The site of the former town of Cheney (Eden) in Dodge County, Minnesota. Most of what was the town is now in ruins and is part of a private farm.
The town of Cheney is now a ghost town and located mostly on private farm property. This may have been a residence or possibly the RR station and sat on what was once Main Street (now a driveway at the farm).
This rather ornate livery stable is now in shambles at Cheney and sat on what was once Main Street (now a driveway at the farm).
Another view of the livery stable.
The town of Wasioja has greatly shrunk since 1905. All the street names are now gone as are most of the streets. A few old buildings remain, but most structures in the satellite photo are modern houses.
This cheese factory was on the 1905 map of Wasioja and is one of the last significant structures there (the other is the ruins of seminary and the last Civil War recruiting station in Minnesota). It was recently remodeled inside and the owners plan to rent it as a banquet facility. It was shut down in 1950s, perhaps by the EPA when its discharges turned the nearby river white.
This is the Wasioja Seminary. The seminary was opened in 1860 when the town recruited Free Will Baptists with a building for a seminary made of limestone from a nearby quarry. The first class numbered 300+ students. The school offered primary to collegiate level classes.
A professor at the seminary led 80 of the students and townsfolk to volunteer to
fight in the Civil War. Of the eighty recruits that left Wasioja, only 25
returned with life and limb intact. The town never recovered from the great
loss.
After a few closings and re-openings, it was renamed Groveland Seminary and was
then operated by the Wesleyan Methodist Conference. The school finally closed in
1894 and in 1905 a fire destroyed the building, leaving the ruins that stand
today. Pictured above is the base of what was probably the main entrance sign to
the school. The ruins have been preserved by the state and county.
This station has been modified with the middle section apparently cut out and the two ends joined together (the building now has a clearly visible seam in the middle). It sits in the backyard of a house along the old transfer track near the CGW/CNW diamond. This is the second house to the east of the water tower on 3rd Street SE. It was probably moved here in the 1950s when the newer metal station was erected in it its original location in the SW corner of the diamond.