Horace T. Stickney called it a "depressed place." When he purchased the parcel along the Cross River in 1921, the land bore the scars of the Schroeder Lumber Company's operations -- a burned landscape dotted with a bunkhouse, a superintendent's house, a shed, and an office building. The logging era had stripped the North Shore and moved on. What Stickney built in its place became something the loggers never imagined: a Tudor Revival inn with half-timbered gables, stone fireplaces, and indoor bathrooms, perched on Minnesota's Highway 61 near the west bank of the Cross River. That building, constructed in 1929 after his first store burned to the ground, now houses the Cross River Heritage Center -- a museum operated by the Schroeder Area Historical Society that collects and interprets the history of this stretch of Lake Superior's North Shore.
Stickney's first attempt at commerce on the Cross River lasted until a gas stove malfunctioned during food preparation and burned his 1922 store to the ground. The setback proved fortuitous for architecture. Local artisans and an unnamed architect helped Stickney design a replacement far more ambitious than the original. The new structure featured prominent half-timbered gables in the Tudor Revival style -- an unlikely sight on the rugged North Shore. The Cook County News Herald reported on June 6, 1929, that the Stickney Inn offered bedrooms, a large dining room, a confectionary, and a store. The first floor held a grocery, a kitchen, a post office, a dining room, and a living room anchored by a large stone fireplace. Seven tourist bedrooms on the second floor accommodated fifteen to twenty guests. It was one of the first buildings in Schroeder to have indoor bathrooms -- a detail that surprised visiting author Florence Page Jacques when she stayed there on November 13, 1942, noting the inn's three modern bathrooms and its snug, airtight construction.
A small sign on Highway 61 advertised the Stickney Store and Cabins, and that was enough. By 1930, Stickney had built the first log cabin behind the inn overlooking the Cross River. A Minnesota tourism pamphlet soon described the growing property as "Stickney's Resort." By 1936, eight cabins offered views of the river and the shores of Lake Superior. The Northland Bus Depot maintained a stop at the inn throughout the 1940s and 1950s, making it a waypoint on one of Minnesota's most scenic routes. Guests came for the hikes, the trout fishing, and games of horseshoes. The inn's living room held a piano used for songfests and dancing. During the winter of 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps established its North Shore headquarters at the inn, and CCC workers fanned out to construct telephone lines, truck roads, thirty bridges, three dams, and sixteen Forest Service buildings across the region.
The story of the building is also a family story spanning three generations. Horace and Nell Stickney ran the inn until 1955, when they sold it to Horace's nephew, Harry Stickney Lamb. Harry and his wife Doris Mae had moved to Schroeder in December 1954. After Harry became postmaster, the inn was renamed Lamb's Resort. In the early 1950s, the Erie Mining Company began building a taconite loading facility south of the resort, and Harry struck a deal to supply groceries to the ore carriers -- a reminder that the North Shore economy kept reinventing itself, from logging to tourism to mining. The third generation took over in 1965 when Harry's son Horace "Skip" Lamb and his wife Linda purchased the property. In 1976, they separated the original inn from the resort, moved the post office into a vacant Pure Oil station, and sold the inn to Bill and Gloria Jordon, who renamed it the Cross River General Store.
The building's most dramatic chapter came in 1998, when the Minnesota Department of Transportation purchased and condemned it to make way for highway repairs and bridge replacement. The Stickney Inn, which had weathered fire, economic shifts, and generational change, faced demolition by bureaucratic necessity. The Schroeder Area Historical Society intervened, persuading MnDOT to transfer the building's title to Schroeder Township rather than raze it. With secured funding and volunteer labor, the historical society restored the structure and opened the Cross River Heritage Center in 2002. Today the museum collects artifacts, photographs, and stories from the broader North Shore community. The half-timbered gables that an unnamed architect designed in the late 1920s still face Highway 61, housing not groceries or tourist rooms but the layered memory of a place that has been logged, rebuilt, visited, sold, condemned, and saved.
Located at 47.543°N, 90.897°W in Schroeder, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior along Highway 61. The Cross River empties into Lake Superior here, creating a small bay visible from altitude. The Tudor Revival building sits on the south side of Highway 61 near the river's west bank. Nearest airport is Grand Marais/Cook County Airport (KCKC) approximately 25 nm northeast. Duluth International Airport (KDLH) lies roughly 85 nm southwest. The Highway 61 corridor follows the lakeshore and provides an excellent visual reference. Best viewed from 2,000-3,000 feet AGL while following the coastline. The Cross River bridge and the small cluster of Schroeder buildings are identifiable landmarks.