.