Withrow, Minnesota

? Withrow is an unincorporated community located in the city of Grant, Washington County, Minnesota, United States. Withrow was formally platted in 1914, but it was never incorporated; a petition to incorporate was denied in 1947, since Withrow did not meet the population requirement of fifty inhabitants. the portion that was located in Section2 of Grant Township was absorbed into Grant when it was incorporated as a city in November 1996. A small portion of Withrow existed in Section 31 of May Township; that section contains the Keystone Weddings and Events Center (formerly the Withrow Ballroom) and the cemetery. The Stillwater Area School District, ISD #834, maintained an elementary school at Withrow until 2017.

The settlement was named for Thomas Joshua Withrow. A cooperative creamery was built south of the tracks in 1896, bringing farmers into the area on a daily basis. South of the creamery, the Interstate Lumber Company maintained a machine shop which sold Minnesota Machinery farm equipment made by inmates at the state prison, as well as repair parts and hardware. Interstate Lumber Company also owned a coal shed near the depot. Coal from rail cars would be unloaded in the building, and wagons would be backed up behind the building to pick up an order of coal. Lumber was unloaded at the depot and reloaded on to horse drawn wagons for transport to the lumber yard. By the early 1900s the village had acquired several general stores selling a variety of items including general merchandise, produce, grain, flour, hay rakes, and fresh butchered meats. At the height of its population from 1900 to 1950, Withrow had a baseball team, the Gophers, a Woodmen of the World Camp, a Mothers club, a 4 H club, and a Community Club. The Community Club was the focal point of social activity in Withrow. It was founded in the early 1920s and held monthly meetings. The membership fee included free admission to club sponsored dances at Zahler's Withrow Ballroom. It disbanded in 1949 as residents lost interest. As late as 1978, Withrow also had a Girl Scout troop, #1292, and as late as 2012, a Boy Scout troop, #169. Withrow is a popular destination for bicyclists and motorcyclists. The March of Dimes utilized the old Chevrolet garage at the intersection of Keystone Avenue (formerly Washington County Road68, formerly Washington County Road8) and Washington County Road9 as a checkpoint for their Bike A Thon fundraisers in the 1970s, and many Twin Cities bicycle clubs conduct time trials on a 13 mile (21 km) circuitous route that begins and ends at the former Withrow Elementary School. The Warlords motorcycle club was founded in Withrow in 1972.

Withrow had an official U. S. post office from 1890 to 1963, and a rural branch office from 1963 to 1966. After the fire, Clarence LeRoy Kinyon, who had been the mail carrier, reopened the store and post office, selling hardware, groceries, fabric, and clothing. in 1888, this railroad merged with three others to form the Soo Line Railroad. At one point, the railroad maintained telegraph operators and depot agents 24 hours a day, with at least one permanently assigned depot agent. It was a busy place, with nearly thirty freight trains and passenger trains coming through town daily, and a favorite rest stop for transients riding the rails. The rail crossing at Withrow took a heavy toll of victims over the years. After the creamery closed, the Soo Line bought the building which had housed the butter maker as a residence for the station agent. The number of trains dropped to sixteen in the early 1960s; only four of those were passenger trains, and Withrow became a flag stop. Like many towns dependent on the railroad, Withrow lost much of its industry with the passing of the railroad era. The Soo Line discontinued passenger service to Withrow in 1963. The Canadian National Railway's Dresser Subdivision at Withrow has been taken out of service.

Before 1955, there were three schools located in the Withrow area. Each school was known by a number. School #10, a one room schoolhouse, was on 100th Street and Lansing Avenue North. School #40, another one room schoolhouse, was located on Lynch Road. Withrow Elementary was in the Stillwater Area School District, ISD #834, and served 219 students from kindergarten through sixth grade. A STEM school, it was ranked fourteenth among 842 elementary schools in Minnesota, with specialists in music, physical education, media, and art. In 2012 it was rated a National Blue Ribbon School by the U. S. Department of Education. In December 2015 the Stillwater Area School District, as a part of its Building Opportunities to Learn and Discover (BOLD) program, proposed the closure of Withrow Elementary along with two other elementary schools in the northern part of the school district due to low enrollment, despite the passage of a $97.5million bond earlier that year that would have funded improvements to Withrow Elementary. Parents protested, fearing that placement of students into larger schools and classrooms would result in lower standardized test scores and academic performance, and higher dropout rates, school violence, and bullying. The school district argued that the closures and reallocation of funds were necessary due to population growth in the southern half of the school district. Several legal challenges were filed against the school district, individual school board members, and school district administrators, citing significant conflicts of interest and open meeting violations. Despite these protests and legal challenges, Withrow Elementary was closed on May 31, 2017.

