"I came down that road and I knew I was home." -ADRIENNE SWEENEY LANESBORO RESIDENT
A TRIP
DOWN THE LANESBORO ROAD County Road 8 comes down a steep hill into Lanesboro, a road as old as the town itself, with an inspiration all its own. Some early travelers described the trip as fairy tale. Not everyone, though. M.G. Fellows, editor of the local newspaper in the early 1900s, described his first trip down that road like this.
“Brigadoon” is mythical. Lanesboro isn’t. It’s a real place with a real history, and real people living out all the realities— ups, downs, joys, sorrows and foibles—of human life. We don’t need to stretch the “brigadoon thing.” But we can enjoy it. Even find some relaxing peace in it. In today’s world, that’s not a bad thing. We need more brigadoons.
“Coming in sight of Lanesboro we beheld the village located along the river at the base of the bluff 300 feet below, the only way to get there being by a road excavated alongside of the bluff, too narrow for the passing of teams except in two or three places. I have crossed the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, but (approaching Lanesboro) I had never traveled over so perilous and unprotected a piece of highway.”
The Lanesboro road is open. It takes you down, pulls you in, and leads you out again. I hope you have your own “hill story”—or will in the future. Open yourself to Lanesboro and its series of simple pleasures. You’ll be glad you did.
Fellows says he was happy to get off that hill in one piece. It can still have a trace of that feel on an icy winter night, but mostly this road is fairy tale, about 20 seconds of peaceful village, church steeples and bridges, a tree-lined park, a flowing river, a pocket-sized dam, all sitting—as someone else described it—in a limestone bowl. Even the water towers look good.
From the book “Lanesboro, Minnesota,” by Steve Harris
Get your copy today! “If you love Lanesboro, you’ll love this book!”
Lori Bakke Grannys Liquor
I’m not the only one mesmerized by this scene. I’ve heard many people refer to it as the first of their special Lanesboro memories. “I was driving into Lanesboro and I came down that hill…” is how those stories always start. People hit the phrase “came down that hill” and they smile, get a thoughtful look in their eye, and you see them searching for words to describe an experience, a feeling, that defies words. But we keep trying. Here’s another one I’ve heard more than once. “I came down that hill and it felt like I was driving into Brigadoon!” A magical village in an old Scottish tale, “brigadoon” has come to mean “…a place that’s idyllic, unaffected by time, remote from reality.” I can see why people use it. Lanesboro…Brigadoon. It fits.
“A heartwarming and ingenious book!”
Theo St. Mane Author
AVAILABLE AT DOWNTOWN LANESBORO STORES, LOCAL IGA GROCERY STORES, AMAZON OR BY CONTACTING STEVE SHARRIS1962@MSN.COM OR (952) 836-7904
2020 EDITION
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