LU168.177
Photograph, Glass Plate, Digital
1900 Approximate
New Richland Blacksmith. Digital scan of glass plate photo. Description: a blacksmith, possibly Severt Severson, stands beside his anvil in a blacksmith shop. Many pieces of scrap iron lie scatter on the floor in the foreground; a brick kiln is in the background.
From a newspaper article in an Albert Lea newspaper dated September 2, 1951, it is written that Severt Severson was born in Norway and immigrated to Albert Lea in 1894. He moved on to New Richland for a few years, but in 1908, he had set up a shop at 109 South Newton, Albert Lea where he worked for the next several decades and was near retirement at age 82 in 1951. Several blacksmith shops were located in New Richland during the "iron age" of farm machinery and horse shoes; a main one other than the one shown in the photo was located immediately north of city hall known as Adams blacksmith shop. The last two owners of this location were Andrew Amundson who after WWI sold to his partner John L. (Jack) Sullivan who had it until the 1950s. Also can be see on compact disk 27.20 or 28.20 in M.11-Drawer B.5-Folder 62. A collection of glass plate images were found in the old New Richland Faust Theater and given to the New Richland Area Historical Society; these images were projected to theater audiences in the 1930s and 1940s; the images were scanned into the Waseca County Historical Society Collection as well as the state of Minnesota Reflections collection in 2011 and 2012.