COUNTRY ROADS

Roads, no matter how bad, were essential to early settlements that developed a distance from the river routes. Game trails made natural passageways, which Indians found easy to follow. Often roads grew from these well-worn Indian paths. Highway 13 has been appropriately named Sioux Trail since much of it was in fact the trail from Black Dog's village to Shakpay's village.

The road past St. John's cemetery and the old Berrisford store, now called Judicial, was a much-used road by settlers. Enous Gallagher says the stretch knows as Judicial actually started at the currant Burnsville Lumber Yard, continuing to Orchard Lake, and going around the lake on the west side. It left the lake, going south to what is now the Minn-Reg recreation area. It received its name from having been mapped by two judges from Shakopee and Lakeville to facilitate travel between those two growing communities.

Perhaps the best known road in Burnsville was the McLeod Ferry, operating just east of the present I-35 bridge.

Clara Kearney tells of using the Bloomington Ferry when she was a little girl. It was always exciting when her father, a pioneer on the west shore of Early Lake, hitched horses to the buggy in anticipation of visiting the cousins across the river. The frightening part of the trip was getting the ferry into position by means of rope pulleys and driving onto the raft like structure. Little Clara was always sure they would slide into the river and all would be drowned before they were pulled by hand over hand to the other side of the river.

It is a long way from the well-worn foot trails to the acres of cement stretching for miles across the United States but they all have this in common...they provide the means for restless people to move from place to place.

Bea Nordstrom


LYNDALE AVENUE

The First North-South highway in the city of Minneapolis passed by Lyndale Farm, near Lake Harriet, owned by the Reverend Lyndon King. Dr. R.H. Benham, a land speculator developing the Orchard Gardens area, was responsible for promoting the extension of Lyndale Avenue, south across the Minnesota River. The drawbridge was competed in 1920 at a cost of nearly one million dollars. Mrs Benham was the first person to cross the new bridge at the opening ceremony.

In 1922, Hennepin County gave $30,000 to Dakota and Rice Counties to extend the road through Orchard Gardens and by 1925 the highway was completed as far south as Antler's Lake, near Lakeville. The Guthrie Company, the prime contractor, subcontracted the construction to three companies. The Huddleston Company camped where Orchard Lake Tavern is now located. The Leach Brothers camp spot was near the site of the Orchard Gardens Railroad Station, and the Ben Winding Company workers camped in a pasture near the road. Horses, mules and manual labor furnished the power to build the road...a good road--two lanes wide. The hills and valleys were not leveled, the road simply followed the natural terrain and enhanced the landscape rather than defaced it.

Modern travel and traffic needs have changed. The "old" road was too dangerous, the "new" road, of course, is not. Meanwhile, suffice it to say...some of us miss the days when our world was only two lanes wide.

June Dille