Bluffside near Trempealeau County’s Centerville. With the waterfall grill and laden with mums is a 1941 Chevy pickup. The balmy fall day found hundreds of visitors. At this spot a little girl is dropping a hook in a climb-up wishing well after taking her measure at the “How Tall This Fall” board.   Image: Steve Lunde

GALESVLLE, Wis. — A Galesville man was charged with intoxicated driving after he crashed into a trailer court on County Road K just south of Turkey Trot Lane. The man’s pickup truck hit a tree, rolled several times, hit a fence and then another tree, and finally a cement building. The vehicle caught fire with the driver still inside. Trempealeau County deputies said that Hunter S. Boardman, 31, was out of the vehicle and walking around when they arrived. Somehow, they said, he suffered only minor injuries. This was a little before 9 p.m. Boardman was in a 2002 GMC Sierra heading north from Trempealeau toward Galesville. The crash was at the Country Road Estates trailer court. Two cars parked at trailer houses were damaged from debris. Besides drunken driving, deputies said speed was a contributing factor.

TAYLOR, Wis. –  A Clear Lake man died when pinned between a tractor and a recreational vehicle at his farm near this Jackson County community. Sheriff Duane Waldera identified the victim as 69-year-old Peter Suckut but released scant detail about what happed. It was known that the accident was about 5:30 p.m. Although Suckut was extricated from the press of the vehicles, he died soon thereafter. He was a carpenter by trade who had a life-long fascination with farming. He acquired his grandparents’ homestead near Taylor in 2017 and enjoyed working the land, gardening and deer-hunting. Also he raised raising blue heeler puppies.

Suckut. Farmed near Taylor. Back and forth to home in Clear Lake.

LACRESCENT, Minn. – The staff evacuated 17 mostly elderly residents from the Traditions assisted living facility after fire broke out. Everybody made it out safely. The residents were taken to a nearby church until other housing could be arranged. The fire erupted about 3:30 p.m. in the back of the sprawling single-floor building. Flames  quickly engulfed most of the interior, Damage was severe, said Fire Chief Tom Paulson. LaCrescent firefighters were there within three minutes of the alarm and helped the staff take the last residents out. Soon other fire crews arrived from Campbell, Dakota, Hokah, Nodine and Onalaska.

Traditions Assisted Living. Licensed for 19 residents. At 333 South Second Street. Cause of fire to be determined. Image from last fall.

VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK, Minn. – A park ranger drowned in rough waters on Namakan Lake on the Canada border. Ranger Kevin Grossheim, 55, of Kabetogama, had just rescued a family of three whose boat had bene swamped near Birch Cove Island. After Grossheim took the family aboard a Park Service boat, the vessel overturned in high winds and rough waters. The family managed to reach safety, but Grossheim was unaccounted for. His body was recovered three hours later. Grossheim, a volunteer with the Kabetogama Fire Department, taught a motorboat certification course.

Grossheim. A 20-year Voyageurs veteran.

WINONA, Minn. – Th tourism promotion agency Visit Winona has relocated to a downtown store front and expand its line of Winona-inspired merchandise. Pat Mutter, executive director, called the change was logistically overdue. The agency had been in the Winona Historical Museum with operations at three different locations in the building. “It was time for us to have a space that was street level and just more visible and accessible and with a lobby to welcome visitors,” Mutter said.

WINONA, Minn. – A man in jail on drug charges learned from a friend that his apartment had been burgled perhaps the very day he was himself incarcerated or maybe some time in the next couple days. Gone was $5,000 worth of jewelry, mostly watches, necklaces and earrings. William Curtis Perry, 33, had asked a friend to check on his East Third Street apartment while he sat in jail. The friend found the door kicked in and called police. This was about 2:40 p.m. Perry told police he had a good idea who the thief was. Police said they would pursue the tip. Perry had been in jail since Wednesday. The friend discovered the heft theft the next day.

Earlier: Cops: Man with meth crouched in backseat

Bash that Buick. The Wilson Fire Department’s annual open house was a kid-friendly event – even with a somewhat bizarre attraction, Kids were invited to take out their frustrations on a beat-up car. More serious was the fire safety house towed over from Lewiston to show ways to escape a fire. Images: Andy Frank

DAKOTA, Minn. – A Dakota man was hurt seriously when reportedly he jumped out of a moving car on remote, rugged and unpaved Lanes Road down the backside of Apple Blossom Drive. Winona County deputies found Nicholas Ray Dickson, 29, unconscious in a roadside ditch. This was about 12 noon. Dickson was taken 15 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. Deputies were told that Dickson and another passenger in the car had been arguing when he jumped out at 15 to 20 mph.

Waiting with arms.  For a for to fire volleys in salute for soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic, whose remains are buried at Chatfield.

