Lind: Mansion's owner helped develop many towns in region

It was a historic landmark in Willmar, Minn.: A grand and glorious, 106-year-old, three-story mansion.

So it was sad for Willmar and for the family of the man who built it when it was torn down in 2008.

And maybe there also was a touch of nostalgia for the residents of a town in North Dakota that was named for that man. Even though the town's founders got it wrong.

Rail clerk makes good

The story of the mansion and the man behind it was written for the Willmar West Central Tribune, which is owned by Forum Communications Co., by reporter Tom Cherveny.

The 9,000-square-foot Queen Anne-style house was spectacular; it had a ballroom, a billiards room and a six-bedroom living area described as "luxurious."

It was constructed for David and Clara Tallman in 1902.

David, Tom's story reported, came to Willmar in 1893 as a railroad clerk for the Great Northern Railway. He went on to make a fortune platting new townsites in Minnesota and North Dakota. He also created the Tallman Invest Co., which owned banks in North Dakota, Minnesota and Montana.

And so he went from working as a railroad clerk to becoming a wealthy man who could afford building this mansion in Willmar. He also had a summer vacation home on a lake near Willmar, played golf with such notables as baseball superstar Babe Ruth, and had a town in North Dakota named for him: Tolna, in Nelson County.

Well, actually, the town, founded in 1906 on the townsite owned by David, was supposed to have been named Tallman. But the town's founders couldn't read his handwriting. So the town became Tolna, which actually was the name of David's oldest daughter as well as the name of a town in Hungary, according to "North Dakota Place Names," the book by Douglas Wick, which gives the history of North Dakota communities.

But David was able to name some of the town's streets after his other daughters: Helen, Esther, Gertrude, Margaret and Marjorie.

Then financial disaster struck.

Riches to rags

David's banks collapsed. He became penniless. And he and his family, who once had been riding high, were forced to move into a small, nondescript house in Willmar and take public assistance.

David and Clara's great-granddaughter Mary Jo Farhat, who lives in Willmar today, provided Tom with much of this information.

With her preceding generations gone, she said, the mansion no longer was used as a home. The Willmar VFW bought it in 1945 and then sold it in 1949 to a woman who had it remodeled to serve for a time as a nursing home.

This gave it a good use. But the downside was that the remodeling prevented it from being designated as a historic site, which would have helped it gain funds so it could be saved, Mary Jo said.

She and other family members considered restoring and possibly moving it, but the cost would have been too great. So, reluctantly, they had it demolished.

In October 2008, they walked through it for the last time. It was razed two days later, and the site became a parking lot for a health care facility.

Now the house is gone. But items the family salvaged from it remain.

So does Tolna, supposedly named for the original townsite owner even if the founders didn't get it quite right.

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If you have an item of interest for this column, mail it to Neighbors, The Forum, Box 2020, Fargo, ND 58107; fax it to 241-5487; or e-mail blind@forumcomm.com