All of Otter Tail County respected A.J. Underwood
News | Published on September 9, 2025 at 6:44pm GMT+0000 | Author: Tucker Henderson
0By Tom Hintgen
Otter Tail County Correspondent
Volunteering at the Minnesota Newspaper Museum at the 2025 State Fair, next to the 4-H building, was Ben Underwood of Fergus Falls. He wrote a book about his great-great grandfather and Fergus Falls newspaper publisher A.J. Underwood.
In the early 1870s Civil War veteran and newspaper publisher Underwood had the respect of early settlers all across Otter Tail County. So much so that the town of Underwood named its city after A.J. Underwood.
Underwood first farmed just west of the Twin Cities. He was a state legislator who first met George B. Wright, Fergus Falls business developer, at the state capitol in St. Paul. Underwood, who had printing experience as an employee of the St. Paul Pioneer Press, was persuaded by Wright to start a newspaper in Fergus Falls.
For A.J. Underwood, the early years as a newspaper publisher, starting in the early 1870s in Fergus Falls, were not easy ones. “There was stiff competition from other newspapers,” writes Ben Underwood.
The Journal Office was first located on East Lincoln Avenue in downtown Fergus Falls, with the Underwood family living in the upper level of the building. A.J. Underwood was assisted by his son, Benjamin.
They started as a weekly newspaper, later changing to twice a week, three times a week and finally to a daily newspaper starting in 1883, two years after moving to a new location on South Mill Street.
Benjamin later became Daily Journal publisher in his own right. Subsequent publishers were Benjamin’s son, Robert, and Charles Underwood, son of Robert Underwood and the father of book author Ben Underwood.
Noteworthy in Ben Underwood’s book is that the railroad did not come to Fergus Falls until 1879, seven years after the city’s incorporation.
It was a happy day when people could travel by rail from Fergus Falls and ship goods to the Twin Cities along tracks which later became known as the Great Northern route. Shortly thereafter, in 1882, an east-west rail line also ran through Fergus Falls, Underwood, Battle Lake, Henning and others towns in Otter Tail County, becoming the Northern Pacific (N.P.) line.
In 1880 only 1,635 people resided in Fergus Falls. The arrival of rail lines was a big boost to economic growth for all of Otter Tail County.
“Ben’s book is a well-researched portrait of A.J. Underwood, his family and the newspaper he founded in Fergus Falls in 1873,” said Bob Drechsel, former Daily Journal reporter who later served as a journalism professor at the University of Wisconsin.
Adds Chris Schuelke, executive director of the Otter Tail County Historical Society, “Ben Underwood’s riveting account of his great-great grandfather, A.J. Underwood, brings to life the adventuresome spirit of America’s great post-Civil War push west.”
The book about A.J. Underwood and written by Ben Underwood can be purchased at the historical society museum and Lundeens in Fergus Falls, and also online from both locations.