A man of diverse interests and talents, Ellsworth D. Childs was a farmer, city councilman, businessman, entrepreneur, church planter, village planter, and writer. As all of these, and more, he profoundly influenced the development of the city of Crookston.
E. D. Childs wrote his own story for the Compendium of History and Biography of Polk County, published in 1916. His family moved to Pierce County, Wisconsin, from Massachusetts in 1856. It was there that Ellsworth took over the family farm when his father died in 1864.
In the Compendium, Childs describes his first visit to the small village of Crookston in 1877 and his decision in that year to form a firm of developers with W. G. Lytle and James Hill, both of Wisconsin. These men contracted to buy 10,000 acres of land in Polk County at a cost of $2.50 an acre. The land the firm purchased was part of the grant given to the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, later reorganized under railroad magnate James J. Hill as the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba Railway.
Moving with his wife Eliza (McLorinan) and children to Crookston in 1878, Childs established a farm machinery business and brought the first shipment of wagons and combine harvesters to the area.
Childs then formed a new firm—Sterrett, Hill, and Childs—and began building a line of elevators in northwestern Minnesota. These elevators would serve the farmers who flocked to the area after Hill brought his railway up the Minnesota side of the Red River Valley.
In the early days of Crookston, it was unclear exactly where the railroad would establish a town site. Childs, who owned his acreage across the river from Crookston in Andover Township, hoped that the railroad company would choose to center its business there, just one mile south of Crookston.
Childs began to plat a new town on his land. He named it “Carman,” after a Baptist missionary to India whom he supported. In the early 1880s, Carman competed with Crookston for the business of the area. It boasted a post office, Childs’ own general store, a Baptist Church, saloons, and hotels. Believing a good water supply would entice farmers to the area, Childs also established two artesian wells in Carman.
After Crookston became a headquarters for the Great Northern Railway, Carman was incorporated into the city of Crookston, becoming the fifth ward in 1887. After this, Childs served as an alderman on the city council. Sometimes described as contentious by the local papers, Childs continued to fight for the interests of the fifth ward and frequently wrote letters to the editor of the local paper explaining his views.
One of Childs’ major accomplishments occurred in 1883, when he persuaded T. B. Walker of Minneapolis to build a sawmill in Carman along the Red Lake River. He donated twenty acres of his own land for the mill. The business created hundreds of lumber-industry jobs that brought stability to the young town.
In 1886, Childs presided over a four-county drainage conference sponsored by James J. Hill. As a result of this conference, with Hill’s financial and political backing, the Red River Valley received a much-needed drainage ditch.
By 1881, Childs had left the elevator business and devoted his energy to farming. Believing in the value of diversification, he established a large dairy farm, cheese factory, and creamery in Carman and dominated the milk trade in Crookston. He specialized in prime Jersey and Holstein cows. In an 1899 edition of the Polk County Journal, Childs wrote an in-depth article about the advent of silos. He emphasized their usefulness in storing forage plants—particularly corn—for feeding his animals. Childs also helped to found the Baptist and Methodist Churches in both Carman and Crookston.
Eliza Childs died in 1904. Shortly thereafter, Childs sold his dairy farm and creamery business for $20,000 and sold off all of his other holdings in Crookston. He stated that this was necessary to help pay off a large debt incurred by one of his business partners.
Childs and his children moved to the Yakima Valley in Washington in 1907. He died there in 1927.