Books

Dusting Off the Old Ones

The Other Row of Trees

Last week we started to tell the stories of two rows of trees, but only had space to finish telling about that row which used to grace the center of Strevell Avenue the entire length of Wibaux Park. The other row of trees is also on Strevell Avenue and extends along the east side of that street just past the city limits on the way to the cemetery. The land upon which this row of trees is growing was first claimed by a party by the name of Thomas Doyle. Doyle's claim to the land was made in spite of the fact that the Northern Pacific Railroad obtained title to every odd numbered section of land in this immediate vicinity under the land grant of 1864. There are several conveyances of record prior to the one which conveyed the title from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company. The last of these deeds is one from James I. Kelly to his sister, Clara S. Kelly and was recorded in the year 1885. The amazing part of this title is the fact that the same Clara S. Kelly, who obtained claim to the land by that conveyance in 1885, is now the present owner of the property, and it was she who planted that row of trees in the nineties. The records indicate that she purchased the property under contract from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company in 1894 and by the time the deed was issued to her, she had been married to John A. Ramer, for the deed to it ran to Mrs. John A. Ramer. Of late years, Mrs. Ramer has always used the name of Susan A. Ramer, but the old timers remember her better as Clara Kelly, and very few of them think of her without visualizing that stately row of cottonwoods.