Charles Wilson Vandersluis was born on Nov 7, 1877 in St. Cloud. He worked in stores there and at Brainerd before becoming a traveling salesman for Janney, Semple, Hill and Company, a Minneapolis wholesale hardware firm, for whom he covered the northern Minnesota region. He came to Bemidji to live in 1901.
Bemidji was an outpost in the northern Minnesota timber region when Mr. Vandersluis first came here peddling hardware. Lots of times selling trips in this region, made in hired liveries, were delayed by snow, sleet and storm – but they were completed as soon as the elements permitted.
When Vandersluis opened his hardware store on March 30, 1915 it was in the building later occupied by Piersch’s tailor shop. The building faced Minnesota with a 25-foot front and extended back for 60 ft. and was crowded to the doors with the stock or merchandise for the start of the business.
The building soon became too small and he purchased the adjoining lot with the intention of building a larger building. In 1919, he took with him into partnership in the store W. Z. Robinson, who remained with him until 1927.
In 1922, the new building was erected, a two-story building with a 50-foot front on Minnesota avenue and the old building was moved back and located to face Fourth street. In 1927, the building and a large part of the stock were destroyed in an explosion and fire with damage estimated at $100,000. Mr. Vandersluis gathered together the material that was saleable, continued business across the street until the building at Minnesota and Fourth Street was rebuilt.
In the reorganization that followed, Mr. Vandersluis bought out Mr. Robinson and repaired the building, cutting off the second floor to make it a one-story structure. The store continued in business under Mr. Vandersluis without interruption. When he announced that he was turning over the Bemidji Hardware Co. to his son and Frank Markus in 1938, Mr. Vandersluis was asked if that meant he was retiring. His replied that he is going to take it easy but not retire.
The proprietor of the store was well known in Bemidji long before he established himself in business here. He was a traveling salesman for a hardware firm and paid regular visits to this section in the days when Bemidji was a village. Mr. Vandersluis made his first trip to Blackduck before there was any railroad there and had to walk part way to the village The first time he slept at the Markham hotel, the beds had not arrived yet and he and others with him slept on the floor
Back in 1916, Mr. Vandersluis entered the political ring and defeated William McCuaig for the mayorship. Bemidji was in the process of making civic imiprovements at that time. The only trouble was that the city didn’t have much money.
Sometime before, some federal board had discovered that Bemidji was in Indian territory and proceeded to shut down the 28 saloons that merrily collected the populace’s dollars and paid in $28,000 annually to the city in license fees. That stopped the main source of municipal finances and continued improvements put Bemidji deep in the financial hole.
No opponent of civic improvements, but determined to keep the city out of bankruptcy whether the citizens liked it or not, Vandersluis set to work to mind the municipal affairs with the same care that he conducted his hardware business. Bemidji was on a cash basis and when he ended his third term in 1919, the city had recouped much of its financial prestige.
Elected to the school board in 1924, when the board was fairly well bogged down with a bonded indebtedness of approximately $430,000– $300,000 to finance the present high school to replace the building that burned in1921 – Mr. Vandersluis took a hand in managing those overburdened finances.
In 1934, the school board paid out $65,000 in cash to construct the new addition to the high school – a $100,000 PWA project. Every last one of the bonds which totaled $430,000 in 1924 had been paid off and today the school board has money in the bank.
When the Birchmont hotel, large summer resort enterprise on the north shore of Lake Bemidji, burned a number of years ago, Bemidji business men took it over and rebuilt the structure. With pardonable misjudgment, they expanded the properties shortly before the depression and lack of business forced Birchmont into bankruptcy.
Mr. Vandersluis was named receiver – a tribute to his business acumen – and in 1936 a satisfactory sale was made to the Ruttger interests, present operators. When the Security State Bank went through reorganization following the 1933 bank holiday, he was appointed trustee for the depositors.
Much of his civic work was done quietly – not as a professed leader but as a reliable and willing worker for Bemidji’s betterment. For many years, he served as a director and in other official capacities in the Civic and Commerce Association. Following the war, he took a hand in the movement of encouraging farmers to clear lands, beginning the transition of this region from a lumbering to an agricultural region.
Most of Mr. Vandersluis’ friends would emphasize another characteristic – he is an ardent sportsman. One of his best reasons for settling in Bemidji was the opportunity for hunting and fishing which this area affords.
When he announced that he was turning over the Bemidji Hardware Co. to his son and Frank Markus, Mr. Vandersluis was asked if that meant he was retiring. His replied that he is going to take it easy but not retire. He will remain in Bemidji and attend to other interests.
Vandersluis is too tightly woven into the fabric of Bemidji. A son, Dr. Charles Vandersluis is one of the region’s leading physicians. Angus is now co-partner with Frank Markus in a large Bemidji business, and another son, Arthur, is well known as a motion picture operator. A brother, Ed Vandersluis, is well known as the publisher of the St. Cloud Sentinel. (Bemidji Daily Pioneer, Jan 1, 1938)
Charles W. Vandersluis was married to Lela Wightman on July 3, 1902 in Stearns County. She died in 1948 and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. He died ion April 22, 1960 in San Diego, California.