Those Places Thursday – Root Cellar

Wikipedia defines a root cellar as as structure built underground or partially underground and used to store vegetables, fruits, nuts or other foods. But as the posted photo clearly indicates, my Olson relatives living on a large farm in remote northern Minnesota during the 1920s had an additional use for it. The federal government banned the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol from 1920 to 1933. I suspect that those bottles contained something other than soda. 

Edward Olson (left) and an unknown person sitting in front of a root cellar

located on the Olson family farm in Kanabec County, Minnesota. Photo was

likely taken somewhere from mid-1920s through 1935.

If you have any root cellars in your family history then post a comment telling us about it and what was stored there.

Submitted and posted by Richard Hanson