North Hudson Centennial Celebration

Visitors can stroll through a vintage car show or take a horse-drawn wagon ride around various points of interest in the village. Music will fill the afternoon by Chris Tank & Friends and the O’Briens, an a capella vocal group from Hudson. Darci Strutt, the St. Paul (Minn.) Winter Carnival Klondike Kate in 2009, will also perform. A pie contest with ribbons for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place pies will be judged by former village presidents.

Barber Bob Bock will provide haircuts in a 1890s barber chair. Nick Heinen, proprietor of Lonesome Dove Shop and Forge located in the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Historic Railroad Car Shop District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, will demonstrate his craft popular during the railroad’s heyday and continuing today. Signs will point the way to the historic business district between Fourth Street N. and Galahad Road.

The celebration also includes a display of photographs, artifacts and historical items and a commemorative quilt created for the centennial at the Village Hall. A commemorative button will be offered for sale.

Old-fashioned root beer floats, hotdogs and other refreshments are available for purchase as will be a unique North Hudson specialty: an Italian sausage wrapped in Lefsa, dubbed “Lefsaljetz.” This Italian-Norwegian sandwich was first created and served by the organizers of one of the first PepperFest celebrations. PepperFest is North Hudson’s annual Italian- and pepper-themed community celebration held the third weekend in August each year.

Incorporated in 1912 and located on the 45^th Parallel along the lower St. Croix National Wild and Scenic Riverway, the village of North Hudson has a rich past spanning logging, railroad and tourism history. The Chicago, Northwestern, St. Paul & Omaha Railroad car repair shops began operation in the late 1800s, drawing an influx of immigrants to live and work in the area. In the 1920s and 1930s, some 700 people worked at the railroad car repair facility that served railroad industry in the Upper Midwest. Many of those historic buildings remain as a working business district near the St. Croix River.

Admission is free, and the event is open to the public. For more information on the pie contest or the day’s events, contact Mona Houston, 715-381-6736.  -end-