PINE P INE CITY
THURSDAY, APRIL 25 , 2019 VOL. 134 NO. 17 www.pinecitymn.com $1.00
TRAP STARTS STRONG: Pine City High School trap team 4th largest in state. P9
Conservation officer dies on Cross Lake Officers, officials from around state join to honor DNR’s Eugene Wynn BY MIKE GAINOR EDITOR@PINECITYMN.COM
Pine City’s DNR Conservation Officer Eugene Wynn has died and a Pine County deputy was hospitalized after the two men were thrown from their boat while searching Cross Lake on April 19. According to reports from the Pine County Sheriff’s Office and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, on April 19 at about 7:44 p.m. Pine County dispatchers received a call from anglers fishing on the shore of Cross Lake. The witnesses reported a possible human body in the water. Wynn and Sergeant Scott Grice of the Pine County Sheriff’s Office joined other deputies in responding to the scene. They were not able to determine what the object in the water was from the shore. Wynn got his boat, and he and Grice launched the boat and motored away from shore. Within a minute of leaving the launch both Wynn and Grice were thrown from the boat into the frigid water. They began swimming toward shore. Additional deputies, with the help of
LANCE FURBER | THE PIONEER
Minnesota DNR Conservation Officers and other uniformed officers stood in formation near the Pine Government Center, mourning the loss of Wynn, an 18-year veteran of the DNR.
neighbors, procured a row boat and attempted to rescue the officers in the water. Rescuers successfully reached Grice and retrieved him from the water. He was later transported by ambulance to FirstLight Hospital in Mora where
he was treated for temperature-related injuries and released. Wynn slipped beneath the water before rescuers were able to get to him. An intensive search was conducted by the Pine County Sheriff’s Office, the DNR and numerous other agencies, in-
Pine City’s logging history revealed BY MIKE GAINOR EDITOR@PINECITYMN.COM
Human ingenuity is fascinating to local historian Earl James Foster. “I’m always amazed at how good our ancestors were at figuring stuff out and solving it,” Foster said. That is especially true for the logging industry in Minnesota, a topic which Foster will explore at the Pine City Library at 2 p.m. on April 28 in a presentation to the public and the Pine City Area History Association. BEGINNINGS According to Foster, the logging industry in Pine County got started because the trapping industry ended. That coincided with a period of growth along the frontier of the United States in what we now think of as the midwest. The government was selling prairie land to pioneers, and those pioneers wanted to build houses on the land. “So they needed timber,” Foster said. “And it just
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so happened that some of the best timber in the world was located right around here. The white pines were 250-300 years old. Some were actually 400 years old. And the original stand of white pines – some of them were estimated to be over 200 feet tall, which is a pretty good-sized tree.” Foster said that the loggers couldn’t buy the land in Pine County because it hadn’t been surveyed yet. But somehow, it was approved for the logging companies to go out and start logging the land anyhow, without having to pay a dime for the rights to do so. “So from 1837 until about 1850, the loggers just went out and took the trees they wanted, cut them down and sold them,” Foster said. “Technically, they stole them. And we’re talking about millions and millions of board feet of timber. “Typical of everything ... they thought that the logging industry would last for a hundred years,” he said. “They started logging seriously in about 1850, and it was done by about 1910.”
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SEE LOGGING, PAGE 15
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cluding the Minnesota State Patrol, the Wisconsin DNR, Chisago County Sheriff’s Office, the Pine City Fire Department, the Stacy/Lent Fire Department, St. Louis County Rescue and Essentia SEE WYNN, PAGE 15
South I-35 ramps closed on Hwy. 70 STAFF REPORT NEWS@PINECITYMN.COM
The southbound I-35 entrance and exit ramps at Highway 70 will be closed for two weeks beginning Monday, April 29. The ramps are being reconstructed during this closure. Ramp traffic has been detoured to Hwy. 7 in Pine City and Hwy. 1 in Rush City. The Hwy. 70 bridge over I-35 was demolished last week and Hwy. 70 traffic is being detoured to Hwy. 7 in Pine City through mid-July. I-35 will be closed for three days in July. During that time, I-35 traffic will be detoured over the County Road 7 ramps. The County Road 7 (Hillside Ave./Pokegama Lake Road) bridge over I-35 will be shut down starting in July and ending in October. For more information visit mndot.gov/d1/projects/ i35snakeriver.
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