15 1st Street South
Long Prairie, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Dr. George R. Christie House

Statement of Significance:

The Dr. George R. Christie House is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as locally significant, under Criterion B, and under the area of significance of health and medicine. Built in 1901, the house was the home and office of the first licensed physician in Todd County. It illustrates the high social status given to a doctor in a rural community, as well as the economic benefits of profession. The period of significance begins in 1901, the construction date and ends in 1947 with the death of Dr. Christie. The house is associated with the historic context entitled “Railroads and Agricultural Development, 1870-1940,” one of the statewide historic contexts developed by the State Historic Preservation Office.

Dr. George R. Christie (1858-1947) was born and raised in Berlin, Wisconsin, the son of Scottish immigrants. Following employment at a drug store, he entered Rush Medical College in Chicago, then one of the more prominent medical colleges in the Midwest. In 1882 Christie received his M.D. degree, and for a time practiced in his hometown of berlin, and then for two years in Montello, Wisconsin.

He came to Long Prairie in 1884 at the urging of Dr. Edwin Lewis, resident of nearby Sauk Centre, a fellow graduate of Rush Medical College, and father of author Sinclair Lewis. At that time. Long Prairie had a population of 300.

Long Prairie
The area was first settled before statehood. Long Prairie was the site of the Winnebago Indian Agency, organized following that tribes’ removal from Wisconsin and northern Illinois. At one time, the surrounding agency included one hundred and fifty buildings and about a thousand acres of land under cultivation. The agency continued to operate in Todd County until the mid-1850s when the Winnebago’s were relocated to a new government reservation in the Blue Earth area. Not until 1868, though, did a permanent settlement develop around the present townsite, when John P. Tweed and the Long Prairie Land Company, platted the town. To ensure its future, in 1870, Tweed donated land to Todd County for a courthouse and Long Prairie was designated as the county seat. However, not until the arrival of the Great Northern Railroad in 1881—^with its new “K” line to Sauk Centre—did the rural hamlet grow into an incorporated village.

By the turn of the century. Long Prairie had made great strides toward becoming a regional commercial and agricultural processing center. In 1897, the village built a municipal water plant. In 1900, it acquired a privately- financed electric plant for its municipal power and lighting. A telephone exchange was established that same year. These improvements attracted several new industries, including a silo factory, a small brewery, and the Hansmann Manufacturing Company, producers of a com husking machine. The local flour mill doubled its capacity. By 1900, the population had grown to 1,385.

In turn, commercial enterprises and churches invested in new buildings. Downtown, the Reichert Hotel (1902) and the Bank of Long Prairie (1902) constructed new substantial business blocks. The Methodists built a new house of worship in 1900, followed closely by the Presbyterians in 1904.