DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Oslo Community, out here in Hansford County. Now settle in, because this is one of those stories where a man looks at a stretch of open Texas panhandle and decides — against all reasonable odds — to build a little piece of Norway on it. In 1908, Anders L.
Mordt, a native of Norway, secured from R. M. Thomson and R.
T. Anderson the sales rights to one hundred sections of Hansford County land. He named it Oslo.
Right there, before a single settler had arrived, before a single plow had turned a furrow, the man gave his dream a name. That takes a certain kind of confidence. Or maybe something bolder.
Mordt didn't look to the nearest town for buyers. He went to the Norwegian colonies already established across the midwestern United States and said, come on down to Texas. And to cast his net even wider, he advertised his inexpensive Texas land in major Norwegian language publications across the nation.
He also published a weekly newspaper — The Oslo Posten — because if you're going to build a town, you'd better give it something to talk about. And then there was the celebration. Mordt organized an annual Norwegian Independence Day gathering, Syttende Mai — that's the seventeenth of May — and it drew crowds from surrounding towns in Oklahoma and Texas both.
Picture that: the flat open panhandle sky, fiddles and familiar voices, people traveling from two states over to stand together on a date that meant something deep and old. Community worship services came to the Oslo schoolhouse in 1909, conducted by the Reverend Christian Heltne. The following year, the Oslo Lutheran Church was officially organized, and it became the very center of that farming settlement.
The church was the heartbeat. But here's where the story turns, the way Texas stories have a habit of doing. Mordt's land sales ended in 1913 as a result of a severe drought.
The land that had looked so promising had a way of making its own terms clear. And then the Denver and Gulf Railroad decided to bypass the area entirely, and when a railroad bypasses you out on the panhandle, the townsite — sitting two and a half miles south — began to decline. Many settlers moved away.
The dream, at least in its grandest form, scattered with the dust. But more than thirty families remained. They stayed.
And today, the Oslo Lutheran Church still stands as a reminder of the area's Norwegian heritage — one congregation holding the memory of a man who looked at a hundred sections of Texas and heard, in his mind, the sound of home.
What the marker says
In 1908 Anders L. Mordt, a native of Norway, secured form R. M. Thomson and R. T. Anderson the sales rights to 100 sections of Hansford County land he named Oslo. The first settlers were recruited from existing Norwegian colonies in the midwestern United States. To promote the development, Mordt advertised his inexpensive Texas land in major Norwegian language publications across the nation. He also published a weekly newspaper, The "Oslo Posten", and organized an annual Norwegian Independence Day celebration, "Syttende Mai" (May 17), which attracted crowds from surrounding towns in Oklahoma and Texas. Community worship services were first conducted at the Oslo schoolhouse in 1909 by the Rev. Christian Heltne. Officially organized the following year, the Olso Lutheran Church became the center of the farming settlement. Mordt's land sales ended in 1913 as a result of a severe drought. When the Denver and Gulf Railroad decided to bypass the area, the townsite of Oslo (2.5 miles south) declined. Although many settlers moved away, more than thirty families remained. Today the Olso Lutheran Church serves as a remainder of the area's Norwegian heritage. (1981)