Roots & Riddles

Unearthing forgotten chapters from Fillmore County, Minnesota, Roots and Riddles shares true tales that shaped the county—from vanished towns and courtroom mysteries to old letters and lost voices. Hosts Preston and Lenora dive into the stories your grandparents heard once… but never wrote down.

Roots & Riddles is a history podcast hosted by Legacy Lane Genealogy, with 54 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Legacy Lane Genealogy hosts Roots & Riddles, a history show with 54 episodes published.

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  Episode #55

  The Professor of Fountain

  Aug 19, 202622 minS1

  Calvin Siscoe Powers was never just one thing. Before settling in Fillmore County, he worked as a marble cutter, sculptor, newspaper publisher, lecturer, and traveling phrenologist. In Fountain, he became a businessman, hall owner, editor, politician—and, in 1877, the inventor of a patented electro-vapor bath designed to combine steam, medicated vapor, and electrical treatment inside one elaborate wooden cabinet. Newspapers remembered him as “the Professor,” a forceful speaker with a colorful personality, a talent for attracting both admiration and ridicule, and an almost endless appetite for new ventures. He later served Fillmore County in the Minnesota Senate and continued operating businesses in Fountain and Preston. In this episode, Preston and Lenora explore the extraordinary life of Calvin S. Powers: the sculptor who became a phrenologist, the publisher who entered politics, the inventor behind one of Fillmore County’s strangest patents, and the man whose final months were shadowed by the tragic death of his young grandson. This is the story of the Professor of Fountain. Sources Sources for this episode include Calvin S. Powers’s 1877 U.S. patent for an improved electro-vapor bath; an 1871 profile in The Phrenological Journal ; the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library; and contemporary reports from the Preston Times , Preston Republican , Chatfield Democrat , Western Progress , and The People’s Press .

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  Episode #54

  The Boy Behind Spring Valley’s Captive Farm Story

  Aug 12, 202627 minS1

  In the spring of 1952, seventeen-year-old Don Haugen was preparing to graduate from Spring Valley High School while carrying burdens few of his classmates could see. He worked exhausting hours on a farm west of town, attended school in worn clothing, and watched as his father, Elling Haugen, became increasingly thin, weak, and desperate. Then Elling fled the farm and told authorities he had been held captive and nearly starved for five years. The allegations drew newspaper attention across Minnesota, prompted an FBI investigation, and placed Don—still living on the farm—at the center of a deeply personal public scandal. Decades later, Don described those years in his memoir, Mom, Dad, Lawrence and Me . His account does not offer a simple answer to the accusations. Instead, it reveals what it was like to be a teenager caught between conflicting adults, questioned by investigators, separated from his father, and forced to face his classmates while his family’s story appeared in the headlines. In this episode, Preston and Lenora look beyond the sensational “farm captive” story to explore Don Haugen’s experience of poverty, humiliation, family trauma, and survival in 1950s Spring Valley—and the complicated historical record left behind by those who lived through it.

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  Episode #53

  Lanesboro’s Bridge of Miracles

  Aug 5, 202621 minS1

  What if one bridge became so notorious that a newspaper devoted an entire article to its unbelievable history? In 1894, The Lanesboro Journal called the railroad bridge on the east edge of town “A Scene of Famous Accidents.” The stories sound almost impossible to believe: a caboose hurled from the trestle with every passenger surviving, a young couple hanging beneath the bridge as a speeding train passed overhead, a woman forced to leap twenty feet to save her life, and horses outrunning—or even jumping from—the bridge only to walk away unharmed. Were these stories exaggerated over time, or did one small bridge truly earn a reputation unlike any other in Minnesota? Join Preston and Lenora as they uncover the remarkable history of Lanesboro’s most infamous railroad bridge and the extraordinary accidents that made it a local legend.

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  Episode #52

  The Mabel Farmer Who Vanished

  Jul 29, 202620 minS1

  A head injury. A brand-new automobile. A trail that suddenly goes cold. In March 1928, 37-year-old Mabel farmer Harry Goelberg set out to buy a new car in La Crosse. Along the way, he was involved in two automobile accidents, traveled more than 150 unexplained miles, and was last seen walking along a road between Lewiston and Stockton. Then… he vanished. For weeks, family, friends, law enforcement, and newspapers searched for answers. Some believed a blow to the head had left Harry confused and wandering. Others struggled to explain his strange behavior in the days leading up to his disappearance—including an unusual confrontation over a slot machine in downtown Mabel. What really happened during Harry Goelberg’s final days? And why did one of Fillmore County’s most puzzling missing person cases end not with answers, but with even more questions? Join Preston and Lenora as they retrace Harry’s final journey through Mabel, La Crosse, Winona, and Lake Pepin in search of the truth behind a mystery that has endured for nearly a century.

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  Episode #51

  The Girl Who Vanished From Hamilton

  Jul 22, 202637 minS1

  How does a young woman simply disappear… and almost no one remembers? This week on Roots & Riddles , Preston and Lenora investigate one of Fillmore County’s oldest unsolved mysteries: Matilda McQuillan. Census records prove she was living with her family near Hamilton through 1865. By 1870, she was gone. Later family traditions claimed she had been kidnapped by Native Americans, but the surviving accounts don’t all agree—and no contemporary record has yet been found to confirm what happened. Together, we’ll follow the paper trail through census records, family letters, local histories, and the turbulent years following the Dakota War to separate documented fact from generations of family lore. Was Matilda kidnapped? Did she marry and disappear under a new name? Did tragedy strike on the Minnesota frontier? Or is the truth still waiting to be uncovered? More than 160 years later, one question remains: What happened to Matilda McQuillan?

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