She recalls a bustling West End

Walking east from the little house I grew up in on Chestnut and Avenue C, the first thing I saw heading out the door across Chestnut was a tennis court, plus a huge lawn leading up to the Northwest Paper Company staff house on Park Place. It was the 1950s, and a childhood friend said it perfectly: "How pretty the street was from Chestnut Street to the movie theater ... just walking along. The neighborhood had such a comfortable feeling ... homes of friends, local businesses, food and recreation. Trees. Almost storybook and quaint but real."

Tennis courts. There were two more within three blocks. City Hall and the police station (known in more recent years as the Potlatch building) sat on Arch and Avenue B. I remember going there to get my bicycle license. There was a tennis court on the west side of City Hall and the park across Arch Street had another one.

A friend recalled sitting on the back steps of the city hall listening to the city band practice. Going south across Avenue B was Peter's General Store, which was removed and replaced by a parking lot for the Northwest Paper offices. Across the street was a barber shop, the VFW - it's still there - and some business that I can't remember the name of, with a terrarium containing a 3-foot alligator displayed in the window. Then the Copper Skillet, where local businessmen met daily for coffee, leaving their cigarette butts along the curb, and where at least one young boy gathered them up to smoke.

Wold's Rexall Drug store was on the corner across Arch Street from the large office building that I recall being the First National Bank, where I picked petunias from the window boxes. It then became the Northwest Paper Company offices. I also remember playing "statue" in the grass lot west of the building.

Going east on the north side of Avenue C from Wold's Rexall Drug - where we could sit and read comic books and Dr. Tomhave first had his dental office - was Pixley's Barber Shop, then Hunter's Grocery Store or another café. Then Smokey Canfield's Shell station and car repair next to Meraw's Funeral Home. Then Gamble Lumber, Cloquet Transit and, finally, the movie theater. Near the theater was a creamery where there were large vats of milk and cream with a ladle on a chain. You could just walk in and fill a cup.

On the south side of Avenue C and Broadway was a grocery store. Heading west was Cox's Bakery (which "specialized" in chocolate-covered doughnuts), Dr. Tomhave's next dental office, Beckstrom's Paints (the family lived in an apartment above the Newlon store) and Newlon's Variety at 120 Avenue C. We called it a "dime store," where I remember buying candy cigarettes. The family lived upstairs across the hall from the Dyson-Overlie Law Office, which owned the building. The apartments were large and beautiful with gorgeous oak woodwork and fireplaces. The Pine Knot office was next, then there may have been one more store or office between that and Roderic's Furniture on the southeast corner of Arch and Avenue C.

Up the hill to Avenue D was the Christian Science Church, the Masonic Temple where the Job's Daughters had a formal dance every year. Girls got to invite the boys. Further up the hill was the old water tower. My parents and I lived across Arch Street across from the Masonic Temple in the Borgfeldt apartments when we first moved to Cloquet in 1948.

Across Arch Street across from Roderic's was Dr. Hanson's office. There were apartments above. Going west was Northern Printery, then Gertie MacNett's Linen Shop - with her tiny home behind it - which then became the Knights of Columbus. Continuing west on Avenue C then left up Chestnut was the Redfield home, where Cloquet-born actress Barbara Payton came to marry actor Franchot Tone. I remember standing at the door waiting to get her autograph. Clarence Badger recalled them throwing coins to the neighborhood kids gathered outside.

We took a shortcut to Leach School, going west on Avenue D where the hill was steep, and I remember in the winter bringing cardboard with me to slide down after school. On the north side of the road/path, the Canfield brothers and friends practiced slalom skiing. Jerry Canfield painted and installed a "Mt. Grassnob" sign on the white fence at the base of the ski hill.

Pinehurst Park was the gem of our town. The bandshell by the pond hosted real band concerts, there were logrolling contests, a roller skating rink, an ice skating rink for everyone. There were monkey bars, a slide, swings and teeter totters. It was where we gathered to watch fireworks on the Fourth. And where I spent a day playing hooky because I had been late to school and was afraid of the principal. I had such a great time pretending to have a house and farm amidst the lilac bushes that I missed lunch and didn't get home until after five ... and I got a spanking for scaring my parents.

These memories are shared by Jenifer Allen Behrens who lived on Avenue C, as did her Dupont grandparents who were early residents of Cloquet; Larry and Jan Beckstrom, whose father owned the paint store; Mike Childs, whose father owned Northern Printery; Tom Canfield, son of Smokey Canfield; Joan Lavick Lava, whose parents owned Roderic's Furniture; Cynthia Newlon Soberg, whose parents owned the dime store; Beth Moller Kent, who lived in the neighborhood and worked at the Pine Knot ... and me.

Writer and artist Cynthia Johnson is a board member of the Carlton County Historical Society (CCHS) and a longtime Cloquet resident. She gathered these memories as part of a project for the West End Flourish initiative and thought Pine Knot News readers might enjoy them too.