Turner Hall
About this property
The New Ulm Turner Hall or simply Turner Hall (German: Turnhalle) is an 1873 two-story gymnasium, rathskeller, and social club created by German-American Turners who helped settle New Ulm, Minnesota in the mid-nineteenth century. The building is a symbol of the city's founding, its German-American heritage, and a once-common German immigrant organization. According to the New Ulm Chamber of Commerce, the Turner Hall is the oldest bar and gymnasium in Minnesota still in operation. New Ulm, named after Ulm and Neu-Ulm, Germany is an ethnic German exurb and the county seat of Brown County, Minnesota. The city was founded in 1854 by Frederick Beinhorn, William Pfaender, and other German Americans, many of which were Turners, German revolutionaries, Forty-eighters, and adherents to governmental reform, classical liberalism, and federalism. In the United States many German Turners formed associations (German: Vereins) throughout the eastern, midwestern, and western states. Turnvereins were the largest secular German-American organizations within the country in the nineteenth century and held various conventions as a political body. Turners were not only athletic but also political, many of which also acted as sporting clubs, social clubs, hunting clubs, and in times of need, militias. Many of the Germans who settled New Ulm came from Cincinnati which had a large German diaspora, others came from Louisville, Kentucky which also had a large German neighborhood. Many Germans left Ohio and Kentucky after the Bloody Monday riots which killed several German Catholic immigrant families. On his own initiative, Frederick Beinhorn founded the Chicago Land Association and later with William Pfaender created the German Land Association in Chicago which speculated land in Minnesota Territory which eventually became the city of New Ulm. The New Ulm Turnverein was founded on November 11, 1856, the first Turner Hall was erected in New Ulm that same year and finished in late 1856 to early 1857. According to writer Alice Felt Tyler:"The first Turner Hall in New Ulm was built in 1857 as a genuine community enterprise, for the work was done on Sundays and the logs were felled and floated downstream to the sawmill "borrowed" for the occasion. The building was the largest in town, forty by seventy feet, with a small tower at each end. It was used for all Turner activities, for a school until one could be built, and for all varieties of public meetings. The first of many theatrical performances was held there in 1858".During the Dakota War of 1862 the original wooden Turner Hall was burned during the Battles of New Ulm and destroyed. The current hall sits on top of the location of the original 1856 Turner Hall's location.
Location
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Turner Hall listed on the National Register?
Turner Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 31, 1979.
What type of historic resource is Turner Hall?
Turner Hall is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Turner Hall?
The period of significance for Turner Hall is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Turner Hall?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Turner Hall will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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