Category: Rutland Community Club

Record Crowd at Uffda Day 1997

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A record crowd participated in the 13th annual Uffda Day on Sunday, October 5. Co-chaired by Bea Faust, Kathy Brakke and Earl Cramton.

The kickoff event was the parade of more than 65 units including the Viking Shrine Club ship, tractors from the Wild Rice Antique Tractor Plowing Association. Miss North Dakota Roxana Saberi, Miss Sargent County Katie Lubbers, and Miss Rutland Monica Wyum led the parade. Visitors from Norway, Holland, Canada, Georgia, Oregon, California and Indiana joined with local folks and visitors to enjoy the parade and other activities.

Auto buffs exhibited their beautifully restored classic and antique automobiles at the Kulzer Farm Supply lot on Main Street. The Norse Folk Dancing Club from the Bismarck Sons of Norway Lodge participated in the parade and put on several folk dancing performances during the afternoon.

During the day the crowd consumed 4,500 lefse as well as a prodigious quantity of sandbakkels, krumkake, rosettes and other Scandinavian fare, while others enjoyed the scalloped potatoe dinner at the Hall.

More than 250 guests signed the visitors book at the Depot Museum and Pioneer House. Crafters and vendors displayed and sold their wares throughout town. Bill and Lance Gulleson were engineers and conductors on the Uffda train, while Dennis Narum, State Senator Jerome Kelsh, Alvin McLaen, and Clayton McLaen provided horse-drawn wagon and carriage rids for kids and adults throughout the day.

Doris Ann Narum had reported years ago that one of her Uffda Day notebooks had been ‘borrowed’ by someone attending Uffda Day in the 1990s. There is no trace of photographs for Uffda Day for the last three years of the 1990s. If you have found the album in your family belongings, feel free to drop it off at Uffda Day this year so that the Rutland Community Club can reclaim the history that has been lost.

ND Collector’s Plates on Display at Uffda Day 1995

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A large and exuberant crowd, estimated at 3,500, gathered in Rutland, Sunday, October 1, 1995, for the 11th annual Uffda Day. The weatherman cooperated by providing a beautiful Sunday. The 50 unit parade at noon kicked off the day’s events. Auto buffs exhibited their prized possessions in the classic car show and antique tractors plowed in farming demonstrations on the southwest corner of town.

Attendees enjoyed a scalloped potato dinner at City Hall and a lunch at the Senior Center both while being entertained by a variety of musicians throughout the day. The Rutland Depot Museum was open for visitors to browse and Maudie, the cook, baked muffins and bread in the wood-burning cookstove at the Pioneer House.

The North Dakota Collector’s Plate for 1995 featured the Great Northern Railroad Depot in Rutland. The blue-and-white china plate series started back in 1972 and each year a different ND landmark was showcased starting with a plate commemorating Fort McKean. Fort Totten to Hatton’s Eielson Museum to the Red River Steamboat in Wahpeton had been on prior issues. The entire collection was displayed at the Museum for Uffda Day. Danene McLaen’s painting of the Great Northern Railroad depot graced the 1995 plate and the plates were available for purchase from Danene at her shop Designs by Danene for $25.00. The 1995 plate remains on display at the Depot Museum.

Earl Cramton was the engineer and conductor on the Uffda Day train. Dennis Narum, State Senator Jerome Kelsh and Alvin McLaen provided horse-drawn carriage rides for kids and adults throughout the day.

  • Cafe open for business
  • Classic car show
  • Vendors
  • Vendors
  • Vendors in the new fire hall
  • Fry bread & more
  • Fresh lefse
  • Milford & Lorraine Haaland & Lloyd Correll

Uffda Day 1986

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In March of 1986, the Rutland Community Club (RCC) designated the second Saturday in October of each year for Uffda Day, committing to the event for years to come. The RCC now could plan further in advance instead of pulling the event together in two months as they did in 1985. The second annual Uffda Day was held October 18, 1986. Kickoff was, again, at 1 p.m. and for only four short hours crafters demonstrated their art and rides were a big hit. This year more food options were added including abelskievers for the first time. Rosettes were available at the Insurance building and rommegrot at the Post Office. Antique quilts were on display at the Baptist Church and antique machinery could be seen around town. A Scandinavian smorgasbord started at 5:30p.m. with advance tickets for the supper and dance for only $5.50. Those who missed out on advance tickets had to purchase tickets at the door $3.50 for the supper and $3.00 for the dance. The meal included Swedish meatballs, boiled potatoes, peas and carrots, sweet soup, a relish tray, rommegrot, lefse and “assorted Norwegian cookies”. A 25-member band and dance group from Norway, The Fjellklang Spelemannslag, was the evening entertainment with a concert followed by a dance.

