Bay State Milling fire: Minute by minute recap
WINONA, Minn. – Firefighters spent four hours Monday at the Bay State Milling plant where the possibility spontaneous combustion from flour dust posed a major risk, according to their after-action report. This is from the report:
> Firefighters were summoned at 7:45 p.m. to the giant mill the foot of Franklin Street.
> Bay State employees told the first fire crew that there was a possible dust explosion in a storage bin on the seventh floor.
> A second crew followed an employee to the seventh floor to assess the situation.
> Smoke was coming from a vent pipe. A two-foot by two-foot manhole had been blown through a side of the tank.
> All off-duty and part-time fire personnel were paged to report immediately to the scene.
> Another fire crew assessed the damage to identify possible access to the bin from the lower floors.
> When off-duty crews and part-time personnel arrived, the decision was made to flow water into the top of the tank and onto the smoldering flour.
> A 2-1/2 inch hose line with a spinning nozzle was lowered into the tank to cool the super-heating flour.
> Ductwork was followed from the bin to the dust collector to assure that all fire was extinguished.
> Five firefighters remained to 1:57 a.m. to assure extinguishment was complete.
Bay State Milling. 55 Franklin Street. Produces wheat, rye, oat, seeds, spices and other milled products.
All hands called. When fully staffed, the Fire Department roster includes 21 full-time and 30 part-time positions. A shift consists of six captains and 12 firefighter-drivers. Of those 12 firefighters, nine are paramedics. Image: Winona Fire Department
Remember when: 1911 Bay State Milling fire
WINONA Minn. – On July 28, 1911, just after the night shift had just signed on at the Bay State Milling plant, foreman J.K. Howie spotted smoke from an engine room. Several men rushed to smother the fire with sand. Too late. Flour dust exploded with a deafening roar. The whole six-story mill soon was an inferno. Incredibly no one died. It was Winona’s worst fire since a paid fire department had been established in 1889. Fifteen-thousand barrels of flour and 400,000 bushels of grain were burned. The loss was pegged at $600,000 — $20 million in today’s currency.
Fire-fighting all night
Firefighters rushed horse-drawn steam engines to pump water onto the fire. When city wells were nearly drained and lost pressure, a direct connection was opened to the nearby Mississippi River. On the mill’s railroad spur, a switch engine pulled several loaded boxcars away and came back for more, but 12 other boxcars, all aflame, blocked the track. The fire burned through the night, until about 4 a.m. Firefighters continued four streams on the ruins another 24 hours. Meanwhile, La Crosse had sent a hose company 30 miles upriver to respond to other calls. There was an irony in that a new sprinkling system was being installed in an adjoining Bay State warehouse at the time, but the fire was too intense to do any good and the system too was consumed in the fire.
A crowd spectacle
The fire was a spectacle from the moment a huge plume of smoke rose in the evening sun. Like a drawn by a magnet, people thronged to the mill site, perhaps a thousand of them. For sure they kept a distance. The chatter included recollections of two former grain mill fires – at the Winona Milling Company and the L.C. Porter Milling Company. Everyone was mindful too of the 1878 Washburn Mill tragedy at St. Anthony Falls in Minneapolis that claimed 18 lives.
On foot, horse and motorcar. Winonans couldn’t resist an up-close look at the 1911 destruction – but not too close. Image: Winona Historical Society
State of the art. Steam-powered pumpers were the pride of firefighters about 50 years, from the 1870s until around 1920. This photo is from New York City.
A growing city
Winona’s population was about 18,600 at the time of the 1911 Bay State fire.
Investors see more grandeur ahead for Fortress Bank
ALBERT LEA, Minn. – The former Freeborn Bank. a four-story downtown landmark, has been sold to an Albert Lea investment group. Century Partners said it plans an event center on the main floor with a coffee shop and pizzeria and office suites on upper floors. The sale price: $1.2 million. Said Mark Habben, one of the investors: “The uniqueness of what we’ve got is its large vaulted ceilings, a lot of the historical preservation of when the building was built a hundred years ago. We’ll have nice, big chandeliers. It’ll bring a little bit of class.”
Century old. Downtown landmark.
Rochester driver fails sobriety check, arrested
WINONA, Minn. – A Rochester man was booked for drunken driving after a traffic stop on the Near West Side. Police said that Jacob Michael Anderson, 26, had bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and alcohol body odor. Then he failed field sobriety tests. This was about 1 a.m. Anderson declined to have his blood-alcohol level checked, which escalated the charges being recommended to the county attorney.