The Kinyon general store had a dance hall on the second floor and held dances on Saturday nights. The couple sold the ballroom to their son, Ed Zahler Sr., in 1946, after managing the place for nearly twenty years. Ed Zahler Sr. received a liquor license for the Withrow Ballroom in 1950. When Mark Babcock purchased the facility, the Withrow Ballroom was a white rectangular box in the middle of a corn field. At that time Washington County had more horses per capita than anywhere else in the country, so Babcock added a gazebo to the property and had the place remodeled to look like a Kentucky horse farm, complete with cupolas on the roof, an arched entrance, and 3,000 feet (914 m) of white fencing. The ballroom was sold to Keith and Kim Warner in 1997, then to Scott and Kimberly Aamodt in 2001. The Aamodts added dance lessons with the concept of expanding the Withrow Ballroom to include a future conference center, motel, bar, and restaurant. The ballroom closed on November 1, 2008, a consequence of the great recession, and the building went into foreclosure. A pending sale of the Withrow Ballroom fell through in February 2009, when prospective owner Molly Behmyer withdrew her application to May township for a conditional use permit, which would have allowed the ballroom to remain open seven days a week. John Rawson of Hugo subsequently formed the non profit Withrow Historical Society in the hope of acquiring and preserving the Withrow Ballroom. In November 2009 Paul Bergmann bought the ballroom and expanded the facility's events to include a dinner theater and classic car and tractor shows, selling the Ballroom at auction in 2017 to Laura Miron Mendele. Lawrence Xiong purchased the facility from Mendele in December 2019, who rebranded the ballroom as the Keystone Wedding and Events Center. Many popular musicians have played at the Withrow Ballroom, including the Six Fat Dutchmen, the Lamont Cranston Band, Bobby Z., and Grammy award winning musicians Yanni and Jonny Lang, in addition to many local bands and comedians, including Kevin Farley. The Withrow Ballroom has hosted the Minnesota Bluegrass and Old Time Music Festival and the Minnesota State Polka Festival. and a venue for conferences, class reunions, wedding receptions, ceremonies and anniversaries.

Withrow is located in the Eastern Broadleaf Forest Province in the ecological subsection of the St. Paul–Baldwin Plains, which consists of oak woodland, oak savanna, and prairie. Oak woodland and brushland was a common ecotonal type between tallgrass prairie and the Eastern deciduous forest. When the area was originally settled, vegetation consisted of oak openings and barrens: scattered areas and groves of oaks (mostly bur oak and pin oak) of scrubby form, with some brush and occasional pines, maples, and basswoods. Land cover today mostly consists of cultivated crops, pasture, and hay, along with scattered deciduous forests of oak and aspen, hazelnut thickets, and prairie openings. A grove of black walnut trees lines the east side of Keystone Avenue at its intersection with County Road9. Brown's Creek has its source near Withrow. The bedrock formations of Washington County at Withrow are part of regionally extensive, gently sloping layers of sandstone, shale, and carbonate rock.

Withrow is in the northern continental United States and is characterized by a cool, subhumid climate with a large temperature difference between the summer and winter seasons. Winters are very cold, and summers are fairly short and warm. Snow covers the ground much of the time from late fall through early spring. Average summer temperatures are approximately June through August, and winter temperatures are approximately December through February. July is the warmest month, when the average high temperature is and the average low is January is the coldest, with an average high temperature of and average low of Its Köppen climate classification is Dfa. Annual normal precipitation ranges from in the north to in the south, and the growing season precipitation averages The average growing season length ranges from 146 to 156 days. It was a newsworthy event whenever the snowplow came through Withrow. Withrow lies at an elevation of 981 feet (299 m) in Washington County, Minnesota, 15 mile (24 km) northeast of St. Paul. The last year Withrow appeared on the Official Minnesota State Highway Map was 2012.