  • Crafters
  • Rev. Myron Reed at the potters wheel
  • Janet Kiefer, right, demonstrating hardanger
  • Norma Brekke demonstrating crafts
  • Phyllis Bogart at the spinning wheel, Patti Carlen bottom
  • Lots of rides and riders
  • Evelyn Hermanson, top, and Phyllis Sjothun, dinner help
  • Cal Jacobson, Mitch Mahrer, Joe Mahlstrom cooking abelskievers. Janice Christensen keeps the batter coming.
  • Quilt Show
  • Rommegrat at the PO (Casper Syverson, red sweater, Izetta Colvin, standing). Rosettes (Sharon Pearson & Donetta Hoistad)at the Insurance building.
  • More rides

The Burger is Back!

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The burger is back. That’s right folks – and I’m not talking about the McDonald’s Quarter Pounder. The Rutland griddle is back in its glory with a fresh coat of paint after spending most of 2024 as a plain black canvas. The first time the grill was painted was in 1985 when one side of the grill was erected at Sanderson Field, and it has been repainted several times. The Rutland Community Club had been working with a local printer to make a canvas to cover the grill as a more permanent solution, but that option fell through. The Community Club found a rostered artist with the ND Council on the Arts who was available to do the work. Marcus Tracy, a visual artist, muralist and teaching artist, spent only a few days in Rutland to complete the burger painting.

The Rutland grill at Sanderson Field is one-half of the skillet used to fry the (then) World’s Largest Hamburger in 1982. Each half of the skillet weighed more than a ton and had 201 square feet of grill space. The hamburger itself was 2½” thick and weighed 3,591 lbs. (raw). A homemade burner was used to cook the meat, and it was rolled flat with a 20-ft rolling pin that was also made by Rutland residents. Turning the burger was not a simple job. An identical plate was lowered by crane to the top of the burger, secured, and the burger was turned by crane and the upper plate removed. It took about two and one-half hours to cook the burger that was served to nearly 10,000 people. Be sure to check out the Rutland Centennial video on the City of Rutland, ND, YouTube channel. The burger is featured at about 13:20 in the video feed.

On July 7, 1982, the Guinness Book of Records of London awarded a Record Certificate stating that the “Rutland Community Club of Rutland, North Dakota, USA did break the Largest Beefburger record with a weight of 3,591 lbs. and diameter 16 feet.” The 1983 Guinness Book of World Records, p.325, still listed the Largest Hamburger (made of beef) on record of 3,020 lb. served in 13,083 portions in City Park, Towner, “Cattle Capitol of North Dakota” on June 18, 1981. However, in the Newly Verified Records section at the end of the book listed the “Largest Hamburger. A weight of 3,591 lb was registered for a hamburger 16 ft in diameter and 2½ in thick, made by the Community Club of Rutland, ND.”

There have been other hamburger records since then and even one flipped hamburger in Coral Springs, Florida, in 1988 when they cooked a 5,100 lb. burger on a 40-foot grill (comprised of 8-ft. sections) and firefighters used a crane to turn it one piece at a time onto smaller grills. That event was BYOB (bring your own buns). In my opinion, if they had a category for a flipped hamburger, Rutland would still hold the record!

Rutland Ramblings – Dec. 15, 2023

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Last week’s printed column was incomplete due to the author’s quick exit “out of Dodge” and the error in submitting a draft rather than the finished product for publication. Most of this is now “old news” but there may be a few items that you might want to check again!

Thirty-three people made it in for noon dinner at the Rutland Senior Center on Thursday, November 30. This wasn’t the Christmas or Thanksgiving meal, but it was the last day that Janet Kiefer would be cooking so they came in to make her work hard one last time. Janet retired as the Chief cook and bottle washer at the Rutland Senior Center after more than twenty-five years of serving delicious homemade meals for the seniors. After the main pork dinner, the Rutland Senior Center officers congratulated Janet and presented her with gifts from the Center members and other friends. Everyone enjoyed a beautiful cake with ice cream to end the day.  Janet will be stopping by for coffee of course and says she will attend occasional meals at the center. The new cook, Elizabeth “Liz” Ernst, has been on site for several weeks training to take over the meal service at the Rutland Senior Center. Welcome Liz!

Friday, December 1, was the night to be in Rutland. Finding a seat at The Lariat Bar and Grill was a challenge for the first night of the Bar’s trivia game night. Twenty teams from Rutland, Havana, Forman, and beyond packed the bar for the event. Katie McLaen was the master of ceremonies for the trivia game activity. At the end of four rounds, one team won the challenge with three teams right behind tied for second place. The ages of participants ranged from twenty to over eighty. The questions were challenging, and the entire event was a ton of fun. The next trivia night will be Friday, January 5, starting promptly at 7 p.m. and will continue through March on the first Friday of the month.

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