John & Sarah Booren House
310 6th St. S.
John Booren emigrated to Stillwater from Sweden in 1858, but he did not stay long, traveling to Louisiana and then serving in the Civil War as a member of the Eighth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. But at the close of the war, he returned and took up a number of jobs, including hardware merchant, hotel keeper, lumberman and postmaster. His younger brother, August, was equally as well known in Stillwater, also working as a hotel keeper and as the proprietor of clothing and cigar businesses.
Both Booren brothers built homes in Stillwater, with August on Pine Street in 1884, and John on South 6th Street at about the same time. John Booren married twice, once to Carrie Smith and, in 1874, to Sarah L. Johnson.
The 1870 census places him a boarding house keeper with real property valued at $1500, possibly a reference to the St. Croix Hotel, a very early establishment which Booren acquired and owned until it burned in 1874. In 1880, he kept a hotel on Chestnut street, with his wife serving a housekeeper, along with five servants and 53 boarders.
In 1886, the Boorens applied for a building permit for their new home, with August Jackson serving as both architect and contractor. The house was apparently first planned at a cost of $4000, an amount which was changed to $5500 before the permit was completed. The address of 310 South Sixth first appears in the 1890 city directory, and by 1910, the Sanborn map records the house much as it is today, as a narrow two story home with slightly protruding window bays on both sides, a one story addition to the rear, and a porch wrapping around the east-facing front and south sides.
In 1892, John received a political appointment as postmaster of Stillwater, and resigned as the treasurer, secretary and general manager of the Stillwater Hardware company. In 1895, in a shift of political winds, Christine Carroll received the postmaster’s appointment, a female Democrat replacing a male Republican with some attendant ill will in the community.
Subsequently, John purchased the Elliot House hotel at 118 South Third, which is listed as John’s residence in 1898. While the hotel was on Third, the census in 1900 lists twelve boarders at this address, and 1910 census lists nine boarders and one servant in addition to family members. John died in 1918, and Sarah kept the rooming business in operation, with four children and five roomers filling the home in 1920. In 1921, local builder Frank Linner completed $400 worth of "general repair" to the home. By 1930, Sarah occupied the house with son John, a pharmacist, his wife, Mathilda, daughter Matie, and a single roomer. The house was valued at $10,000. Sarah died in 1937, and son John in 1939. The widowed Mathilda continued to live in the home until the mid-1960s, at which time it was subdivided into apartments for the next decades.
— Research by Carmen Tschofen for the City of Stillwater's Heirlooms Home and Landmark Sites Program