Last survivor, a drummer boy, among those remembered  

Gary Calberg, state commander of Union Veterans of the Civil War officiating at Chatfield memorial service.

CHATFIELD, Minn. – Three Civil War veterans in unmarked graves were honored with a five-gun salute at a ceremony sponsored by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. So too was a drummer boy, Charles Marion Culver, who died in 1943. Culver was the last Union soldier from Minnesota to die. He was with Company B of the Fifth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment. The graves of George Andrus, William Henry Batterson and William Perry had been unmarked since they were buried. Fillmore County, wheee Chatfield is located. is home to 626 soldiers from the Grand Army of the Republic. The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War has memorialized 215 unmarked veterans’ graves in Minnesota. More than 22,000 Minnesotans served in the Civil War, 600 dying in action and 1,800 dying of disease and accident.

ST. PAUL, Minn. –– The Minnesota State Patrol’s latest one-week “Click It or Ticket” campaign led to 1,036 seat belt citations and 48 child restraint citations statewide. Some 257 police agencies participated as part of the Patrol’s larger “Toward Zero Deaths” project. Among citations:

> St. Paul police stopped a vehicle on a freeway because the front passenger was feeding a 3-week-old baby who was not properly restrained.

> Cottage Grove police stopped a vehicle at 90 mph in a 65 zone. A 3-year-old was in the car with no car seat or seat belt. Also: The driver was drunk.

> Chisago County deputies stopped a vehicle at 63 mph in a 40 zone with a 5-year-old child in the backseat without a restraint system. The deputy waited with the mother and child while the father went to get a car seat.

> Hastings police stopped a vehicle where two people were not wearing seat belts and a child was not properly secured.

MINDORO, Wis. – An Onalaska driver died, apparently instantly, when his vehicle crashed into a rural guardrail west of Mindoro. Killed was Andrew Beckstrom, age 34. LaCrosse County deputies said Beckstrom lost control on County Road D. This was about 4:30 a.m.

Up, up, up. The concrete elevator shafts for the five-story Levee hotel on Center Street portend the massiveness of what’s to come. The river skyline will never be the same. Completion target for the 75-room hotel is Fall 2025. Image: Steve Lunde

Earlier: New levee hotel news: No rooftop sipping

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona driver, Dominick Elzin Hester, 25, was charged with driving under the influence of an intoxicant in a traffic stop. His blood-alcohol tested at 0.10%, police said.  The legal max is 0.08%. Police said the vehicle smelled of alcohol, that Hester’s eyes were bloodshot, and that his speech slovenly. The arrest was about 11:30 p.m. near the Minnesota Marine Art Museum on Riverview Drive.

Soccer (women): Bemidji State 3, Winona State 0

Volleyball (women): Winona State 3, Mary of North Dakota 2

Volleyball (women): UW-Stevens Point 3, UW-LaCrosse 2

WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a 14-year-old boy for harassing other children and causing a disturbance, The youth was sent tothe Houston County, which is certified to accommodate juveniles. The arrest was about 8:40 p.m. at Lake Park in the 700 block of East Belleview Street. The youth, police said, was alredy wanted on a previous warrant

WINONA, Minn. — Store detectives monitoring surveillance cameras spotted a man wheeling a cart out the front door at Walmart with $715 in clothing, shoes and grocery items – and not having paid. They called the cops. Five blocks away near Mankato and Sarnia streets, he cops found Shane Richard Oevering, 45, of Winnam pushing the cart down the street. Officers said Oevering claimed he had paid for the items, but, the cops said, the store video showed otherwise. Oevering was charged with theft and also burglary because he had been banned from the store for an earlier incident and told not to come back.

Overing. Despite a no-trepass order, he was back at Walmart.

PRESTON, Minn. – An autopsy concluded that an Iowa man found dead on a UTV trail near the border town of Granger was victim of “multiple blunt force injuries.” Fillmore County investigators had suspected that Cale Jackson, 23, of Cresco, was struck by a hit-and-run UTV driver. The accident was August 4. Meanwhile, Brian Nelson, 50, of Harmony, has been accused on seven counts. These include criminal vehicular homicide while under the use of alcohol. Fillmore County deputies said Nelson admitted to drinking.

WINONA, Minn – Police ticketed a 13-year-old girl for a marijuana vaping device at the Winona Middle School. Police were called about 10:30 a.m. when thee device was discovered. Such things are against the law for anyone not yet 21.

HOLDINGFORD, Minn. – A bull attacked and seriously injured a 44-year-old man in a pen.  The man was taken 22 miles to the St. Cloud hospital. Without explanation Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka declined to release the victim’s name. The victim was found on the ground about 9:15 a.m. in the pen with the bull.  This was after a after a 911 call. The bull was coaxed to another pen, and the injured man was retrieved and transferred to an ambulance.