by Carla Manning

It’s going to happen this year - the transformation of an unused section of the Larchwood park will become a historical walkway. It will be a walkway rich in quality, not quantity. It will be only about 300’ long, but will include a historical marker explaining who Jesse
Fell was and how the namesake of Larchwood (the European Larch trees) came to be in Lyon County. Native plants will grace sections of the trails that will wind through a stand of Larch trees and a concrete bench will be seating for those who would like to sit quietly and enjoy the trees and birds. In the grove of trees you will find a secluded, covered picnic table placed away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the park. You’ll even see artwork by a local artist along the path.

This idea was developed and presented to the Larchwood City Council last winter. The council liked the idea and budgeted money for the project and suggested applying for a grant from the Community Foundation of Lyon County. The Larchwood Development Group agreed to sponsor the project and donated $1000, and Modern Woodmen committed $300. The application for the grant was submitted in February.

On Wed., April 18, the $4,825 grant was awarded for the project at a ceremony at the court house in Rock Rapids.

If you spend any time in Larchwood, you probably recognize the names Fell, Geiser and Holder. Besides being street names, they are also names of men whose places in Larchwood’s history is obscure to most people.

In 1869, the site of Larchwood and the land adjacent to it was obtained by a grant of the U.S. government to Charles Holder of Bloomington, IL.

In 1873, Holder sold it to Jesse Fell for $1.25 per acre. Jesse Weldon Fell was a substantial citizen and patriarch of Bloomington, Illinois. He was a friend of Abraham Lincoln and it was he who proposed the famous Lincoln-Douglas debates. Jesse Fell was the great-grandfather of the political figure, Adalai Stevenson and was described by this Vice President of the United States as "his favorite ancestor."

Jesse Fell’s legacy still continues after 135 years with the enhancing of the city by the European Larch trees he planted here. Jesse was famous for planting trees where ever he lived. He planted some ten thousand trees in Normal, IL alone. After he left Pennsylvania, the treeless prairie country looked so bleak to him that he became the greatest tree planter in the middle west, supplying thousands of them from his own nursery. After his purchase of the Lyon County land, he immediately dispatched a man by the name of Fred Geiser, to plant trees.

The first instructions were to plant willow hedges around every quarter-section of land. Some of these hedges remained in Lyon County fields until the early 1930’s.

Next, Fell turned his attention to the new town of Larchwood. Mr. Fell imported and planted many useful and valuable European Larch trees, along with maples and evergreen varieties which remain as a monument to Fell’s work and foresight.

The Larch trees belong to the pine family and are unusual among conifers because their soft needles turn golden and drop in the fall. Of the ten species of Larch in the world, only three occur in North America.

Work on the project will begin this spring and hopefully will open with a ribbon cutting on Larchwood Family Day