This Day in History

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Compiled by Jean Lundquist

Pooches promenade at Le Sueur County Fair

Aug. 20, 1975

A total of 15 dogs were entered in the 4-H dog show at the Le Sueur County Fair.

The training seemed to have been a good learning project for both humans and their beasts, according to Mrs. Berlyn Teig, the volunteer who taught the obedience classes required for entry into the dog show at the fair. She said “it results in better dog behavior, and teaching children to assume responsibility … I wish I’d taken movies of that first night.”

Twelve-year-old Sandy Appelgren said the training was educational for her. She said of her dog, a Pekingese terrier, “Some days he just doesn’t like to be messed around with. But you be nice to him, and he’ll be nice to you.”

Family penalizes golfing trespassers

Aug. 14, 1996

When North Links Golf Course opened on the western edge of North Mankato in 1992, it was widely heralded as a boon to the region. But a neighbor near the No. 7 hole had already had enough.

Two days earlier, Mankato held its annual golf tournament at North Links, and 144 Elks members from around the area attended. When one golfer from Marshall sliced his ball onto the neighbor’s property, he went to retrieve it. The homeowner called the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Department to report a trespasser.

The Marshall golfer first denied going on the property, but when the homeowner identified him, he admitted he had retrieved his ball from the yard. Since the property was clearly posted with “No Trespassing” signs, the Marshall golfer was cited and fined $50. The golfer said he would never come to a tournament at North Links again.

“That’s a long way to come to get busted for chasing a golf ball.”

The homeowner was mostly disturbed by golfers urinating on the property. North Links put a port-a-potty at the seventh hole in response.

Corn pack sweet – so far

Aug. 17, 1989

Back in the day, there were packing plants for sweet corn and other vegetables in Waseca, Le Sueur, Montgomery, Wells and Blue Earth. Many of those plants are closed now, but in 1989, the slightly fermented smell of sweet corn was prominent in all those cities as a rite of August.

Mountains of sweet corn, freshly picked from the nearby fields, were dumped on a concrete pad, pushed onto a conveyor belt, ferried into the packing plants, and processed by hundreds of temporary, seasonal workers. A drought in 1988 meant a small corn pack, but the 1989 season was robust.

“We’re 100% better than last year,” said the personnel manager at the General Foods Bird’s Eye Plant in Waseca.

He had concerns about keeping workers for the remaining five weeks of the corn pack, as many students, both high school and college, returned to school after Labor Day.

Getting down to business for training camp frenzy

Aug. 2, 2004

From 1966 through 2017, the Minnesota Vikings football team set up a training camp in Mankato using Minnesota State University facilities. Restaurants, bars, hotels, motels, and shopping centers looked forward to the influx of fans visiting their establishments.

In 2004, the new owners of The Underground Bar and Grill had just one goal – to be open by Vikings Training Camp. The opening of the camp, a scrimmage with the Kansas City Chiefs and a girls softball tournament all coincided to mean there was not one spare hotel or motel room to be had in town.

For some reason, there seemed to be a heightened interest in the camp in 2004, and several downtown establishments banded together to get fans down the hill from campus after practice. Training camp lasted only three weeks, but it was always an intense time for local merchants.