401 2nd Avenue Northeast
Waseca, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Philo C. Bailey House

Statement of Significance:

The Bailey House is significant under National Register criterion B for its association with Philo C. Bailey, who lived there between 1872 and his death in 1907. The areas of significance are Politics/Government, Commerce, and Social History. Bailey was a pioneer resident of Waseca County, moving to the Village of Waseca in 1867 where he opened a hardware store the same year. The hardware store, which is no longer extant, was also the Bailey residence until he moved into the Bailey House in 1872. Philo Bailey was involved in an unusually broad range of commercial, civic, and social activities during the period of Waseca’s original and early development (1867-1900). In addition to pursuing business interests, he helped organize the first Episcopal church congregation and was elected to the first Waseca school board. He was also active in politics at city, county, and state levels. Bailey’s career and the history of Waseca also relate to the Minnesota state context: Railroads and Agricultural Development, 1870-1940.

In 1867 Ira Trowbridge platted parts of Sections 17 and 18, Woodville Township, Waseca County and named the town Waseca. 1 County records indicate that Lot 10, Block 19 was sold to Dayton "Date" Smith in May 1868. The Waseca News (May 3, 1868) reported that Date Smith was building a residence on Wood St. Two years later the property went to Eliza Humiston and then to Bailey in 1872. Bailey later acquired the four lots adjacent to Lot 10 upon which the house stands, and the entire parcel was deeded over to Bailey’s son-in-law shortly before his death in 1907.2 The property was then sold the following year to H. F. Lewer and remained in the Lewer family until purchased by the Waseca County Historical Society (WCHS) in 1991. Aside from its connection with Dayton Smith, no evidence has been found as to the identity of either the designer or the builder of this house.

The original plat of Waseca shows the town platted to the north of the Winona and St. Peter railroad track which had arrived as the town was being laid out. The Bailey House is located on a comer lot in the main residential section of the original town, just east of the commercial sector (Second St.). Waseca has grown in all directions since then, and a second railroad went through town in 1877, but the original town remains what it was in the beginning: a commercial area flanked by residential property north of the railroad. The Bailey House neighborhood remains residential, with other early houses in the area. None is as early as the Bailey residence, however, which is the oldest house in Waseca with historic integrity.

A brief history of Waseca’s origins and early development (1867-19(X)) will provide the context for evaluating Bailey’s significance.

While Minnesota became a Territory in 1849, large scale settlement of southern Minnesota only began after Native American title to the land was extinguished by the Mendota Treaty in 1851. Waseca County was organized in 1857 and Minnesota became a State in 1858. The first settlers in what became Waseca County arrived in 1854.4 The next year the townsite of Wilton was platted and in 1857 Philo Bailey arrived there and opened a hardware store with his partner Hiram West, in just two years Wilton had become a thriving community with perhaps some 20 business establishments at its peak. The advent of the railroad and the establishment of Waseca would spell the end for Wilton. Many people, including Bailey, moved to the more promising location, and within 30 years not a single business remained.5 Today, only a sign marks the location of Wilton.

This story illustrates the importance of the railroad in the settlement patterns and economic development of the midwestern U.S., a story with many versions in this region. Established towns bypassed by the railroad either moved, as did neighboring Janesville, or declined.


The earliest transportation routes in Minnesota and adjacent areas were navigable waterways and roads. The first outposts of Euro-American presence were on waterways, including the Minnesota (St. Peter’s), the Red River, and, above all, the Mississippi. The first railroads in Minnesota, such as the Winona and St. Peter, were routed to provide reliable transportation from south central parts of the state to the Mississippi. The Winona and St. Peter, on which construction began in 1862, ran from Winona on the Mississippi to St. Peter on the Minnesota and beyond. The Mississippi, in turn, provided farmers with access via steamboat to commercial markets in the eastern U.S. and abroad, as well as a transportation route for incoming settlers.


That Waseca was platted as the Winona and St. Peter tracks came through was of course no accident. Another Waseca pioneer, W. G. Ward, was chief design engineer for this railroad and he married a daughter of Ira Trowbridge, Waseca’s founder, in 1867.6 The Ward, Trowbridge, and Bailey families all had their origins in New York state. In fact, a large number of Waseca pioneers were from the New England states.

The development of Waseca occurred at such a pace that by the end of 1867 there were 82 buildings on the north side of the railroad and 20 on the south. The hardware store of Bailey and his partner G. W. Watkins was among this number and the first such business in town. The Baileys lived upstairs until moving into their house in 1872. The hardware store, which is no longer extant, housed the first church service in the village and was the first business to install electric lighting (1892), provided by a private power company at that time. Bailey became the sole proprietor of this business in 1886 and kept it in operation until his death.

