delayed the official recognition of the plat until March, 1883. The depot was erected in 1881, and business at once sprang up on Main Street. A hardware store on the post-office site was the first on the plat, and closely following this was Evenson's removal to this street, the erection of Gaard's furniture store, the building of Solyust & Johnson's grocery. Buildings seemed to rise alternately on both sides of the street. Abel Oleson opened a general store, Barney Jacobs, a grocery ; John Axelton, a boot and shoe shop; D. Hegland, a hotel, and by 1884 it stood much as it stands now as to Main Street. The growth since then has been chiefly in manufactures and residences. Of the former, the Boardman Creamery was already established before the railway. Within a few years after the railway, the Roland Brick & Tile Company, put in a plant valued at about $7,000, with a main building 50x60 feet of four floors. They use the Brewer machine of about 15,000 daily tile capacity, and the Penfield brick machine with patent steam dryer, etc. In 1888 it was the second outfit in the State. In 1885 Swenson, Thorson & Co. built a two-story plant of a size equal to 24x140 feet, with other houses, track, steam-power and the Brewer and Potts machines. They have taken first premium at the county fairs from the first, and their large extra brick find a sale all over the State. The Abbott Elevator, built in 1883, is now owned by St. Paul & Kansas City Grain Co., and Britson's wagon-shop, Oleson's general shop and Haaland's blacksmith shop complete the list.
The real life of the town depends primarily on the following lines of business: The cattle and hog trade, led by Duea & Oleson and Sowers & Evenson, et. al.; the corn and oats market, managed by the St. Paul & Kansas City Grain Company and Duea & Stole; Johnson & Michaelson, and A. Oleson & Sons in general merchandise; hardware implements by Duea & Stole and Britson; lumber by Erickson & Christian; the Gaard grocery; the tile factories; drugs by T. B. Jones; furniture by P. A. Solem; with millinery stores, etc. A good bank is needed. The average monthly railway receipts are $600, while the forwarding reaches from $1,200 to $1,400.
Elwell site was entered by Jacob Emery on February 29, 1856. The land west of the township road afterward was owned by J. M. Griffith, and a plat made on it after the railway arrived was called Griffithville. The land east of the road was owned by Robert Richardson, and the plat made on that south of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway tracts, was named Elwell in December, 1886. Richardson & Paine manage the only store and creamery and elevator, and are surrounded by a population of twenty-five to fifty. It is a shipping point of value. Elwell Lodge No. 473, I. O. G. T., was organized on May 9, 1889, with forty members, but it disbanded the same year. Smith Paine has been the only postmaster, appointed March 23, 1882.
Slater is the capital of Story County's lower Norway and Sweden, which reverses the situation of the mother countries in Europe, for if the North-Western Railway bed be called the Scandinavian mountain range, the Swedes will be on the west and the Norwegians in the country to the east. From the railway crossing one looks over a little to the southeast and beholds a fresh young town with its new paint and new roads, scattered in regular order over the treeless prairie in a very youthful way. It is not old enough to be dignified yet, and it seems as if the mixed Norway, Swedish, Danish and American population had hardly got used to itself yet; even the Hon. Oley Nelson, the leader and repre-