Some say old Bemidji home to 40 saloons and eight brothels was a rough and rugged town due to the presence of the lumberjacks. But, didn’t the lumberjacks spend most of the winter in the woods?
The village of less than 500 people in 1898 became a boom town by 1900 with some 10,000 lumberjacks within a 10-mile radius of the town. Bemidji’s resident population more than doubled from 1900 to 1910. The housing supply simply could not keep up with demand.