Miss Wednesday's Candidate Forum? Catch the Rerun!

Town Square TV will rerun the candidate forums for Sunfish Lake, Lilydale and Mendota several times in the coming week.

Editor's Note: Patch is joining forces with Town Square Television to provide coverage of the 2012 elections in northern Dakota County.  On Wednesday, Sept. 5, Town Square Television (TST) hosted a candidate's forum for city government candidates from Sunfish Lake, Lilydale and Mendota. If you're interested in keeping up with these local elections, but missed the forum, you can catch the playbacks on Channel 14 on these dates: Sunfish Lake Candidate Forum Lilydale Candidate Forum Mendota Candidate Forum You can also stream each of the candidate forums online. To stream the Sunfish Lake forum, click here. For the Lilydale forum, click here, and for the Mendota forum, click here. Like us on Facebook | Sign up for our daily newsletter | …

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LIVE BLOG: Town Square TV Candidate Forum

Participate in Town Square TV's forum for candidates running for city government office in Sunfish Lake, Lilydale and Mendota by submitting questions on Patch.

  Editor's Note: Patch is joining forces with Town Square Television to provide coverage of the 2012 elections in northern Dakota County.  Town Square Television is hosting forums for candidates running for mayor or city council in Sunfish Lake, Lilydale and Mendota. You can watch the forum live on Channel 14 or stream the forum on the Town Square Television link. You can also join the conversation we're having here on Mendota Heights Patch. We'll be fielding questions from blog commenters, as well as from Twitter and Facebook. Just post your question on our Facebook page, or tweet @MendotaHtsPatch and be sure to include the hashtag #TSTforumQ. A few questions will be selected to pose to the candidates.  Live blog coverage on Patch will …

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Viewfinder: A Walk Through Historic Mendota

Henry Sibley House Historic Site walking tours give visitors a glimpse into the rich past of the city of Mendota.

Visitors got a taste of frontier life for both saints and sinners Sunday in a City of Mendota walking tour. A regular summer feature of the Sibley House Historic Site, the tour took visitors from the Hypolite Dupuis house to St. Peter's Church and on to the Mendota Jail. The tour featured St. Peter's—the oldest church in continuous use in Minnesota—built in 1853 under the direction of a Father Augustin Ravoux. Visitors also got a rare peak inside the tiny two-cell Mendota Jail, built in 1915 mostly as a place to hold local drunks until they had sobbered up. Sibley House Historic Site holds several walking tours of both Mendota and river history each summer, as well as the more well-known tours of the homes of Henry Hastings Sibley and Jean…

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Danielle Cabot

3:40 pm on Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Thanks, Father Gallatin! I'll update. It's a beautiful space.   more ›

Fort Snelling State Park Expected to Re-Open Friday

Camping will be available at many state park sites this weekend.

 “Welcome back. We missed you.” It was the first thing Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Commissioner Tom Landwehr said before announcing that the opening of Minnesota state parks, forests and facilities is ahead of schedule. Originally scheduled to open at 8 a.m. Friday morning, Landwehr reported that as of 11 a.m. Thursday morning, 11 state parks are fully open, with an additional 15 parks partially open. Fort Snelling State Park in the Mendota Heights area is scheduled to open sometime Friday. However, storm damage and flooding has blocked some trails. Pike and Picnic islands will remain closed due to flooding. The chapel will resume normal operations, according to the DNR. Programs and events schedules will be back on track …

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Historic Faces of Dakota County

Dakota County History 101: Henry Hastings Sibley (1811-1891)

This young merchant eventually became the first governor of Minnesota.

