Oslo and Anders Mordt
Mordt migrated to the United States in 1904. His background in law and his land company (Anders L. Mordt Land Company) provided the funding for this venture. Founded in 1908, this settlement began much later than the other Texas settlements during a later wave of Norwegian immigration. Mordt put a lot of money into advertisements in Norwegian-American publications like Decorah-posten, Skandinaven, and Lutheranen, which ran frequently to try to attract more settlers. Mordt dreamed of making Oslo, Texas, the Norwegian capital of the United States.
Attracting Settlers
By this time, there were more established Norwegian-American institutions that could provide more legitimacy to these Norwegian settlements, primarily in the Midwest. In response to these advertisements, representatives from the United Norwegian Lutheran Church came to inspect and see if Oslo was fit for Norwegians to settle in. Approving of what they saw, Norwegian church services were then arranged for, including planned excursions traveling to Texas to try and attract more settlers. The main emphasis of these excursions was that the Oslo settlement was specifically for Norwegians.Mordt also created Oslo Posten, the only Norwegian language newspapers in the Texas panhandle. The newspaper mostly described activities in the area causing some critics to complain about the newspaper advertisements about Oslo. They claimed that they were misleading and that Oslo was not everything it was made out to be. Mordt himself began to feel more pessimistic and anxious about the future of Oslo because of the criticism circulating in the Midwest.
Mordt’s anxiousness also stemmed from “the precarious financial condition of [his] company… It had been on the verge of bankruptcy for more than a year…The central problem was a constant shortage of cash. Mordt had heavy and on-going expenses... Several hundred dollars were required each month just to meet advertising bills, not to mention all the incidental expenses associated with each excursion...Increasingly, however, buyers who had made down payments were failing to meet the next installment. Often these persons were nonresidents of Oslo who apparently were having second thoughts about moving to Texas because of the controversies about Mordt and the settlement's prospects... The controversy over the accuracy of Mordt's advertisements in Lutheraneren had badly damaged the company's reputation... If he was going to salvage his business, he needed to still the criticism circulating in the Midwest. But this he was unable to do." (Petersen, pg. 149-150)
Downfall
Rainfall became an issue, as people began to notice that there was not as much rainfall as had been advertised in the newspaper, nor as much was needed for good crops. In the summer of 1913, a drought devastated the area – a huge blow to the morale of the settlers and Anders Mordt. Oslo quickly became a fruitless endeavor only five years after its founding. Peter L. Petersen describes that "for Mordt, the onset of drought was a devastating and ultimately final blow. On July 3, 1913, he informed Grevstad that there had been no rain at Oslo for nearly two months. 'You know how I believed in this country, how I, in fact, like it and you may even say love it,' he said, 'but this moment is one of those in which even the greatest optimist must give in to the influence of circumstances... It is summer and as far as fodder and crops are concerned and even the prairies, it might as well be winter.'” (Petersen, pg. 151)The drought continued. The Guymon Herald reported “record-breaking temperatures, including 112 degrees one day in mid-July.” By the end of summer Mordt told Grevstad that agricultural conditions in Oslo were a “total failure... I have no money and no business…In a month or so I expect to go "bankrupt."... It is no use for me to fight any further. The fighting has gone on too long as it is.” When Mordt left Oslo, it marked the end of the town, Oslo Posten, and eventually the building of the Denver and Gulf Railroad Company. Surprisingly, this did not mean the end of movement to the area. Several families who purchased land earlier were just now moving. However, the amount leaving Oslo was far higher.
Petersen states that “the four years following Mordťs withdrawal were especially difficult ones for the Norwegian farmers of Hansford County. Rainfall remained inadequate and crops were short. Many people grew discouraged and left, some returning to their old homes in the Middle West or moving on to the Pacific Northwest. But others bided their time and waited for conditions to improve. The approximately thirty families that remained formed a tightly knit rural community with the Lutheran church at its center. Relatively isolated by the lack of good roads and the absence of any sizable town near the settlement, Oslo retained much of its ethnic character well into the 1930s. Norwegian continued to be used in many of the homes and during services and social gatherings at the church. But the development in the late 1920s of the town of Gruver and its accompanying school eighteen miles to the southeast - along with the improvement of highway travel - brought about gradual assimilation." (Petersen, pg. 152-153)
Oslo is a great case study of what happened to many Norwegian settlements and why they were not successful long-term. Although they tried to publicize what was going on in Oslo, the conditions ultimately led to the downfall of the short-lived settlement. Though this instance happened later than the other primary settlements in Texas, the same fate befell them. Texas was not the same haven for Norwegian settlers that states like Minnesota and Wisconsin became due to land conditions not being all they were chalked up to be.
Sources to explore:
Oslo on the Texas High Plains by Peter L. Petersen