Junior Caden Grinde was voted Most Valuable Player by his 2020 Spring Grove basketball teammates and also received the Hustle Award, determined by statistics. Senior Kyle Hagen was voted the Lion Award while freshman Hunter Holland was the team’s choice for Most Improved. Awards were finally announced online in June after the pandemic forced cancellation of the annual potluck … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past From hymns to math lessons to museum — three centuries, three sites
Early schools and churches often began meeting in the homes of pioneer settlers. Simple one-room schoolhouses would often host church worship services before formal church buildings were constructed. It was different for Daley School, east of Caledonia, where a church building became a schoolhouse. Education began in the home of Timothy Hackett in January of 1856 before a … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Independence Day celebrated in Eitzen during three different centuries
As in many communities all over the United States, in the bicentennial year of 1976, there was a Fourth of July celebration in Eitzen, Minn. Most likely unbeknown to those gathering along the state line that day, it was more than a century after the first Independence Day celebration in the Eitzen area, and the 1976 commemoration would soon inspire a popular, annual, bistate … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Trespassing spelling pranks, late-night hijinks high above Houston
There was a morning when residents of Houston, Minn., looked up to see the word “HOKAH” in huge white letters on the hillside above town. Another morning, the letters spelled “TOOLBOX,” the nickname of a Houston schoolteacher. The lettering originally spelled “HOUSTON,” and most mornings it did. The 24-foot-high, 14-foot-wide letters were originally arranged with local surface … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Yankees, candlelight, one tragic snowy night at Portland Prairie
An appetite and maybe a covered dish are appropriate for a picnic on the grounds following the only summer worship service. The Christmas Eve service requires bulky attire, since there is no heat or electricity. Spots of once-dripping wax can be found on hymnal pages, since carols are sung by the light of hand-held candles. It is not possible to light the six surviving kerosene … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past: Four different “dead guys” delivered brief, breathless performances
PART 2 of summer musicals in Spring Grove Ye Olde Gray Barn, for the past 41 Spring Grove summers, has been the venue for annual musical theatre productions. Don Vesterse performed in the first 16 shows, the first of 80 lifetime performances in three states. He christened the barn (as a stage) with a bottle of champagne in 1979. There have been approximately 166 barn … [Read more...]
Peering at the Past ‘Olde’ barn has hosted horses and hoofers for 41 summers
“Ye Olde Gray Barn” is not gray, but black. It is the “Gray barn” because the functional facility for draft horses was loaned by Dr. Jim and Karen Gray to an ambitious group of citizens, who in 1979 staged Annie Get Your Gun, the first of the often-acclaimed summer musicals in Spring Grove. Horse stalls have become dressing rooms every summer for 41 musicals – believed to be … [Read more...]