Thief River Falls News: At a meeting of the county commissioners held on Tuesday the contract for the construction of the proposed new Red Lake county court house was let to M. Brady, the Red Lake Falls contractor, for $15,130. Mr. Brady's nearest competitor was Ed Moran, also of Red Lake Falls, with John Duffy as surety. Outside contractors refused to bid upon the work as a general thing, there being a total of only four bids submitted.

Work of building the court house, it is said, will be commenced at once, and the contractor will be paid by warrants issued by the county. As the injunction proceedings restraining the county commissioners from letting the contract is in the courts and will be taken to the supreme court, there is going to be a considerable mix-up if the decision goes against the county commissioners. Attorney General Young is confident that he will win this case before the state supreme court. If he does, the commissioners personally, or the contractor, will be the owner of the court house and not the county of Red Lake.

Upon a motion, the $35,000 recently transferred from the ditch fund was ordered transferred back. As there is less than $31,000 in the revenue fund now, it is not going to be an easy job for Treasurer Ives to do this. By transferring the money back to the original fund, the county commissioners admit that they did an illegal act in the first instance.

The commissioners also took a "fall" out of Thief River Falls by rescinding and appropriation made two years ago of $1,000 from the road and bridge fund to help pay the expense of constructing the new bridge across the Red Lake river here. The appropriation had never been paid because of a lack of funds in the road and bridge fund. Although the taxpayers of Thief River Falls pay one-fourth of the road and bridge fund tax, they are not going to do any kicking--as a matter of fact it would not do them any good if they did. The commissioners, however, did not attempt to get back any of the thousands of dollars that have been appropriated to build bridges in Red Lake Falls.

Source: Crookston Times, Saturday September 25, 1909
Submitted by Brenda G. June 2001
Updated 21 APR 2015, K. Kittleson