A little history about the Shakopee Stagecoach and The Stage Coach (on the north end of Stagecoach Road)
Stagecoaches in Shakopee
The first stagecoach arrived at Shakopee on October 6, 1853. In 1936 E. Judson Pond, at age 90, remembered the four-horse led stagecoach arriving. It stopped at the stagecoach barn which was next to the St. Paul Hotel on Fuller and Third Street.
Between the creation of Minnesota Territory in 1849 and the entrance of railroads to Shakopee in 1860, people depended upon the stagecoach for transportation. Traveling to Shakopee, stagecoaches had to deal with the road's poor condition. In 1853, one traveler Roy Johnson called the road "a succession of swamps, corduroy bridges, holes, and stumps!" Stagecoach drivers had to grease their horses' eyes, ears, and noses to prevent them from stampeding because of swarming insects. Winter blizzards would lower the horses' visibility. Sometimes, the horses had to drive the stagecoach on pure memory, and the driver would have to stop to clean the icicles from the horses' nostrils and eyes!
The stagecoach crossed the Indian trails and Bloomington Ferry and arrived at the Gellenbeck Stage Stop, what is now Stagecoach Road. Here, horses were changed, and the stagecoach proceeded to downtown Shakopee.
Stagecoaches opened the Minnesota Valley to new immigrants. However, they did so at the expense of the Dakota Indians. Stagecoaches increased traffic to the area, frightened fish and game, and disturbed the spirits of Dakota ancestors.
The last stagecoach trip to Shakopee was in 1865. Although stagecoaches were only in Shakopee for 12 years, they spread awareness of Shakopee to others in the fledgling state until railroads rendered the stagecoach routes obsolete.
Shotgun
"Shotgun" referred to the front passenger seat in a stagecoach. The passenger in that seat most often brandished a shotgun for protecting the stage-coach cargo.
Today, "shotgun" is the act of claiming the front passenger seat of a car. Since it is the most coveted spot, rules were created to ensure the shotgun seat can be acquired in a fair and equitable manner by any passenger of the car (except the driver, of course).
The Stage Coach (north end of Stagecoach Road).
The Stagecoach was an actual stop between Shakopee and Savage. During 1951 Ozzie and Marie Klavestad bought it to display his gun collection and named it the Stagecoach Museum. Over the years it expanded to include the Stagecoach Restaurant, Stagecoach Opera House and the Sand Burr Gulch, a recreated old west street complete with blacksmith, barber shop, saloon, and animated cowboy puppets that acted out jerky wild west scenes for the general public. The Klavestads sold the Stagecoach in 1981 and the place fell into ruin. With the widening of Highway 101 most of it was demolished in 1996. The Lavetta's original Stagecoach building still stands as Dahlen Signs, 901 Stagecoach Road, Shakopee Minnesota.
