Eighteen miles northwest of Bemidji, in the backwoods of Buzzle Township, is Pinewood once an operative logging camp filled with lumberjacks and early settlers. Throughout its history, this once lively community has become a place of unsolved mysteries, two bank robberies, a bizarre train derailment and multiple wildfires.
Early on, Bemidji area residents recognized the qualities of the area which drew both city residents and visitors to its lakes. With the beautiful landscape, excellent fishing and hunting, and healthy air, tourism was a popular investment and a draw for people from Grand Forks, Minneapolis, and other cities and states.
Early small-town papers didn’t just report local news; they were the announcers, the social connectors, the legal publication of information and records, the advertisers and community promoters as well as the sunshine league reporting illnesses and hospital stays, engagements and weddings, births and deaths.
Under the bold headline “Murdered for Money,” a Bemidji Daily Pioneer story from June 8, 1904, broke the news that a father and daughter had gone missing from the tiny town of Quiring, Minnesota.