Life's mysteries surround me on occasion, but perhaps they're not so mysterious if I think about it as they mostly occur in the area of a small Canadian border town and county named Roseau, Minnesota, with a population of 2672, and 15, 246, respectively or, as Joe/Woe Wednesday stated it on February 13, 2025, "Another way to characterize where we live is in terms of population density comparisons. Wannaska: 4 persons/square mile; Roseau County: 9.2 persons/square mile; Tuff Rubber Balls: 914.0 persons/square mile; Minneapolis: 7,962.1 persons/square mile; New York City: 29,303.2 persons/square mile."
The odds of meeting people one recognizes here, or who recognize you, grows exponentially, as happened last week in the Super One parking lot where, as I left the store, I met my friend, JoMar, walking toward the store. He and I meet periodically throughout the year, exchanging pleasantries as we pass; but this time, he stopped and asked, "So are you going to do a final write-up on 'The Tin Man?' His place was sold to somebody. May not be there for long."
'The Tin Man,' he was referring to, was a Palmvilleian named John
(Johnny) J. Hovorka (1911-1988), who, among a great many other things
that set him apart from his neighbors, initiated a totally unique
architectural-style residence in Roseau County by covering all his
outbuildings -- and his house -- in 'tin,' i.e., galvanized corrugated
steel, several of which still stand in 2026; his house and a couple
sheds. The barn unfortunately burned down in a grass fire years ago,
leaving nothing but a bunch of nails and rusty-colored curls of steel.
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| 'The Tin Man's' Homestead, 1994' / For THE RAVEN, illustration by Steven G. Reynolds. |
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| The Tin Man's house, 2014. |
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Fortunately, somebody is breathing life back into the old place. July 2026 JoMar lamented the possible demise of the old Tin Farm buildings as a bulldozer was present in its yard when he had driven by a week earlier. And, as is common when mention of Johnny Hovorka comes up anywhere in the community of Wannaska or thereabouts, at the Fickle Pickle Cafe, Lee's Hardware Store, Post Office or other businesses, stories about him are bound to be told; as Jomar began happily telling me, recalling what he had heard from his father over the years. This was written down for me by his older brother, 'Val.' "The event would have taken place around 1932, as Dad was maybe, 14, 15, or so. John Hovorka, known as The Tin Man, lived at the intersection of the NE corner of Section 12 in Poplar Grove Township, and the SE corner of Section 6 in Palmville Township. Because all the buildings were covered in galvanized tin it became known as 'The Tin Man's Farm.' That name has stuck with it for over a century and become a local landmark. In the summer of '34, John was taking cattle to market in Roseau and needed help driving the herd. How Dad came to be his helper I'm not sure, but they only lived four miles apart. Anyway, John had run out of snus so he wasn't in the best of moods. Since the 1935 atlas does not show Roseau County Road 8 going through the Palmville swamp I assume they took 'the Wagon Road' i.e., the Wilson or Blackhawk Road. As they traveled down the trail he would stop every car they met to get a pinch of snus, (chewing tobacco) but to no avail. About the third car he stopped, (there weren't many cars on the road in those days) the driver didn't have any snus but did offer up a cigarette (tobacco). That was better than nothing but didn't do much to change his mood. Finally, when they got to the 'Nine mile corner south of Roseau,' the driver of that car had a can of snus and gave John a pinch; that was all it took. Dad said there was a little whistling and singing, and a piece of cake all the way to Roseau after that. (Dad walked all the way barefoot, he said.) The reason JoMar brought Johnny Hovorka up to me, of all people in that whole parking lot, may have been because he knew I had been part of Palmville's own story-telling 'paper,' (as people called it), THE RAVEN, that we had published since 1994, but had since stopped producing upon my retirement from the toy factory. RAVEN stories, for the most part were about Roseau County people from its early beginnings in the late 1800s up to 2018. Being one of its most popular legends, Johnny Hovorka as I said above, had done a great many other things that set him apart from his neighbors, one of which, aside from becoming the cornerstone for THE RAVEN in 1994, he wrote and self-published his own 'paper/pamphlets,' his first titled, "The Northwest Radical," in the 1930s, and his second, "The Golden Era of Liberty," from September-1940 to March 1942. Joe McDonnell wrote, "    |
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