Thirty-eight years ago Minnesota Pioneer Park in Annandale was started with a train depot and a dream. The depot belonged to the Soo Line Railroad, the dream to local historian, environmentalist, author and attorney Nobel Shadduck. On Saturday, Oct. 2, the park will honor its founding father at the Nobel Shadduck Harvest Festival. From 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. visitors can celebrate the park’s origins with demonstrations by the Minnesota Fast Draw Club, music by Buffalo Junction, wagon rides, kids games, a home-made salsa contest and a spaghetti and meatball dinner. Although originally a small town boy from Annandale, Shadduck loved to see the world, his wife Mildred said. Together they traveled all over the country and whey they came across a historical park they would stop and visit. Pioneer transportation When the Soo Line decided to close the old depot and donate it to the city of Annandale, Shadduck’s idea was to use it to start a local park that would focus on pioneer transportation. "Everyone in town seemed to fall in and think it was a good idea," Mildred said. In 1971, the city leased 55 acres of land on the east end of Annandale at $1 per year to Shadduck and his followers, who included Mildred, Julia Barkley and her son Blaine. The land had three original buildings: a log cabin, a barn and a granary that became part of the park. Over the years the theme changed from transportation to a more general history of pioneer days. Shadduck became responsible for the park’s acquisition of many of its current buildings including the Sorenson Cabin, the dentist office, the drug store, the one-room school house and Finnish church. "We moved the church on a cold January night," Mildred recalled. "It was so cold, but the idea was to get stuff when we could." Pioneer Park life member and good friend of Shadduck, Marilyn Gordon, called him a very passionate advocate of the park right up to the day he died, March 16, 1997, at the age of 92. "We used to say he had two wives, Mildred and the park," she joked. "He had connections. He knew a lot of heads of companies and was always getting them involved with the park and he got donations. He was always doing something for Pioneer Park." Both Gordon and Mildred Shadduck recalled his love of animals and his one unfulfilled desire to see a petting zoo at the park. Although there were many who thought animals would be too much trouble and work, and it never actually came about, their skepticism didn’t stop him from bringing the occasional creature out for the touring school children to enjoy. "One day Vi Novotne had a box of kittens for free. He took the whole box and brought them to Pioneer Park and they lived there," Mildred laughed. On another occasion he had brought some goats over to the park. "That goat so embarrassed me," Mildred said. "It got out of its penned in area and got up on top of the picnic table." Maple syrup Shadduck was also the impetus behind Pioneer Park’s homemade maple syrup, which popularized the park’s pancake feeds. Shadduck and several other men would make maple syrup every spring by tapping maple trees in the park. There was a maple syrup shack out in the woods at the time, Gordon said. They carried the heavy buckets of sap to the shack and cooked it in large pans. The park’s tradition of making syrup, which they now process out of raw sap they purchase, would never have started with out Shadduck, Gordon said. In fact, "we would not have a park without Nobel." Gordon and others will share memories of Shadduck around 2:15 p.m. as part of a special program in their founding father’s honor at Saturday’s event. Mildred will be there, she said, and she expected a number of their children and grandchildren to attend as well. Afterward awards will be given out for the best homemade salsa and the children’s scarecrow building contest. The park’s corn maze will also have its grand opening that day. "I think it’s a wonderful tribute," Mildred said of Saturday’s party. "It should have been done long ago," Gordon said.