Salem

Salem, on open prairie twelve miles northeast of Victoria, was established in 1910–11 by D. G. Musselman and three other real estate men who organized the Higginson Colonization Company. They advertised the development as Colony City and arranged with the railroads to bring in settlers free of charge. Most of the families came from Ohio, Kansas, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. A multidenominational church and a school were established, and when the post office opened in 1911 the settlers named their community Salem, after the Biblical Salem. Musselman became postmaster after H. E. Stolzfus and operated from his general store and cream-testing station. Farming did not succeed, however, and many people left. Others turned to cattle raising or rice farming, which remain important. The post office closed in the early 1930s, and area children now attend Victoria schools. The estimated population of Salem was ten in 1933 and twenty-five from 1964 to 1990.