10 years ago

THE HASTINGS STARGAZETTE March 15, 2012 Following an appearance in the local paper, the T-Rex sculpture by Dale Lewis was found south of Hastings along Highway 61. Reportedly damaged after it was stolen from Spiral Natural Foods, Lewis said he would put the creation back on display.

“Rather than fix T-Rex right now, I have him a crutch and he’s going back to the front lines,” Lewis said, with readers still encouraged to contact police if they knew more about the incident.

In out of state news touching on local, a story by Katrina Styx recounted Class of 1996 Hastings High graduate Michael Mimbach saving his friend Tyson Black from an avalanche. Out near Kamas Utah snowmobiling with friends when an avalanche occurs, Mimbach and others had to look without the aid of an avalanche beacon, and a clock ticking fast. After 22 minutes, they struck the helmet of the buried snowmobiler.

“The feelings that went through me were so mixed,” Mimbach said on finding his friend under the snow. “We’re in a sixfoot hole and I see his helmet, and all that went through my head was, are we five minutes too late?” Amazingly, Black starts breathing on his own and walks away, though not before a good scare.

30 years ago THE HASTINGS STARGAZETTE April 23, 1992 Starting out the week of April 23, an upcoming event related to SOAR (Stop Our Airport Relocation) was due to hold a hog roast at the American Legion hall for Post 65 in Rosemount. Activities at the hog roast included dinner, a brief program, silent auction and door prizes, among other offerings. The minister of First Presbyterian at the time, one Reverend Pat Handlson, was due to give a sermon “on spiritual issues and the value of staying close to the land.”

Also in the news from 30 years ago was a lawsuit by residents of Ravenna township to keep someone convicted of a 1986 sex offense from moving into a group home nearby. With arguments being heard on March 24, Judge Harvey Holtan ruled that the plaintiff’s case was based on fear that the convicted sex offender “had not or could not change” since their conviction, but without providing any evidence to back this claim up. At the same time, he refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

As to road construction, an article by Jane Lightbourn reported that Highway 55 would soon be reconstructed,” with road workers returning to the Hastings area “for some finishing work,” including sod and seeding on the eastbound boulevard. The upside of construction was that it wouldn’t completely halt traffic, but be done one lane at a time, allowing for slightly less inconvenience on the part of local residents.

April 16, 1992

Following behind the plan of a movie theater potentially coming to the Westview Center building, an article by writer Steve Eide reports that the site plan had passed the Planning Commission, with a company named GTI out of Cambridge. All but one Commissioner, (George Bateman), voted in favor of the proposal. Noting that the Riviera had closed from inability to get patrons, Bateman asked GTI president Bob Guetschoff what he forsaw.

“We don’t see any competition in the area at all, as far as movie theaters,” Guetschoff tells Bateman.

In airport news, a seminar meant to assuage residents is reported to give an “anti-airport” group a leg up, with one attendee questioning such things as timetables and land acquisition.

Closer to Hastings proper, meanwhile, the Dakota County Sheriff’s Office together with the Hastings Police department team up to enforce the state’s bus stop-arm law and help the Hastings Bus Company reduce the number of motorists who pass on left and right, putting the kids in danger.

News from across the River 100 years ago THE PRESCOTT JOURNAL April 13, 1922 Oak Grove Evangelical Church English Services next Sunday morning at the usual hour.

English Communion on Easter Sunday.

German Services on Easter Monday.

The Ladies Aid of the St. John’s Evangelical church will meet at the home of Mr.s G. Jones on next Tuesday afternoon, April 20th. Rev. E. Roth, Pastor.

Down at Cannon Falls 115 Years Ago CANNON FALLS BEACON April 12, 1907 Beacon Lights The Library has purchased this week 8 books – 5 Alger books entitled Helping himself, Phil the Fiddler, Making His Way, Rising from the Ranks, Paul the Peddler, the Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come, Alice of Old Vincennes, the man from Glengarry. The last eight books from the library commission were also received making 75 books now in circulation from the commission. When you think of it send a book to the library, its good work. The average circulation is 30 books, these are changed during the week, library open every day except Thursday at the Beacon office.

163 years ago DAKOTA WEEKLY JOURNAL August 29, 1857 Notice – To the citizens of Hastings and all others of the human race. There is a kiln of brick burning at the Hastings Brick Yard, near Ramsey and Foster ’s mill, and they will be ready for market, we understand, by the middle of next week. Pitch in gentlemen! Now is your time to get a good article of brick.

The original cable connection: Quebec, August 24 The steamship Anglo-Saxon from Liverpool, at 2 p.m., on the 12th inst. arrived this Sunday morning.

The latest report from the Valentia, is dated August 10, 4 p., as follows: The work of laying down the Atlantic cable is going on as satisfactorily as the best friends of the enterprise could desire. Up to the present time about 300 miles of cable have been laid. The depth of the water into which it is now being submerged is nearly two miles. The laying of the cable from the shallow to the deep water, was effected without difficulty. Also 163 years ago Just north of Hastings on the Mississippi EMIGRANT AID AND JOURNAL City of Nininger, Dakota County, Minnesota Territory August 29, 1857 Our Unparalleled Growth We had occasion the other day, in taking a friend through the town, to lead him out on the bluff back of Mr. Robertson’s residence. From this point we looked down on the scene below us. Imagine the change that not eleven months has wrought on the town. There lay before us at least one hundred houses in view, stretching from Mr. Miller’s house on the east, to the buildings beyond Mr. Owen’s far to the west half hid amid the trees. The beautiful plateau, with its encircling fringe of foliage seemed, as a friend remarked, fitted by nature for the marshaling of a great army. It is indeed a beautiful scene. And then its physical development in that short period of time. No town in all Minnesota can instance such a growth. No town in the Western country is growing more rapidly at present. The evidences of prosperity are on every side. The sound of the hammer is heard in every direction. In every direction are seen wagons loaded with lumber…(Nininger was located in section 18 of Dakota County across the river from 3M).