Arthyde Stone House

The Arthyde Stone House is a highly visible landmark that symbolizes the many unsuccessful speculative attempts to settle northern Minnesota's cutover region during the post-WWI economic boom period. Although the Soo Line constructed a branch line through eastern Aitkin County in 1909, the region remained sparsely settled. Arthyde, a community platted along the line by the Tri-state Land Company in 1909, failed to advance beyond a paper community. World War I's conclusion, however, encouraged numerous speculative schemes in northern Minnesota. Joseph and Peter Emmer of Emmer Brothers Lumber Company in Minneapolis and Henry Senn, a longtime family friend, envisioned that Arthyde would develop into a prosperous cordwood-based timber producing center and, later, an agricultural service center. The three men incorporated the Arthyde Land and Lumber Company in 1920 and purchased the vast majority of lots in Arthyde and much of the surrounding area. The firm established a lumber yard and promoted settlement of the area among recently returned veterans anxious to acquire property of their own. The region prospered for a few years; Arthyde boasted a store, depot, post office, gas station, and several residences in addition to the lumber yard. But with drastically declining cordwood prices and the onset of the depression in the late 1920s, the speculative scheme collapsed. Farmers, unable to profitably farm the unproductive soil, moved away and Arthyde virtually disappeared except in name. The Arthyde Land and Lumber Company dissolved in the mid-1930s. The unique stone residence was erected in the early 1920s by Senn, the firm's resident official. Today it is the sole standing structure within the platted community.