A Gluek’s Beer ad published in the Minneapolis Star touted the pilsener as “the beer with the REAL beer flavor!”

Check out the third photo in the ad: Just a few months after the end of Prohibition, a thirsty motorist could order a tall, cold Gluek’s without getting out of his car.

An angler’s dream unfolded one hot weekend in July 1955. Huge muskies began hitting “anything and everything” in the northeast corner of Leech Lake, a 175-square-mile reservoir in north-central Minnesota. Before a storm blew in a few days later and ended the run, anglers swarmed the headwaters of the Leech Lake River and landed more than 100 trophy muskies. The Minneapolis Star described the scene:

It was like shooting fish in a barrel. (Grand Rapids Herald-Review photo)

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT CAUSED IT BUT IT’S A DREAM

Fantastic Musky Mob Scene Panics Leech

By JACK CONNOR
Minneapolis Star Outdoor Writer

This is a fantastic story about that fantastic fish – the muskellunge.

Only those who have seen or caught the evidence can believe it.

The little town of Federal Dam, Minn., where Leech Lake river empties into Leech lake, is wild with excitement.

Since Saturday, huge muskies from 15 to 43 pounds have been on a rampage. No one can explain why – not even state fisheries bureau biologists.

The action started, quite by accident, Friday afternoon. From then until noon Tuesday a total of 83 big muskies have been landed.

They were hitting anything and everything.

And they were in an area of the lake where no one thought there were muskies before. At least none had been caught there in years.

The area is five miles south and west of the five boat landings at Federal Dam among a field of bulrushes in 15 feet of water.

Today proprietors of the five boat landings were booked solid for the rest of the week and into next week. Launches were converging on the area from all parts of expansive Leech Lake.

The fantastic story goes back to last Friday afternoon when Mr. and Mrs. Al Storer went out fishing walleyes on nearby Boy river. Mrs. Storer had a minnow and spinner walleye hookup. But a muskie estimated at 25 pounds took it. She lost the fish when it got near the boat.

That evening they drove over to Merle Wescott’s landing below Federal Dam on Leech Lake. They were fishing for walleyes again. But they got two muskies instead.

Next day, Saturday, there were back on Leech with Morris Cohen and Art Green, both of Chicago. The four of them got nine more muskies. Westcott, his son, father and a cousin also were out. They got five.

That started the muskie rush. The word passed like a prairie fire out of control.

“It was like a dream,” Mrs. Storer said today. “You could see those big muskies lying right on top of the water.

“There were boats everywhere and in every one somebody was landing a big muskie or playing one at the end of his line. They were leaping all over the place.”

From Saturday until yesterday 20 big muskies were brought into Neurer’s landing. The largest weighed 42 pounds, 6 ounces, and was caught by Walter Kreutner of Shellsbury, Iowa.

That one set a new season record for this or any other state.

Twenty-four more big ones were brought into Stillman’s landing, 20 into Wescott’s landing, seven into Warren’s landing and 11 into Bader’s landing.

The best at Wescott’s weighed 39 pounds and was caught by Walter Foster, Harvey, Ill. George Durkee, a Federal Dam guide, brought a 38½ -pounder into Bader’s. Rusty Lego, another guide, came into Stillman’s with a 37-pounder.

Warren Bridge of Warren’s landing brought a small one in, only 24½ pounds.

Dick Spadafore, Deer River editor, checked all landings today. “You couldn’t get a boat. But there’s a public landing at Sunset bay on Leech lake.

“I don’t know how long this will last, but it’s been a merry-go-round since it started. No one knows what caused it. Even the guides have no idea.”

Postcard image: Doc’s Lodge, Leech Lake, in about 1953. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

Terry Walfoort Jr. of St. Paul won the 1972 Upper Midwest Regional Spelling Bee. The Minneapolis Tribune, which sponsored that competition, assigned a reporter to cover the eighth-grader’s efforts on the national stage. An interview with the spelling champ follows the Tribune account.

St. Paul boy
out of U.S.
spelling bee

By Staff Correspondent
Washington, D.C.

A 14-year-old St. Paul boy was eliminated in the third round of the national spelling bee contest Wednesday when he stumbled on the word “pirouette.”

Terry Walfoort Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Terry Walfoort of 614 Fountain Pl., became one of 79 finalists when he won first place in the annual Upper Midwest Spelling Bee. The regional competition was sponsored by the Minneapolis Tribune.

Terry, an 8th grader at Sacred Heart-St. John School, said afterward that yesterday’s competition involved “lots of hard words. Lots of French words.”

He added, “I sort of feel that the real victory was winning the regional. Course all the losers say that, I guess.”

Terry was accompanied to Washington by his father and his teacher, Sister Marina Mardian.

Sister Mardian said that Terry had spelled “pirouette” correctly before. But, she said, “you know how you sometimes blank out.” Terry incorrectly spelled the word “pirhouette.”

JUNE 2009 UPDATE: I called Terry Walfoort, now 51, at his home in Cambridge, Minn., this week. He and his wife, Tracy, have five children between them. He’s a courier at FedEx, where he’s worked for the past 22 years.

How did he get involved in the spelling bee back in 1972? The oldest of 12 children in his family, he loved to read – everything from Mad magazine to Edgar Rice Burroughs to the classics – and he fared well in spelling tests given by Sister Marina, who was looking for potential contestants.

“Others did better, but passed up the chance,” Walfoort says. “I was willing to go ahead and give it a try.”

That meant studying words for about 30 minutes a day, three or four days a week, before heading outside to play baseball.

The practice (and a lot of help from Sister Marina) paid off. He was 13 when he won the regional tournament at the Pick-Nicollet Hotel in Minneapolis that spring. Then on to Washington, D.C., for the trip of a young lifetime: His first ride on a jet plane. A stay at the posh Mayflower Hotel, where the competition was held. A visit to the White House, where he met one of President Richard Nixon’s daughters. And a stop at the FBI, where bee contestants watched agents demonstrate a tommy gun with live ammo. Walfoort still has one of the targets used that day.

Was he nervous when his turn came at the national bee?

“Absolutely,” he says. “You’re on that stage, in front of a microphone. … You’re praying that you get a word you’re familiar with.”

Does he remember the word he missed in the third round?

“I sure do. The word’s pirouette. For some reason I had it in my head that it was like silhouette.”

So … can he spell it now?

Yes, but first he politely asks if *I’m* ready. I type his response a letter at a time.

“P – I – R – O – U – E – T – T – E. Pirouette.”

He doesn’t ask if he’s right. Thirty-seven years later, he knows it cold.

Terry Walfoort and his 11 siblings grew up in a noted St. Paul landmark, the Linz-Bergmeier house at 614 Fountain Place, shown here in about 1915, long before the Walfoorts had the run of the place. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)

This photo, taken around 1915, shows the well-tended grounds of 614 Fountain Place, overlooking Swede Hollow. (Photo courtesy mnhs.org)