clay county histories
clay county histories
Ralph’s Corner Bar: The Exhibit
Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC
markus.krueger@hcsmuseum.org
Our museum’s major new exhibit about Ralph’s Corner Bar opens on November 15. For those who don’t know, Ralph’s was a neighborhood bar that was demolished by order of the City of Moorhead in 2005 for a downtown redevelopment project. It wasn’t an ordinary bar, though. It was – all at the same time – a working class bar, a punk bar, a sanctuary for misfits, a bar where professors and students drank together, a bar where people could be openly gay in an intolerant time, and a bar where you could bring your dog. For certain “underground” musicians (a fuzzy definition that lumps together everything from punks to hardcore rockers to experimentalists) Ralph’s was the oasis on the Northern Plains that offered a place to play for gas money between Missoula and Minneapolis. Ralph’s was the Fargo-Moorhead metro area’s oldest bar, serving drinks since 1890 (yes, even during Prohibition). And yet, like James Dean or Kurt Cobain, it was taken from us in its prime.
I was at George Washington’s house once. I was surprised that so much of his stuff still exists! Even in his lifetime, everyone knew Washington was a man of historic importance, so people saved everything he owned or touched. As we build this exhibit, I see the same thing with Ralph’s. This bar meant so much to so many people from different walks of life that we can’t hold all the artifacts people saved. Countless bars have closed in Moorhead over the past 150 years, but I think our historical society only as a swizzle stick to remind us of the Pink Pussycat. This exhibit brings together about half of the furniture from Ralph’s! We have more band posters than can fit on the walls, more local band T-shirts than we can hang, hours of concert footage, and a stack of photos probably half as tall as me.
But the most important things we have collected are the stories. Our museum partnered with local businesses to hold two Ralph’s History Harvests: one at the old Kirby’s bar (thanks to Rustica and RiverZen) and the other at Junkyard Brewing Co/1st Ave Promo/Sol Ave Kitchen. We brought our tech there to scan photos and document artifacts while we recorded interviews with dozens of people. Jacinta Zens and Todd Holdman recorded interviews with old friends in the music scene. We have over 40 official recorded interviews, and that doesn’t even count all the stories we are getting from informal conversations, emails, phone calls, and social media messages. Their words wrote the exhibit text.
The exhibit explores the friendships and family that develop in great American dive bars. It looks at the punk music that played in Ralph’s back room as an important part of our community’s musical history. Maybe most of all, the exhibit is an opportunity for people to sit in the old Ralph’s booths again and listen to stories that will make then laugh, cry, and remember.
Markus Krueger | Program Director HCSCC
Our museum’s major new exhibit about Ralph’s Corner Bar opens on November 15. For those who don’t know, Ralph’s was a neighborhood bar that was demolished by order of the City of Moorhead in 2005 for a downtown redevelopment project. It wasn’t an ordinary bar, though. It was – all at the same time – a working class bar, a punk bar, a sanctuary for misfits, a bar where professors and students drank together, a bar where people could be openly gay in an intolerant time, and a bar where you could bring your dog. For certain “underground” musicians (a fuzzy definition that lumps together everything from punks to hardcore rockers to experimentalists) Ralph’s was the oasis on the Northern Plains that offered a place to play for gas money between Missoula and Minneapolis. Ralph’s was the Fargo-Moorhead metro area’s oldest bar, serving drinks since 1890 (yes, even during Prohibition). And yet, like James Dean or Kurt Cobain, it was taken from us in its prime.
I was at George Washington’s house once. I was surprised that so much of his stuff still exists! Even in his lifetime, everyone knew Washington was a man of historic importance, so people saved everything he owned or touched. As we build this exhibit, I see the same thing with Ralph’s. This bar meant so much to so many people from different walks of life that we can’t hold all the artifacts people saved. Countless bars have closed in Moorhead over the past 150 years, but I think our historical society only as a swizzle stick to remind us of the Pink Pussycat. This exhibit brings together about half of the furniture from Ralph’s! We have more band posters than can fit on the walls, more local band T-shirts than we can hang, hours of concert footage, and a stack of photos probably half as tall as me.
But the most important things we have collected are the stories. Our museum partnered with local businesses to hold two Ralph’s History Harvests: one at the old Kirby’s bar (thanks to Rustica and RiverZen) and the other at Junkyard Brewing Co/1st Ave Promo/Sol Ave Kitchen. We brought our tech there to scan photos and document artifacts while we recorded interviews with dozens of people. Jacinta Zens and Todd Holdman recorded interviews with old friends in the music scene. We have over 40 official recorded interviews, and that doesn’t even count all the stories we are getting from informal conversations, emails, phone calls, and social media messages. Their words wrote the exhibit text.
The exhibit explores the friendships and family that develop in great American dive bars. It looks at the punk music that played in Ralph’s back room as an important part of our community’s musical history. Maybe most of all, the exhibit is an opportunity for people to sit in the old Ralph’s booths again and listen to stories that will make then laugh, cry, and remember.