Tradition, history at Harkin celebration

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

WEST NEWTON -- The town of West Newton vanished decades ago, but its Fourth of July celebration remains somewhat intact today.

Of course, you can't talk about West Newton and not mention the Harkin Store, which is about 9 miles northwest of New Ulm on Nicollet County Road 21.

The store was the site of the annual Fourth of July celebration on Sunday. It was meant to represent the way the holiday was celebrated in days when West Newton and the Harkin Store were still getting riverboat traffic from New Ulm and Mankato.

"I guess what we're trying to do is celebrate the way the community did back in the 1870s," said Opal Dewanz, the site's manager.

Because the Fourth of July fell during the week when the store is closed, this year's celebration took place Sunday.

Dewanz looked very to-the-period as she greeted guests wearing a dusty pink dress with long sleeves and a full-length skirt. So did Lyle Nelson, who stood behind the store's original counter in a white shirt, black tie, hat, armbands and pants.

Several of the store's visitors took turns churning ice cream the old-fashioned way by grinding ice cubes in a bucket and munched on slices of watermelon as they sat in lawn chairs on the ground outside the store.

The New Ulm Battery, making one of several recent holiday appearances, fired off a couple cannon shots towards the river, surprising several of the elderly guests.

A senior citizens choir sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The Star Spangled Banner" accompanied by a concertina and a drum set. Dewanz said folks used to gather together and sing in such a manner back in the days when Alexander Harkin was still running his store.

Guests also heard a speech by Nicollet County Commissioner Judy Hansen, which gave a brief overview of the history of the American flag and the traditions that are used with it.

"A flag is the symbol of a country," Hansen told the crowd. "It represents people united by a common bond of belief."

Although the idea of having an actual holiday to commemorate the flag started around the time of the Civil War, June 14 didn't become Flag Day until Aug. 3, 1949, Hansen said. The first flag code, which dictated how and when an American flag can be flown, wasn't written until 1923 and it wasn't officially adopted until Franklin Delano Roosevelt was president. The first flag salute ordinance was passed in New York in 1898.

Dewanz said the Harkin Store site has celebrated the Fourth of July in this way for about 10 years and it's about this time that crowds start to visit regularly. Last year, the site hosted a Fourth of July parade that brought about 400 visitors to the site -- far too many for the roadside property to hold, Dewanz said, which is why the parade didn't return this year.

The Harkin Store was opened as a state historical site in 1973, after the state bought the store from Alexander Harkin's great-granddaughter, who reopened it in 1937 as a private museum. Until that point, the store had stayed closed since 1901, leaving much of the original merchandise still on its shelves.