Henry Sibley was born Feb. 20, 1811 in Detroit, Michigan Territory.  Sibley’s association with the American Fur Company, which began in 1829, would lead him to Minnesota where he became one of the most prominent early leaders in the state. In 1836 Sibley arrived in Mendota (near Fort Snelling) as a sutler for American Fur. The familiarity Sibley gained with the Dakota Indians through the fur trade would become significant during his political career. Sibley became a Congressional delegate in Minnesota Territory in 1849 after having already held public office in Michigan, Iowa Territory, and Wisconsin Territory previously. In 1854, Sibley was elected to the Minnesota Legislature. Sibley narrowly defeated Alexander Ramsey (by 240 votes) to …

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Clare Kennedy

10:02 am on Friday, July 15, 2011

This is a message to all who commented on this article. In the future, please use your real names when commenting on this site, as Jim Edward and the author have done. We believe in transparency at Patch, and that includes not only our staff but our readers as well. Typically, I delete comments by people who conceal their identity with a pseudonym. In this case, the comment chain occurred on …   more ›

UPDATED: Highway 13 Closed in Same Area as 2010 Failure

Government shutdown would stall repairs.

Repairing the road failure on Sibley Memorial Highway (Highway 13) between Lilydale and downtown Mendota could be stymied by a state government shutdown. If a special session is not called and a budget deal is not worked out before July 1, state workers including the Minnesota Department of Transportation will be called off the job. That leaves workers a mere two days. The Minnesota Department of Transportation monitors that section of road west of Interstate 35E because it’s prone to washouts during periods of frequent rain, said MnDOT spokesperson J.P. Gillach.  The stretch of road closed is the same area where a failure occurred in spring of 2010, causing 70 feet of road to slump from lack of support. Same place, but different problem. …

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Danielle Cabot

5:04 pm on Tuesday, June 28, 2011

That's awesome, Dyane. Take lots of pictures!   more ›

Sibley House Fur Trade Rendezvous Explores Colorful Era

Henry Sibley House historic site in Mendota kicks off the season with reenactors and exhibits providing visitors a glimpse into Minnesota's past.

The 2011 season got off to a bang Friday as reenactors and visitors gathered to celebrate an old-fashioned rendezvous at the Sibley House historic site in Mendota. The rendezvous featured more than a dozen reenactors demonstrating everything from how to skin a beaver and shoot an 1800s-era firearm to how to cook over an open fire and just how to live life in the Minnesota fur-trading era. "The rendezvous was held in the spring and celebrated the end of the hunting season," said Ted Bores, site supervisor. "The trappers would sell furs, sign contracts and buy new supplies." The event also featured tours of the Sibley House site, which includes the restored home of fur trader Jean-Baptise Faribault and the home of Minnesota's first governor…

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Mendota Dakota Community's Next Move is in Sight

Eviction from Highway 13 property could mean time spent in limbo before closing on the center's new location.

The Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota have a plan for moving their community center out of the property at 1324 Sibley Memorial Highway and in to a property adjacent to the sacred Pilot Knob restoration site. What they don’t have, however, is a closing date for the property at 2095 Valencour Circle in Mendota Heights, or much more time to wait for one. That means that the family of the community’s newly elected chairman, Jim Anderson, and all of the community center property still in the home, are facing eviction and must be out by June 1. Anderson moved in to the Mendota property in February in an effort, he said, to bring publicity to its pending sale to Axel’s River Grille next door. Now that the next move is in sight, he wants to stay put …

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Repairs Underway at Sibley House Site in Mendota

Work should take about ten days. This weekend's Fur Trade Rendezvous is still on.

Scaffolds will be up at the historic Sibley House site in Mendota while roofing and exterior repairs are made in time for the summer season. Bob Claybough of Claybough Preservation, the firm that did the design work for the project, said the DuPuis House (on the street front), caretaker’s cottage, ice house and garage will be reroofed “in kind with what we felt was the original roofing materials.” The Sibley House itself and the Faribault House had similar work done about five years ago, he said. Miscellaneous woodwork and masonry projects will also be completed. The property is managed by the Minnesota Historical Society. Meanwhile, the Fur Trade Rendezvous is scheduled for this weekend, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday…

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National Weather Service Issues Tornado Watch for Dakota County Tuesday Night

Take a moment to review your safety procedures for tonight.

The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for Dakota, Scott, Hennepin, Ramsey, Carver, Washington, Anoka and Rice. The warning will end at midnight. Tornado watches are typically issued in advance of bad weather. The watch is intended to give people time to review tornado safety rules and identify a safe place to stay if dangerous weather moves in. A storm warning was issued earlier this evening for southern Dakota County cities. That has since expired.

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