“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”
– Thornton Wilder, Our Town
It’s 1858. I am prone, crawling through tall grass, edging closer to whooping and reports of smoothbore muskets. A band of Ojibwe up to 200 strong has come to exact revenge against the Dakota people, and announced their arrival by slaying a man while he was fishing. The Battle of Shakopee is the latest chapter in an eons-old blood feud. It is also the last. Governor Henry Sibley will order the Dakota away next month.
It’s 1942. I’m at Miller’s General Store, where the first gasoline was sold in Eden Prairie, and where the first telephone rang. Widow Kate Miller is holding a funeral for her dear old friend Monroe “Mun” Barker, who had been a drummer boy for the Confederacy, and a slave, and who boarded the first livestock car that would take him to Minnesota, and who found work as a hired man through the Millers’ many connections. Traveling salesmen visiting for dinner occasionally refused to sit at the same table as Mun. Kate sternly motioned each to the door.
It’s 1943. I’m watching a canary yellow N2S-1 Stearman touch down on a thin strip of runway dug into Martin “Pappy” Grill’s asparagus field. It’s being piloted by a young man named George H.W. Bush, who will fly 58 combat missions during the war. The land will become Flying Cloud Airport, and include a museum displaying that same yellow biplane.
It’s 1953. I’m standing by the shore of Bryant Lake, where the Consolidated School is holding its annual class picnic. A few of the students point to the water and laugh, as Bob Moran, the school’s all-star athlete, signals for help as though he could possibly need it. This ends in tragedy. Eden Prairie High School will begin according the Robert Moran Award to its finest athletes next year.
It’s 1958. I’m at Lions Tap, which overlooks the tall grass I crept through just 100 years earlier. Sears and Irene Lyons, the restaurant’s new owners, have a tough act to follow, as Leonard and Helena Schaefer, its former proprietors, previously introduced the wildly popular cellophane-wrapped “Steward Sandwiches.” The Lyons will succeed by installing a novel sort of “electric frying pan” that can cook up to four burgers at once, and by serving draft Grain Belt and Hamm’s. More than one tractor is parked outside.
It’s 2025. I’m at the Eden Prairie Historical Society Museum, which is open 11am to 1pm each Monday at Eden Prairie City Center. I’m borne back into the past – not one quite so colorful as that of Rome, London, or Paris, but one which feels inestimably more personal. I’m fishing alongside the hapless Dakota. I’m grieving for Mun. I’m waving up to Poppy from Pappy’s asparagus field. I’m waving back at poor Bob from the beach. I’m drinking Hamm’s alongside men who will drive home at 3 miles per hour.
And who knows? If I write good enough magazine articles, I might just join them permanently someday.
“It’s a joy to gather and protect our town’s history, and a privilege to share it with anyone interested,” said Kathie Case, president of the Eden Prairie Historical Society. “While there is no set admission fee to our museum, your generous donation helps us preserve the buildings, photos and stories that connect our town to what’s past.” edenprairiehistory.org