Waseca became the county seat in 1870 and a second railroad came through in 1877, a north-south line connecting Waseca with Minneapolis. Located during rich prairie soil, Waseca grew rapidly as an agricultural and commercial center until about 1900, when the first peak in population was reached (3103).9 This was also the year in which wheat production reached its peak in Waseca County (1,251,860 bushels). 10 Wheat had been southern Minnesota’s leading agricultural cash crop since 1860. This period coincides with the Waseca career of Philo Bailey, and it remains to detail the full range of his contribution to the civic and social life of the city.

Bailey had numerous business interests in addition to his hardware store, and he left an estate valued at $11,786.75, not counting his house, when he died in 1907. He was a stockholder and Director of the Waseca County Bank and was on the Board and served as Treasurer for two local insurance companies. A successor to one of these, the Waseca Mutual, is still in business today.


Bailey was also briefly involved in the grain trade, building a grain warehouse near the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad track in 1879. He also owned another grain warehouse for a short time between 1876 and 1878.12 Bailey was also a leader in several efforts to promote the general economic growth of Waseca. In 1880 he led a petition drive to encourage the Chicago and Northwestern railroad to build roundhouse and shop facilities in Waseca. Bailey’s campaign succeeded and the railroad, which had bought out the Winona and St. Peter, established their facilities on land donated by the city.


Bailey’s house is restrained in both the deployment of decorative elements and in its scale. The plan reflects the functional needs of a small family at a time when household chores were much more labor-intensive than today. In fact, there is no evidence that any of Bailey’s contemporaries became fabulously rich or built lavish houses. 14 There is only one other house in Waseca from the 1870s with historic integrity. This is the G. R. Buckman House, which was perhaps somewhat more expensive to build than Bailey’s but whose owner was not as important as Bailey in the early history of Waseca. It was the next and later generations which built houses representing wealth, achievement, and high community status. An example is the Roscoe P. Ward House (1896), built by the son of pioneer W. G. Ward and now listed on the National Register.

Efforts by Bailey to promote local social and cultural development included helping to organize the first school board, for which he served as a Director. Bailey and his second wife were active in Episcopal church affairs, helping to organize the local Episcopal Society in 1868, with Mrs. Bailey serving on the first church Board. 16 And while he owned no farmland, Bailey was elected Vice President of the Waseca County Agricultural Society in 1871.

The list of local and state political offices held by Bailey is long and it begins with his election as Chairman of the Wilton Township Board of Commissioners at its first meeting. 18 In 1861 he became Chairman of the county Republican Party and attended at least one national party convention, as an alternate.

At the state level, Bailey served in the House (16th District) in 1862 and in the Senate for two terms (1877-78). While in the Senate, Bailey was on the Railroad Committee when the Minneapolis and St. Louis railroad built a line through Waseca.

On the local level, Bailey served a two-year term as County Treasurer (1864-65), and four years on the Waseca Village Board of Trustees (1876-79). Three of these were as President. After Waseca was incorporated, Bailey served four years as City Treasurer and was on the City Council between 1893 and 1896, when he led the effort to build a municipal water and light plant.

Bailey served two full and one partial terms on the Board of County Commissioners (1894-98). He was Chairman for two years and served on a special three-member courthouse committee, which was set up to plan for and supervise construction of that 1897 edifice, designed by Minneapolis architects Orff and Joralemon, and now listed on the National Register.

Bailey’s contribution to Waseca was significant for its broad range and it encompassed nearly all the possibilities for community involvement available at the time. It was pointed out in his obituary notices that while Bailey was prominently identified with all the material developments of the county, he "also took an active interest in public affairs and was many times honored by being elected to positions of trust. "22 Bailey was acknowledged as an "Old Settler" in Waseca, and when the first county history came out in 1887, he and Ira Trowbridge were responsible for revising and correcting the sections on the City of Waseca.

Bailey no doubt saw himself as a "self-made man" and most likely paid to have a short biography included in the U.S. Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men in 1879, as was customary at the time. His Yankee pedigree is affirmed in this sketch, indicating that he was born in Onondaga County, New York and had a grandfather in the Revolution.

Bailey’s story suggests what historian Richard Hofstadter has described as an "indigenous Yankee Protestant political tradition (which) demanded the constant, disinterested activity of the citizen in public affairs. "25 The values and political ideas of the "rural Yankee" also embodied entrepreneurship and individual success.

There were of course others of Bailey’s generation who were important for the growth and development of Waseca. Two of these have already been mentioned, namely G. W. Ward and Ira Trowbridge. Their contributions were decisive and laid the foundations for the community’s subsequent history. Ward was also involved in several business ventures and served in the State Legislature.

But neither Ward nor Trowbridge nor anyone else in the early period of Waseca’s history who has so far come to light was involved in the same wide range of business, political, civic, and social activities pursued by Bailey. And there are no extant properties with historic integrity which can be associated with either Ward or Trowbridge.

Because of its close association with Philo Bailey and its high degree of historic integrity, the Bailey House represents not only Bailey’s importance to Waseca, but also the contributions of Waseca’s pioneer generation as a whole.