By Lee Epps Third in a series It was at first a disappointment as well as an inconceivable surprise. Later, it provided welcome albeit unexplained enjoyment – cool relief during summer heat for area visitors and annual snowball fights during Fourth of July celebrations. It was a longtime source of amazement when it was “cool” to be in Brownsville, Minn. It took about 120 … [Read more...]

The Inuit have 50 names for snow cones. Last year, a nice woman told me she had attended the State Fair on each of its 12-day run. She planned on doing the same thing this year. She lives closer to the fairgrounds than I do. A trip to the State Fair eats up an entire day for me and part of the next. The sounds of the fair become my three-day earworm. I’ve engaged in purposeful … [Read more...]

Second in a series What Chris Gerhard got was ice, not what he wanted. But ice comes from water; was water what he sought when sinking a 40-foot shaft into a hillside near Brownsville, Minnesota in the early 1860s? Most thought it was a water well; some later oral history indicated otherwise. Two young teenage boys, James Gunderson and Don Rohrer, were photographed in 1947 … [Read more...]

I’m an apex predator hunting for radishes, vital ingredients in a radish sandwich.  I picked a couple of cucumbers while I was at it.     No, I didn’t have a cat that needed scaring. I’ve never known a cat that was frightened of cucumbers.   I like cucumbers. I share them with my neighbor Crandall, who  misplaced his glasses and planted a packet of M&M’s instead. I was a … [Read more...]

A roving newspaper reporter from the Twin Cities, Earl Chapin, stopped one night in Caledonia during the summer of 1947. He borrowed from the local newspaper publisher the “History of Houston County,” by Rev. Edward D. Neill, published in 1882. While reading that night, he came upon this item: “About 1861, Mr. C. Gerhardt sunk a well and at the depth of 40 feet, water flowed … [Read more...]