Oct. 16—BEMIDJI — When Maurice and Ella Ross started their retail business in a converted school bus parked on the south shore of Lake Bemidji, they combined parts of their first names and called it Morell's Trading Post.

That was in 1946. After two relocations and two family ownership changes, Morell's is celebrating its 75th anniversary in downtown Bemidji with a banner year in sales.

"It's just been going great guns all year," said owner Roxi Mann. "This is our best year ever. I just keep thanking my lucky stars."

The store is a popular destination for tourists and locals, selling Minnetonka moccasins, jewelry, pottery, beads, birch bark items, clothing, Native American art and souvenirs.

"It's a little bit of everything," Mann said. "You couldn't make it on any one thing. You just have to keep that mix."

Keeping it in the family

After two years in business, the original owners moved from that school bus to the former Lake Shore Hotel at Second Street and Bemidji Avenue. The old hotel had a colorful history — some say the upstairs rooms were haunted.

Lyle and Phyllis Wolter bought the store from the Rosses in 1973. The building was torn down in the 1980s, forcing Morell's to move one block north to its current location.

"That old building was not well cared for," Roxi Mann said. "It had a reputation of entertaining loggers. A lot of the old employees who worked in the old building will stop by and they always want to chat and share their experiences. Some of them say, 'Oh yeah, the second floor was haunted.'"

Mann's parents, Ade and Evelyn, bought Morell's in 1990. Ade was an insurance salesman for many years, and when his company asked him to move to North Dakota, he decided to stay in Bemidji and look for another job.

"Lyle (Wolter) talked to my dad and said he was ready to retire," Roxi said. "My folks bought it; it was never on the market."

After running the store for a few years, Ade and Evelyn started thinking about retirement, so they asked their three daughters if one of them had any interest in joining the family business.

Roxi was living in New Mexico, working as a registered nurse. "I was getting burned out on nursing," she said. "I had done it for over 20 years at that point. I said, 'Yeah, I can do that. If I forget to order something, nobody's going to die. If I miss something, nobody's going to die.'"

She moved back in 1995 and worked alongside her parents until they retired in 2000.

Community connection

Mann said Morell's has been able to thrive in a changing retail landscape by being nimble.

"I think I had an advantage of not knowing anything about (retail) when I started," she said. "I had no business background. I had worked in retail for all of three months. Back when we started we would order in September for the entire next summer. All the salesmen would come to us. They'd bring all their wares and we would order and things would come in over the winter. We would be jam-packed full in the spring, ready to go.

"I kept that up until the recession in 2008-09. Then I started getting things from companies that could get me stuff quickly. So I wouldn't have to keep as much inventory on hand. You have to order stuff that you wouldn't necessarily buy, but other people would. You can make some really wrong choices, and you can make some really right choices. So it helped to just have little bits of things and see how people reacted to them before you made big orders."

Mann credits much of the recent success to Manager Thressa Foster, whose Native American background helps connect with many customers.

"When I wanted to start going south in the winter I hired Thressa," Mann said. "She is part of the Native community, so she really has had her finger on what people are looking for, and we've expanded that. She'd done a really good job with that. It's bringing more and more people in from all kinds of places. The big bead outlet in Duluth has closed, so we're having people coming from Fond du Lac over here for beads."

Mann is proud of her store's 75-year legacy and its downtown presence.

"I think we're really lucky to have this Bemidji downtown," she said. "It has always been thriving. Sure, businesses come and go. And they're going to. It's a draw. It's not just a business here and a business there. People can spend a whole afternoon just taking in all the places."

She takes time each spring to visit other similar downtown businesses for a couple of reasons.

"We all bring in new stuff," she said. "We all have access to some of the same things. I like to let people have their unique things and not be ordering the same thing. Part of my plan with that was to make sure if somebody's looking for something, if I know where they can find it, I'm going to tell them. There's enough business for all of us."

Customers have shown appreciation for that kind of welcome and assistance.

"We still have people coming in thanking us for being here," Mann said.