Visit with Owen Christensen:

My father, Egner Christensen, had to quit school when he was 14 or 15 years old. He went to work for a blacksmith. Later he and another fellow owned a blacksmith shop together which was back of the alley where Casey's store is now(111 Main Street). A hardware store was in front of it at that time. Later on my Dad opened his own blacksmith shop by himself on the corner where Ogo's restaurant now is(129 So. 1st Street). He operated the blacksmith there for, I don't know exactly how many years, for a period. Then a man by the name of Willard Hancock bought out Dad's blacksmith shop so he could start a garden tool factory on that corner. My Dad stayed on and worked with Willard in getting the garden tool factory going. It was called the Standard Garden Tool Company. They put up a building there and ran that for, again I don't know exactly how many years, but for a time. The Standard Garden Tool Company was then bought out by a company then known as the American Fork and Hoe Company. The brand name of the products of the American Fork and Hoe Company was True Temper. The company was based in Cleveland Ohio. The company had several plants scattered over the United States. They had one plant here in Montrose and one in Ft. Madison. So my Dad stayed on and worked with the American Fork and Hoe Company and then in later years American Fork and Hoe company changed their corporate name to True Temper Corporation as they were in a much broader field then just forks and hoes. Then in about 1934,after part of the depression, businesses had slowed down everywhere. They decided to close the Montrose plant and consolidate it with the plant in Ft. Madison. About this time True Temper Corporation ,or Fork and Hoe as it was always called here, went out of business in Montrose. Most of the people who worked here , including my Dad, went to work at the Fort Madison plant. After he went to Ft. Madison they set up the Montrose plant as a separate division of the Ft. Madison plant. My Dad headed up the Montrose division and then later on they set him up with his own little department and he did a lot of research and development work for them. He invented, so as to speak, or developed the first endless belt assembly line the Fork and Hoe company ever had in any of their plants. The assembly line at the Ft. Madison plant had worked out so successfully that they sent him out to some of the other plants around the country to set them up. Dad retired I think in 1951. At that time they had mandatory retirement at age 65. He was born in 1886 so yes that would be about right.

1914 was the year they patented the midget drill. At that time we were living at that little gray house. My parents were married in 1911 and I was born in 1916.

The house I am living in now was built in 1922. My Dad started working on it in 1921. There is an interesting bit of history on this piece of property. When my Dad was working at the Fork and Hoe plant, a fellow came in there one day and was talking with Dad and asked him if he knew of any place in Montrose for sale. This would be about 1920. Dad said well I don't think there is much right now - did you look at that place down the street here where all the big pine trees are? The guy said yes I looked at that but it's too much. I don't want that big of a place.It was this whole half block. The house that is over there now is the fore runner of that house - it has been remodeled. Anyway, Dad said well would you be interested in half of it. The guy said I might be but I would want the half with the house. Dad said that's fine I wouldn't. So they got together and bought the half block from the Mormon church. They split the property lengthwise. My lot is a quarter block wide and a full block deep. Dad took this half and built the garage first and then the house. Dad did a lot of work on the house, he had the foundation done by a concrete block man and he had a carpenter work with him on framing the house. Dad did a lot of the interior work himself.

My father was Danish - his mother and father both came over from Denmark. My grandfather was what they called a finish carpenter- he did the finishing work inside of houses. My dad inherited a lot of that after he retired. He did all metal work while he was working -then after he retired he got into wood working.

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Owen's memory of stores that used to be in Montrose.

Where Casey's is now was a hardware store.

Across the street from Casey's was the bank ( where Lowell Junkins has his office now-110 Main Street).

The two story brick building west of Casey's was a grocery store. Originally it was the Odd Fellows home. The Odd Fellows had their meetings in the upper level and the downstairs was the grocery store.  Bill Metzinger had the grocery store ( this was back to the extent of my memory whether there was anybody else in there before him or not, I 'm not sure) but Bill had the grocery store in there and then Bill eventually became the post master.

Where Eagles Nest Tavern is on the corner now there was another grocery store that was called Smitty's. R.N. Smith owned it, but it was always called Smitty's grocery store. When Bill sold out his grocery store (west of Casey's), Smitty moved his grocery store up there.

The big building on the corner that is the apartment building now was Wahrer's grocery store. We had 3 grocery stores here at one time. Some of the Rashid's family came down here from Ft. Madison and opened a grocery store right on the corner directly across from Wahrer's store. This would make the 4th grocery store. At that time there was a building there. I guess it eventually burned out many years ago. Where the quilt shop is now was the post office. After the stock market crash of 1929 the bank went out of business and then the post office later moved up to where the old bank was (across from Casey's now).

Going the other way, right on the corner where the Junkins garage building used to be( just recently tore down), was a drugstore. It was owned and run by F.O.Wilcox . Everybody in Montrose had a nickname back in those days and he was called Hinky Dink. Hinky Dink Wilcox. After  the drugstore, right next to it was a building. I think they called it the Past Time. It was used for community entertainment.  In that block somewhere there was an old building that was used as a hotel and then down by the railroad tracks there was the old depot. At the back end of where the drugstore was on the corner going north  at the back end of that building was Joe Wagner's barber shop followed by John Head's(?) garage - where Ralph Junkins later had a garage. Ralph worked for John Head then John Head sold out and went to California and Ralph bought him out. Then on the corner where Dave's meat market is now there was a filling station. Beyond where they are going to put the new museum  there is an old building that was a packing shed. They used to ship a lot of strawberries there. They raised a lot of strawberries here in Montrose in the 1920's and maybe 1930's. They shipped a lot of melons and they would ship them out in refrigerated express cars. The cars were refrigerated with ice.

At the south end of town there was a big ice house. This was the Noonan ice house. They put up ice during the winter out of the creek right there (Horton Creek) and then if there wasn't enough ice in the creek they would go  cut fields out in the river. (Note: the area where they cut the blocks of ice out of the water were called "ice fields" ). They would go underneath the railroad bridge  and put it in the ice house. I used to help in the summer time to ice down the cars.

The Reimbold Ferry used to run back and forth between Montrose and Nauvoo. They raised a lot of grapes over around Nauvoo. There never has been a railroad in Nauvoo and the trucking industry wasn't as it is today and there wasn't very good roads. Anyway they would load all the baskets of grapes on big hay racks that were pulled with horses. They would pull them on the Ferry and then shipped them over to here.

Montrose had two or three commercial fisherman here based on the river. They would ice fish down and ship to Chicago. We also had button factories here in Montrose.  There was one on the block -(diagonal corner from here ). I can still remember it being there and there was another button factory.  There were also tomato canning factories and a pickle factory.

When they put in the dam it widened the river. The dam took about a block and a half of Montrose. The water covered Montrose, moving it this way a block and a half at that time.

Mr. Anderson of Anderson window company got his start here in the Montrose lumber mill. The lumber mill was north of town, but out in what is now the river -there used to be a lot of islands. I understand that the lumber mill was north of town and out where the river is now at the part of the bend on the island there. This was by Jack Creek.