417 Irvine Avenue
The first resident listed in the 1904 directory for this address was Joseph Barney, a local bartender and his wife. By 1907, it was the home of Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Ibertson, the local undertaker and coroner for Bemidji for many years. Mrs. Ibertson entertained the members of the Eastern Star at the Ibertson home in 1907. On Feb 2, 1909, Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Ibertson celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary on Friday evening with a “crystal” wedding at their home. There were twenty-six guests present and all enjoyed a social evening. The Ibertsons received many cut glass presents in commemoration of their crystal wedding. The Ibertsons then moved and this became the residence of John and Grace (Toombs) Hormann. Grace Toombs who were married in 1911. He was associated with the Peoples Meat Market and then Hormann’s Meat Market on Third Street. His young wife, Grace, died at the house in February of 1914 when she was only 25 years old after a relatively brief illness. Her daughter Grace was only sixteen months old. The funeral was held at the house as was common in that period. Mr. Hormann hired a housekeeper and stayed with his daughter in the house until putting it up for sale in 1920. It was advertised as 5 rooms and bath, on a 50 ft. lot, surrounded with an iron fence. He then married Sophia Larson Gustafson on May 5, 1921 and continued to work as a meat cutter. They moved to Nymore.
Dr. Ed Franklin and his wife moved into the house. Dr. Franklin traveled in northern Minnesota for Drs. Larson and Larson but spent whatever time he could with his family at the house. His father, Wilbert Franklin, a retired carpenter, was staying with the family in 1924 when he took sick and died at the Lutheran Hospital. Between 1930 and 1942, Leo and Gladys Phillips owned the house. He was proprietor of a billiards room on Third Street for 24 years. He retired and moved to California about 1946.
Michael and Beatrice (Gould) Corrigan owned the house in 1946. Sons James, John, and Thomas also lived there. In the 1930s, Michael had owned a hotel on Third Street. Michael and James worked for the State Highway Department in 1946. Thomas was a student. John was manager of the VFW. By 1953, Beatrice was a widow and lived with her son John at this address. He was sales manager for Land O’Lakes Motors in 1953.
By 1956, Ed O’Malley and his family had become the new neighbors and lived there until the house was removed and replaced by the post office. The O’Malley girls were the neighborhood babysitters. Ed O’Malley was a linotype operator at the Northland Times and then for the Bemidji Pioneer.