Star Tribune
Fire damages historic Hastings creamery that closed last month
A shuttered creamery in Hastings went up in flames late Wednesday and the building appears to be a total loss.
The fire broke out at about 10:30 p.m. at the historic Hastings Co-op Creamery, which had produced a variety of dairy products and organic cheeses for 110 years. The facility closed last month after the Metropolitan Council in June discovered thousands of gallons of milk and cream were leaking into the Hastings Wastewater Treatment Plant, which feeds into the Mississippi River.
Smoke billowed high into the air near the facility at 17th and Vermillion streets at the peak of the fire. Residents were advised to stay indoors due to the heavy smoke in the area. Multiple air samples were taken around the community and were clear of harmful chemicals, a statement from the city said.
“Community members can open their windows and turn on any air exchange systems at this time as there are no threats to the public,” the statement read.
Multiple agencies responded to the four-alarm fire.
Authorities shut down a five-block section of Hwy. 61, which reopened Thursday morning, according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
No one was on site or injured during the fire, the city said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the fire. The State Fire Marshal and Hastings Fire and Police departments are investigating.
A 63-year-old Eveleth man died from injuries suffered in a house fire in the northern Minnesota city Friday morning.
Dale Wallander of rural Eveleth was found with burns covering most of his body at the end of the driveway to his house in the 7100 block of Antoinette Road in Eveleth at about 11:26 a.m. Friday, according to a press release from the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office.
Law enforcement arrived to find his house engulfed in flames. Wallander was transported to a metro area hospital by Life Link air medical service, but died of his injuries, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and the State Fire Marshal.
Brooklyn Park police arrested two people Saturday in connection with an early-morning shooting that left one man dead.
Police responded to a shooting in the 7900 block of Lee Avenue North at about 4:36 a.m. Saturday, and found a man with a gunshot wound, according to a Brooklyn Park Police Department press release. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and hasn’t yet been identified.
Later Saturday, Brooklyn Park detectives arrested two suspects who are being held at the Hennepin County Jail, according to police.
“We passed three of them and we did it [in a] bipartisan [way],” said Walz, who represented southern Minnesota in Congress for a dozen years before running for governor.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz holds Matt Kucharski’s dog, Libby, a 6-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer, to give her a drink during the annual Minnesota Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener. (Anthony Souffle)
Following the event, Walz’s motorcade wound its way north and east across farm country, past combines in fields harvesting corn, to downtown Sleepy Eye, where he slipped into a crowded brewery. In many ways, the trip resembled any year for a pheasant opener, save this time the motorcade, a dozen vehicles long, stretched out the back side of a downtown Sleepy Eye alleyway.
One patron, who declined to give her name but said she grew up in Madelia and lived in New Ulm, was purchasing a six-pack of beers when she told the bartender, “Is that Walz? I don’t got time for that guy.”
Later, when Walz briefly emerged from a side room, a chorus of cheers reached him from the balcony, before he hustled out to the motorcade.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings