North Country Health Services and North Country Regional Hospital has passed through many changes since formal health care came to Bemidji in 1898. The intention for NCHS to merge with Sanford Health announced Thursday is another step in the proc.
Bemidji saw some hard times in the decade preceding the 1920s. Saloons were closed, sons and husbands went off to war, and the Spanish Influenza epidemic closed schools and businesses for seven weeks. Major fires took down many of the frame buildings on Second and Third Street, and the city was left with a lot of empty real estate. Many thought that when the saloons closed due to Prohibition, the town would die.
On the contrary, Walter Brooks, banker, reported that savings went up substantially, and money was more available than ever. A local building boom started in 1921 and held up through the 1920s until the collapse of the financial world on Black Friday in 1929.