Dakota County.

• Hastings. Octagon house. The Norrish house. 301 West 2nd Street. A segment of a 1867 map of Hastings shows the house at the center of the image. H. H. Claflin built this striking octagon house in 1857. John Freeman Norrish, a dry goods dealer, owned it in 1868 and died in 1897. His wife and then daughter continued to reside there. It passed to Gertrude Norrish in 1935, his surviving daughter. It sold in 1941 to Gene Schumacher and her father L. F. Rosenbaum. It was a stone exterior (stuccoed over since 1941). The front porch encircles nearly all the walls, extending to the rectangular addition at the right. A cupola crowns the roof. The current porch is most likely rebuilt. In the 1970s Gene Schumacher hired an architect for aid in restoring it