About
Did you know that the American Legion was formed in Paris, France on March
15th, 1919 with 15,000 men and officers at the first meeting? Amongst those 15,000 members
was our first Commander, Virgil Ryan. He returned home and with the assistance of Theresa
Ericksen, a discharged Army nurse, began to organize the post we have today. They applied for
a temporary charter and received the charter on September 25th, 1919. They choose to name
our post after Otto Hendrickson because Otto was the first Park Rapids serviceman to be
killed in France during the war. The permanent charter was received October 21, 1920. In order
to establish a charter 15 members had to be retained.
