- Hi, my name is Patty Benson.

I'm the director of the Grant County Historical Society in Elbow Lake, Minnesota, and this is our Artifact Spotlight.

(gentle music) I'm standing here next to our oxcart that would've been used to carry furs from the northwest portion of Minnesota, northeast North Dakota, down to St. Anthony and St. Paul.

They were used by fur traders who collected furs during the winter season, and in the spring, they would load the carts full for the trip down to St. Anthony and St. Paul.

There were three major oxcart trails that were followed by the fur traders on this trek.

One of them cut through Grand County, northwest to southeast.

It was called the Middle Trail.

(gentle music) In the spring of the year, the fur traders would pile these carts full of the furs that they gathered over the winter.

A cart like this would carry probably eight to 900 pounds and could be pulled by one oxen.

An oxcart like this could cover approximately 25 miles a day.

(gentle music) This is the oldest and crudest oxcart known to exist in the state of Minnesota.

We don't know that it was ever used on the trails through Grand County, but it would've been similar to the earliest carts that were used.

And these carts were used probably 1820s to 1830s.

(gentle music) Later, carts would've had spoked wheels, much like a wagon.

One thing you'll notice about this cart is the wooden wheel and a wooden axle.

This one is unusual in that it was cut basically from a solid piece of tree stump.

(gentle music) As these carts moved along, being the wood on wood, they made a very loud shrieking noise.

(wheels shrieking) There were trains of them usually going at the same time, and you could hear these carts coming from about six miles away.

In order to lessen that squeaky screeching noise that they made, they would take things like snakes or frogs, fish guts, and stuff like that from along their trek, and they would put that in the hub of the wheel to grease it so they didn't make quite as loud a shrieking noise.

(gentle music) We're pleased to have this oxcart among our collections.

We feel it's important to save and collect these kind of artifacts to remember the past and to reflect back on what the life was like back in the early days.

It gives us a reminder of how easy we have it in comparison to the way things were.

(gentle music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.