316 Jefferson St
Alexandria, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Thomas F. Cowing House ( Inwards,Frederick E. & Dorathea House)

Statement of Significance:

The Thomas F. and Abbie Cowing House, built circa 1875 and located at 316 Jefferson Street in Alexandria, is architecturally significant as an excellent and remarkably intact example of a Gothic Revival cottage, a housing style uncommon in Minnesota and extremely unusual in rural western Minnesota. The Cowing House is one of the oldest buildings still standing in Alexandria which retains its original design and is historically significant as the home of Thomas F. Cowing and, later, Gustave A. Kortsch, two men important to the early history of business and politics in Alexandria.

The Cowing House was built one half block south of the St. Cloud-Fort Abercrombie Road, a route which predated the founding of Alexandria and served as part of the Red River oxcart trail system. The road linked St. Cloud on the Mississippi River and Fort Abercrombie, established in 1857 on the Red River near Breckenridge. The road was improved by the State in 1859 and became a heavily travelled stagecoach route. As a response to the conflicts of the Dakota War of 1862, Fort Alexandria was established on the north side of this road in the winter of 1862-63.

Thomas F. Cowing (1841-1916) was born in England and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1850. The family lived in Wisconsin until circa 1862 when Thomas Cowing, Sr., and his wife moved to Alexandria to open a stagecoach hotel. Cowing's eldest son George and William E. Hicks, the proprietor of Alexandria, built the first sawmill in the county in 1868. Several of the other Cowing children eventually became prominent businessmen and civic leaders in Alexandria and nearby communities. Thomas F. Cowing served in the Civil War with the Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry and joined his parents in Alexandria in 1865 where he opened the village's second store, a general merchandise and farm implement business. Sometime between 1865 and 1867 he married New York-born Abbie Frances Bennett of Alexandria, with whom he raised five children. Cowing entered local politics and became Douglas County's first sheriff and first treasurer in 1866. He served as Alexandria's second postmaster circa 1870-74 and was elected a village judge in 1877, village trustee in 1879, and president of the village council in 1880.

Thomas F. and Abbie Cowing purchased the site on which their house still stands (originally a six-lot tract) in 1874, six years after Alexandria was platted. The site they chose was located about one quarter mile southeast of Fort Alexandria and adjacent to the St. Cloud-Fort Abercrombie Road. They probably built their house in 1875, the year they mortgaged the property for $3,000.

The house the Cowings built is an excellent example of a Gothic Revival cottage, a style first promoted in the 1840's on the East Coast by landscape architect and critic Andrew Jackson Downing. The Gothic Revival was popularized when Downing, Gervase Wheeler, and others published plans and designs for Gothic Revival houses in architectural pattern books which were widely distributed in the 1850's and 1860's. Despite the style's popularity, however. Gothic cottages were rare in western Minnesota where Concentrated settlement did not occur until the late 1870's and 1880's, a time when the Queen Anne and other styles were more in vogue.

The Cowings lived in their new house until 1885 when they moved to Fergus Falls in nearby Ottertail County because Thomas had been appointed registrar of the U. S. land office there. He became a lawyer while living in Fergus Falls and remained there until the family moved to Oregon in 1889. Cowing worked as an attorney in Oregon until his death.

The Cowings sold their house in Alexandria to Gustave A. and Elizabeth Kortsch in 1889. Gustave Kortsch (1850-1928) was a German immigrant who lived in Milwaukee until 1867 when he moved to Copper Falls, Michigan. He married Elizabeth Thomas in Copper Falls in 1870. The couple joined Gustave's parents in rural Douglas County in 1870 and moved to Alexandria in 1876 where Kortsch opened a general store. With the help of several partners, Kortsch transformed his store into a successful department store business. He operated the business alone from circa 1890 to 1914 when it was sold to the Herberger-Wettleson Company, another local department store firm. Kortsch became a prominent businessman, town promoter, and local politician. He helped found the Douglas County Bank in 1885 and served as president of the bank from 1913-1919. In 1909 he was elected mayor of Alexandria. He served as president of the Alexandria Businessmen's Club, helped organize the Alexandria Commercial Club, served on the building committee of the Alexandria Public Library when the Carnegie library was built in 1903, served as chief of the volunteer fire department, and worked as fuel administrator for Douglas County during World War I. As a community benefactor Kortsch purchased land and created a public park at "Inspiration Peak" outside of Alexandria, and in the 1920's joined nine other citizens in the purchase of the Kensington Runestone as a preservation effort. Kortsch's obituary reports that the city flag was flown at half-mast the day of his funeral in 1928 and that most of the town's businesses were closed.

Following Gustave Kortsch's death, Elizabeth J. Kortsch owned the house until her death in 1934 when it was inherited and occupied by her daughter and son-in-law, Louise C. and Julian L. Fitzgerald. The house was sold to the present owners, Frederick E. and Dorathea Inwards, in 1948.