Brooks, Minnesota
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Brooks is a city in Red Lake County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 141 at the 2000 census.
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[edit] Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.0 km² (1.2 mi²), all land.
[edit] Demographics
As of the census2 of 2000, there were 141 people, 61 households, and 37 families residing in the city. The population density was 46.9/km² (121.3/mi²). There were 64 housing units at an average density of 21.3/km² (55.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 100.00% White.
There were 61 households out of which 29.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.8% were married couples living together, 4.9% had a female householder with no husband present, and 39.3% were non-families. 34.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 23.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 3.00.
In the city the population was spread out with 24.8% under the age of 18, 11.3% from 18 to 24, 19.1% from 25 to 44, 23.4% from 45 to 64, and 21.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females there were 110.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.3 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $25,417, and the median income for a family was $33,750. Males had a median income of $22,500 versus $16,250 for females. The per capita income for the city was $13,947. There were none of the families and 2.8% of the population living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and 11.8% of those over 64.
[edit] History; Brooks Cheese Company
Brooks was established in 1904 as a station on the Soo Line Railroad. By 1926, Brooks had two general stores, a grocery store, a bank, hardware store, butcher shop, blacksmith shop, a livery barn, two saloons, a community hall and a hotel to accommodate travellers. Brooks was primarily a service town for the surrounding agricultural townships, and a creamery was established as the local dairying business developed on neighboring farms. After the invention of the cream separator, family farms in adjoining townships of Red Lake County and Polk County switched from subsistance to a market economy and became a part of the dairy industry.
In 1926, the Brooks creamery was purchased by the owners of the cheese factory in nearby Terrebonne who moved their operation to Brooks. The business widely known as the Brooks Cheese Company, a cheese factory owned by the Parenteau family, which sold its product to Kraft Food Company, and marketed its products throughout the Midwest. Local farmers would process the milk from their own cows by removing the butterfat or cream, which was hauled in cream cans to the cheese factory, while the skim milk or whey was fed to hogs or pigs raised on the same farm. The Brooks Cheese Company continued in business until the late 1970s, at which point the decline of the family farm and the predominace of large grain farms and other monocultural farms eliminated the mixed agriculture that formerly had predominated in the area of Brooks.
Although the local history of Red Lake County blames the National Farm Organization or NFO for organizing farmers to cooperative actions in withholding milk shipments, the reality is that Brooks Cheese Company could not compete with the major industrial cheese manufacturers and the development of agribusiness which portended the demise of the family farm. Today (in 2006), one would be hard pressed to find a dairy cow anywhere within thirty miles of Brooks, whereas at one time virtually every quarter section could be counted on for the cream produced by 10 or 15 cows. Nonetheless, Brooks continues to be the site of an agricultural supply business, a gas station, and several other local businesses, as well as two churches.
[edit] Sources
Red Lake County Historical Society, Inc., A History of Red Lake County: Red Lake County, Minnesota (Taylor Publishing Co., Dallas, Texas, 1976), at pp. 98-103.
