County Line: Did Bing ever take the Road to Stillwater?

Most people don't know, even in Stillwater, that the mother of the most recorded performer in history — and a Christmas icon to boot — was born there and lived on Main Street.

When they find out, they invariably ask: Did Bing Crosby ever visit Stillwater?

Probably not, based on the lack of records attesting to such a trip and the memories of Bob DeFlores, a film historian from Richfield who spent a day in July 1977 screening vintage movies with Crosby at the entertainer's San Francisco-area mansion.

DeFlores said that Crosby was affable, funny and down-to-earth, often singing to himself snatches of songs that popped into his head.

And he was intrigued by DeFlores' talk of the river town where his mother, Catherine Harrigan, was born in 1873.

"He said that when he got back from Spain, he would love to come up to the Twin Cities and go to Stillwater," DeFlores said. "I told him that the whole town would be elated and welcome him with open arms.

"He said he was very excited about that."

Crosby never got the chance. Three months after visiting with DeFlores, he died of a heart attack in Madrid after finishing a round of golf.

Arguably the most successful 20th-century American entertainer — and a holiday staple owing to his bestselling recording of "White Christmas" and the movie of the same name — Crosby is unjustly underrated today, said local Crosby expert, radio host and jazz singer Arne Fogel.

"He was an earthquake of popularity and influence in American culture," Fogel said.

On Slab Alley

The story started back in 1867, when newlyweds Dennis and Katie Harrigan left New Brunswick for the promising logging community of Stillwater. He found work as a builder, and all seven of their children were born there.

They lived in an area of Stillwater called Slab Alley, a two-block row of mill workers' homes made of slab wood and built against the bluffs, near what is now the Joseph Wolf Brewery, said Brent Peterson, executive director of the Washington County Historical Society.

Not far away was St. Michael's Catholic Church, where Catherine — later called Kate — was baptized in 1873.

The family moved in 1881 to St. Paul, Cloquet, Minn., and then back to St. Paul before following the lumber boom to Tacoma, Wash., in 1888. There Kate met a young bookkeeper for the Northern Pacific Railroad named Harry Crosby, and they got married.

Their fourth son, Harry, was later nicknamed Bing after a local newspaper feature, "The Bingville Bugle," that he enjoyed while growing up in Spokane, Wash.

Biographers say that Kate Crosby was strict, pious and tough with her children, but she encouraged Bing's singing when he was in school and imparted a sense of confidence that helped him weather the slings of show business.

For him, she was a formidable and somewhat mysterious figure. "You know, she'd never tell us what her age was," Crosby told DeFlores.

Crosby wasn't unfamiliar with Minnesota. In "The Bells of St. Mary's," Crosby, playing Father O'Malley, asks Sister Mary Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) where she is from. "I was born in Sweden," she says, "but when I was very small I came to — "

"Don't tell me," O'Malley says. "Minn-e-so-ta?"

"That's right, Father," she replies. "I loved the winter."

Crosby was part of a caravan of Hollywood stars that visited Minneapolis in 1942 to promote war bonds, and he visited St. Paul several times in the 1950s and '60s as a spokesman for the 3M Co.

But he seemed unclear about Stillwater's place in his family history. DeFlores said "he acted like he didn't know" that his mother had been born there, asking how far it was from the Twin Cities.

In a 1977 letter at the Washington County Historical Society, Crosby thanked a Wisconsin genealogist for "very interesting material about Stillwater, Minnesota. … I think my mother was born there."

DeFlores hosted a Crosby film festival at Stillwater's historic courthouse in 2011, but such nods of recognition have been rare.

One of the few remaining ties to Crosby in Stillwater is the Sauntry mansion, featured in Larry Millett's new book on grand Minnesota homes and now a bed-and-breakfast run by Tom and Sandy Lynum.

It was built in 1881 by William Sauntry, a lumber baron who was Catherine Harrigan's cousin.

Tom Lynum said that they keep a copy of Gary Giddins' biography of Crosby, which mentions the Stillwater years, at the Victorian inn to provide some answers when the question comes up.

"If his mother had brought him back to Stillwater for whatever reason, they most likely would have made a call on William Sauntry," Lynum said. "But we don't know whether he was ever back here."

After DeFlores' visit with Crosby, he and Fogel scoured Stillwater and state offices for Harrigan family records and then sent them to Crosby's home in California.

"I believe it got there — the day he died," DeFlores said.

Kevin Duchschere • 651-925-5035