Years Ago

10 years ago
There was perfect weather for a swim, bike, run in the Heart of the Lakes Triathlon. More than 400 completed in the event that brought Tony Schiller of Shorewood a first place in the grueling long course and first female finisher to cross the line in the long course was Diane Holliday-Welsh, Duluth.
A second full-time officer is hired for the Annandale Police Department. The city council also hired a part-time office worker to be trained in city’s motor vehicle registration department.
A large crowd turned out for the annual Fair Haven Mill Art Fair Saturday.
A ”Living Wax Museum”: Minnesota Pioneer Park attempts to find 150 actors, singers, entertainers and guides.
Foam Fabricators expands into the city. Annandale woos development by offering $165,000 in tax increment assistance. The new development in Annandale was announced at a special Economic Development Authority meeting by Jerry Truman, a Clearwater Lake resident and developer of other projects that include the Country Side Court on Main Street in Annandale.
Beautiful, balmy weather helped boost the 11th annual Heart of the Lakes Arts and Crafts Fair to its best year, according to Laurel Miller, vice president of the Annandale Area Chamber of Commerce. The fair, which is co-sponsored by the chamber and the Lake Country Arts Group, which actually started the fair, sold 120 booths to slightly over 100 artists and crafters.
25 years ago
The Annandale City Council met with members of the state Pollution Control Agency concerning the waste-water treatment plant. The PCA commented that the city had done an excellent job thus far in maintaining the present pond system; however for future needs, the ponds will have to be updated.
Tires with tread worn to 1/16th of an inch greatly increase the possibility of skidding and is one of the most important factors in an emergency stopping situation.
The Department of Natural Resources said today that some persons have mistaken ideas about the ownership of lakeshore property in Minnesota and the public’s right to use such land.
Some callers say they thinks the width of this imaginary corridor is five feet. Others say they understand it is 10 or 20 feet. Either way, they are wrong, said officials. The state does not own any such strip of land around lakes and streams.
The only land the state owns is land it has acquired or land that was never sold from the time the state entered the Union. While it is true that some lakeshore is owned by the state, federal government, counties, municipalities or other levels of government, most of the lakeshore in Minnesota is in private hands.
The landowner generally owns all of the land to the water’s edge and the public has no more right to use such land than they have to use the landowner’s living room. Although the water in most lakes and streams is public property, the adjacent shoreline is most often private.
The Centra-Sota Cooperative of Buffalo has acquired the Annandale Elevator and will assume possession Oct. 1.
50 years ago
Repercussions from the heavy rainfall, almost four inches, of Friday night, are still being felt, with water up in all lakes, main street and basements drenched and train service delayed.
The Annandale Public Library, supported by the Village and the Improvement Club, located in the Library Room of the Annandale Rest Rooms, is available to residents and non-residents.
A new office has been completed for the school principal, A. Pagenkopf. The office is at the extreme south end of the third floor corridor. The two cloakrooms of the adjoining class rooms were combined to make this office.
Over and over again, a successful psychiatrist told me, the trouble with a woman, when he digs deep into her consciousness for it, is that she is not quite as fortuunate as some other woman in her group. If we American women have a typical fault, it seems to me, it is that. Each one of us is keeping her eye on a few contemporaries who seem to be just ahead of us all along the line.
More traffic fatalities this year are the result of driver errors, by one or both drivers, of approaching motor vehicles than of any other single cause, a study of traffic fatality statistics by the Minnesota Highway Department reveals.
75 years ago
Last Saturday a train of 10 coaches pulled in to Annandale, bringing about 1,000 office employees and their families or friends of the Soo Line, Minneapolis. The train arrived about 10:30 a.m. and the crowd paraded through main street to Pleasant Lake Park, where a program of contests and sports took place. Dancing was enjoyed throughout the day.
The ball game between the Soo Line and Annandale Pick-ups was won by the visitors 11 to 2. A fine time was had by all, with no accident or other event to mar the day.
Erection of an oil drilling outfit Saturday brought hundreds of curious persons from all over the northwest to Lake Lillian, where, just a year ago, Axel Lundquist, restaurant keeper, dug a tiny hole in his basement that yielded 13 gallons of gasoline, pure enough to run an automobile, every day, in spite of protests by the University of Minnesota geologists that it “couldn’t be done.”
The Gedney pickle plant in Annandale opened for business a week ago and report that they will be soon running to capacity. The season this year is later than former years but prospects point toward a good yield of cucumbers.
One of the most important changes of business circles that virtually means so much to this community, was affected last Friday evening when a consolidation of the Farmers State Bank of Kimball and the People’s State Bank of South Haven took place. The business of the Kimball bank was moved immediately to South Haven and the name of the local bank retained.
100 years ago
It seemed as if the Minnesota State Fair of 1900 would be “hard to beat” but the plans for the 1901 fair quite set last year’s into the shade. Vice President Roosevelt will open the fair on Monday, Sept. 2, making an address from the grand stand and afterward attending a luncheon and reception.
When a man becomes rich, has more of the world’s wealth and comfort it brings than most of his fellow men, why should he be a hog? Why isn’t he satisfied to pay his fair share of taxes? Why does he continue to seek undue advantage through public franchise and monopoly? Why can’t he be reasonable and allow the rest an even chance? Some men filled with plenty still insist in keeping their snouts in the trough and in rooting all others out.
A gang of youthful counterfeiters has been at work for some time in South Minneapolis, where they have been engaged in making spurious 1-cent coins, bearing the date of 1889.
The late Sen. Davis is quoted as saying “Every year every local newspaper gives from $500 to $5,000 in free lines for the benefit of the community in which it is printed. No agency can nor will do this. The editor in proportion to his means does more for his town than any other man, and in all fairness he ought to be supported, not because you like or admire his writings, but because a local newspaper is the best advertisement a community can have.”