COUNTRY
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 2019
Serving Marine on St. Croix, Scandia, May Township
VOL. 35 NO. 46 www.countrymessenger.com $.75
DEER MANAGEMENT: DNR invites public's input at open house event. PAGE 6
Scandia selects firm for administrator search BY KYLE WEAVER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
SUBMITTED
Steve Poynter and Brad Borg of Prairie Anthem have released their debut album, “The Farmhouse.”
Scandia duo Prairie Anthem releases debut album Scandia-based music duo Prairie Anthem has released its debut album, “The Farmhouse.” Prairie Anthem is the vision of two musicians, Steve Poynter and Brad Borg, with a lifetime of experience and a love for putting words to music. Inspired by singer-songwriters like John Prine, Jim Croce, Gordon Lightfoot, Guy Clark, they strive to write songs that tell authentic stories and share simple truths. Add the subtle interplay of two guitars supporting soaring vocal harmonies and you have a sound uniquely theirs “The Farmhouse” finds Poynter
and Borg exploring simple truths about home, family and life's lessons. Their guitar interplay and tight vocal harmonies create a fitting musical platform for the lyrics. Guest artists contribute mandolin, fiddle, pedal steel, bass, drums and percussion to select tracks serves to sweeten and spice their tasty songs. Prairie Anthem began working on recording and producing this album in October 2018, recording at Wild Sound Recording Studio in Northeast Minneapolis. “Steve Kaul, the owner and sound engineer at Wild Sound
DDA Human Resources, Inc., will represent Scandia as the city searches for its next administrator. The Scandia City Council selected the recruitment firm last week after seeking additional proposals last month. The city will pay DDA an all-inclusive fee of $18,000 for the search, a process that will include assisting the council with advertising, recruitment, screening, background and reference checks, interviews, and contract negotiations. In February, the council opted to postpone accepting either of the two proposals the city had received, due to cost and the absence of Mayor Christine Maefsky from the proceedings. Only one additional proposal was received, from HueLife, for a fee of up to $20,500. Springsted Inc., the firm that handled the city’s previous administrator search, declined to submit a proposal, due to their schedule already being full. City Administrator Neil Soltis announced in late January that he will retire on May 7.
Cycling grant
was great to work with and made the experience enjoyable and very satisfying,” Poynter said. “We hired some local renowned musicians to add some flavor to some of the songs, but tried to stay true to our signature duo sound.” Richard Kriehn played mandolin and fiddle. Joe Savage played pedal steel. Both were regulars on the former “A Prairie Home Companion” show. Marc Anderson added some hand percussion and the drummer and bassist are Mike and Dave Pengra, professional musicians from Poynter’s
The council gave Cycling Scandia the go-ahead to apply for a Statewide Health Improvement Program grant from Washington County to install a bicycle repair station and bike racks near the ice rink warming house. If granted, the city will pay 10 percent of the $2,500 total project costs.
SEE ALBUM, PAGE 2
SEE COUNCIL, PAGE 12
Other business: • Soltis reported that the city is still seeking volunteers to fill two appointments on the city’s Capital Improvements Committee and one seat on the city’s Wastewater Advisory Committee. Advertisements on the city’s website and social media channels have not yet yielded candidates for the three positions.
The puzzling history of Marine’s many post offices BY ANDREW KRAMER AND LARRY WHITAKER REPRINTED FROM HISTORICAL WHISPERINGS
The post office in Marine on St. Croix is one of only seven Minnesota post offices that can trace their origins to the pre-territorial era (the others are Fort Snelling, St. Paul, Stillwater, Kaposia/Newport, Wabasha/Nelson’s Landing, and Point Douglas). While researching the history of village center buildings in Marine on St. Croix, the authors encountered historic photographs of post offices scattered among many buildings in Marine’s tiny commercial district. This was puzzling. For a town with a population well under 1,000 and a three-block main street, why would the post office move around so much? How many different post office loca-
tions had there been? Through photographs, federal post office records, and published histories of Marine, we have been able to trace for the first time the continuous history of post offices in this settlement. It’s a jigsaw puzzle that when pieced together reveals a picture of how mail service evolved in an early rural Minnesota town.
Early Mails Were Irregular Mail first came to the area in 1827. It was carried up from Prairie du Chien via steamboat and in-land trails to Fort Snelling. Once lumbering began, travel by riverboat was irregular and often blocked by logging operations. The roads, though rough, became a
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Over the years, the Marine post office was located in four different buildings on the south side of Maple Street. Three of them are visible in this 1916 photo by J.W.G. Dunn looking east into town: the “Charlie Brown” building at right; the Henry Olsen store annex, center; and the former Walker, Judd, & Veazie store at left.
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