This Day in History

Compiled by Jean Lundquist

Camp Fire Girls enter fourth week at Patterson

Aug. 14, 1947

Days at Camp Patterson on Lake Washington were filled with swimming, waterfront activities and crafts for the 80 Bluebird Campfire Girls attending summer camp. But the evenings were storybook fantasies.

Blue Birds ranged in age from 7-10. They attended the first week of the monthlong camp. Their first evening was a Cinderella Ball, with both Cinderella and Prince Charming attending.

Tuesday night was Treasure Island night, complete with pots of gold on each table, followed by a treasure hunt in the campground. Wednesday night was a nursery rhyme competition. Thursday, they visited Alice in Wonderland. Friday night completed their week with a Storybook Campfire.

Number of local, state diseased elms smaller

Aug. 15, 1983

Dutch elm disease was responsible for eradicating the trees from the state. The state of Minnesota provided funding for municipalities to eliminate the trees from public property, but cut the funding in 1982.

By 1983, only 30 to 40 diseased trees on Mankato city property were slated for removal.

Floyd Roberts, Mankato Parks and Forestry superintendent, estimated there were only 200 to 250 elms remaining on municipal property in the entire city, and fewer than 1,000 on private property. “We lost most of them,” he said.

Dave Haack of the city of North Mankato echoed the circumstances. “We’re just plain running out of elms.”

State officials estimated almost all elms would be gone in Minnesota by the end of the following year, 1984.

Politicians talk pork and beans at annual farm gathering

Aug. 6, 2003

A light and steady rain was falling over Gilfillan Estates when politicians took to the stage to talk to farmers at the 2003 Farmfest event west of Morgan.

Featured were Sen. Norm Coleman and U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknectht, both Republicans, along with Democrats Sen. Mark Dayton and Rep. Collin Peterson.

All four touted federal initiatives for corn producers to create ethanol, and the message was apparently well-received by the crowd.

Questions turned the conversation to small livestock producers competing with large producers, and feedlots overtaking the hog industry.

Peterson blamed Walmart for driving the industry to more automation and specific machines that govern the size of animals in the plants. He also blamed “city slickers” for moving to the country, then complaining about smells from agriculture production.

Man’s invention is a reel fish catcher

Aug. 7, 1992

There were motorized fishing reels, but Jay Jensen of St. Peter wanted one for his wife that attached to a pole and worked with any reel.

Using a motor from an electric toy car his son had outgrown, he did just that.

His wife, Denise, had lost the use of her right arm in a car accident. With his device, Denise could, with the touch of her thumb, reel in any fish onehanded, as long as the line was strong enough.

Jensen took his device to the Minnesota Inventors Congress where he won an honorable mention. “I had a fantastic response,” he said.

With a one-handed fishing reel invention under his belt, he said his next project was a chin-controlled fishing apparatus for quadriplegics.