805 Main Street South
Stillwater, MN, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Bergstein, Moritz, Shoddy Mill and Warehouse

Statement of Significance:

The Moritz Bergstein Shoddy Mill and Warehouse are eligible for the National Register under Criterion A in the areas of Social History and Industry. The buildings have statewide significance and represent a rare example of the employment patterns of some Germanic Jewish immigrants in Minnesota in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The mill and warehouse are directly associated with the Bergstein family’s adaptation to American economic life and illuminate aspects of the waste materials market, most notably the junk dealer’s and rag picker’s trades, and the manufacture of mattresses.

The period of significance is ca. 1890-1910, which marks the construction of the warehouse and shoddy mill and the operation of a waste materials business, shoddy mill, and mattress factory on the property.

Property History
Beginning about 1890, Moritz Bergstein and his wife Bertha Gardner Bergstein built a house, bam, shoddy mill, and a rag and mattress warehouse on present-day Stagecoach Road, then S. Main Street, in Oak Park. Moritz also operated a junkyard on the property. Oak Park (now Oak Park Heights) was a small settlement at the southern edge of Stillwater served by rail and the electric streetcar that ran between Stillwater and South Stillwater. It remained a successful location for sawmills and other industries throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Moritz Bergstein (1852-1923) was a native of Hungary and arrived in the United States in 1879. When he reached Philadelphia in May 1879, via Liverpool, he listed his occupation as a laborer. Bertha Gardner Bergstein (1861-1925) was a native of Bohemia and arrived in the United States in 1883. Her place of residence until her marriage in 1890 is unknown.

Moritz may have been in New York City in 1880, where he worked as a porter."^ In 1884-5 Moritz was in Minnesota, where he operated a restaurant at 309 N. Main Street in Stillwater. His brother, Ignatz (1867-1945), who arrived in the United States in 1883, was also employed at the restaurant. Stillwater was then a leading lumber producing center with a population that would peak at 12,318 in 1890.^ By 1887, Moritz and Ignatz were employed as peddlers and resided at the Lakeside Hotel in Stillwater. Ignatz moved to Minneapolis by 1889, where he listed his employment as “rags.”

Moritz Bergstein and Bertha Gardner married in 1890 and first resided at 617 W. Maple Street in Stillwater. Their daughter Leah (ca. 1900-1986) was adopted in 1903.

The Bergstein property included four lots of Block 7 and four lots of Block 2 of Elfelt’s Addition to Oak Park. The site was adjacent to good transportation, including a railroad siding on the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway (CSPM&O). Although nearby TH 36 (formerly TH 45) was not paved until the 1920s, it provided a link to St. Paul and other routes.

The surrounding area was sparsely built up with unpretentious houses and most of the Bergstein’s neighbors were sawmill or lumberyard employees at one of the businesses along the nearby riverbank. The CSPM&O rail line crossed the street separating the Bergstein’s lots and a wood railroad viaduct further divided it.

In the early 1890s the Bergsteins built a house on the west side of the street and a warehouse and mill on the east side. At various locations on the property, Moritz Bergstein apparently collected, sorted, sold, and shipped a variety of waste materials including scrap metal. The Bergsteins also raised chickens, a cow, and horses.

By 1894 Moritz was still employed as a junk dealer but had also begun operation of the shoddy mill and was listed as a mattress manufacturer in the Stillwater City Directory." He was in business with brother Ignatz in Minneapolis as the Bergstein Brothers." During the next 23 years, the Oak Park property was a base for Moritz Bergstein’s junk business and mattress manufacture. He was also involved in small scale money lending and banking. At the time of his death he had considerable investments as well as 500 tons of old iron and junk valued at $3,000. His obituary noted that he was known as the “junk man” and that “he was always honest and straightforward in his dealings ... he was held in high esteem by the businessmen of Stillwater and vicinity and his death will be regretted.” " Bertha Bergstein died in 1925.

After Bertha’s death, Leah Bergstein Cohn inherited the property and occupied the house with her husband Jacob (1896-1978) and two children. Jacob still operated a junkyard on the property in 1930 and was also a machinist. In 1944 they sold the property to Jacob Roller, who operated the Roller Coal Yard and the Oak Park Fuel business. Koller stored tons of coal on the first floor of the warehouse. His son, Robert Koller, operated an automotive repair business on the site. Site Layout.

The Bergstein’s built their now-razed house, privy, shed, and bam on the west side of the street. The simple gable-roofed, clapboard-sided house featured a long porch surmounted by three upper story windows facing the street. A one-story, shed-roofed kitchen and well room were attached to the south wall. Evidence in the house such as trim and certain materials suggest that it may have developed from a two-room structure, possibly moved to the site, or that it was pieced together using recycled materials. The additive plan and the kitchen and well room may have reflected Bohemian building practices.'^ A gable- and shed-roofed bam was situated south of the house, along with a wood outbuilding, a metal outbuilding, and a privy.

The shoddy mill was built on the east side of the street. The shed-roofed, bluestone-walled building housed equipment for grinding wool rags into a fiber known as shoddy. A steam engine powered the spiked mill, or devil. It had an attached engine room with a 25-foot-high iron chimney at the rear. An iron conveyor connected the mill to a one-story dust house that measured about 12 by 15 feet. Water for the steam engine was drawn from a well beneath the engine house. An iron-clad water tank was located next to the engine room.

The gable-roofed, wood frame mattress and rag warehouse was placed close to the rail siding approximately 22 feet from the mill. The undivided first level had sliding doors at each end and was braced with wide planks above a thick wood floor that provided a sorting and storage area. The second floor had a workroom served by a trap door and wood pulley. Mattress stuffing material was raised by a wooden pulley on a catwalk and dumped into the workroom by a canvas chute. Wood racks with wide slats were used for holding the mattresses during stuffing.’*