Anderson. Stopped at West Fourth and Harriet streets.
R.I.P.: Mary Hagen
WINONA, Minn. — Mary Louise Hagen, 76, of Winona, a junior high school home economics teacher, died at Saint Anne nursing home. She graduated from high school in Mabel earned an education degree from the University of Minnesota. She taught Sunday school at Central Lutheran Church. In retirement she made seven trips to Norway. She was passionate about her Norwegian heritage.
Details: Fawcett-Junker Funeral Home
1947-2023
College scores
Soccer (women): UW-LaCrosse 3, UW-Platteville 0
Volleyball (women): Saint Mary’s 3, Carleton 0
Hormel, union reach tentative accord
AUSTIN, Minn. – Negotiators for Hormel Foods and a 1,700-member employee union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract. Terms were not announced. Issues had included wages and pensions. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union said its negotiating team voted unanimously to recommend to its members to accept the tentative settlement. The agreement was reached 2-1/2 weeks after Hormel made what it called a final offer, to which union members responded with a strike authorization. Negotiations then resumed. The tentative agreement goes to a union ratification vote on Monday, The union represents Hormel employees in Austin and in Atlanta, Georgia; Beloit Wisconsin; and Algona, Iowa.
Next Fravel murder hearing in December
WINONA, Minn. – The next court hearing for Adam ravel in the Maddi Kingsbury murder case has been scheduled for December 14. Judge Nancy Buytendorp set the date to allow Fravel’s attorney time to review transcripts of the grand jury proceedings that led to more severe charges of first-degree murder on Monday. Fravel is represented by Zachary Bauer of Rochester. The December hearing will be an opportunity for Bauer to file motions before the case goes to trial. For Monday’s hearing Fravel was transported from the maximum-secuity jail in Rochester, where he’s been held since June. After the hearing he was transported back immediately
Earlier: Maddi Kingsbury autopsy short on details
Hidden Valley man accused of punching teen repeatedly
MINNESOTA CITY, Minn. – Deputies arrested a man at the Hidden Valley trailer court after a violent domestic dispute in which a 15-year-old boy was pushed and punched. Arrested was arrested Cody Allen Rothering, 39, whom deputies said was drunk. This was about 6:25 p.m. Family members said that Rothering assaulted the boy four or five times in a 15-minute span. The youth’s injuries appeared minor, deputies sad.
Rothering. Booked for domestic assault.
Probe widens in Plainview homecoming abuse
PLAINVIEW, Minn. – An outside investigator has been hired by the Plainview School Board to get to the facts in a series of pre-homecoming incidents involving high school students. Police also have been folded into the investigation. The decision for an external investigation was made after a video surfaced from an anonymous source. Superintendent Darrin Strosahl said that he has been unable to authenticate the video or to identify individuals, but, he added: “The behavior depicted in the video has no place in our community.” The misbehavior, he emphasized again, was not on school grounds. It was sufficient, however, for Stroshal to cancel a homecoming parade and pep rally. About the video, Stroshahl declined to be specific about the depicted behavior. The existence of the video and the possibility it might end up in wider circulation complicated matters for Strosahl. The video raised new questions not only about the level of bad behavior but also about how school administrators and faculty could have been so out of the loop as not to know any detail of what had occurred. In his initial explanation of disciplinary action against the involved students. Strosahl implied he had enough specific knowledge to assert was “no hazing, sexual harassment or anything racial.”
Vebatim
Strosahl: “I recognize that many members of our school community would like us to provide student names and consequences. It would be illegal to do so. Please understand that we are obligated to protect the identity of students and are prohibited from sharing confidential student information.”
Maddi Kingsbury autopsy short on details
WINONA, Minn. – The autopsy for Madeline Kingsbury concluded that the death of the Winona woman was “homicidal violence.” The report, just released, four months after the body was found, is silent about the date and place of death. Those are key details in the pending trial of Adam Favel, her ex-boyfriend, for first-degree murder. Kingsbury was last known to be at the Winona townhouse she shared with Fravel on March 31. Her remains were found hidden in a rural cuvert 40 miles away near Mabel, Minnesota, on June 7. The autopsy was conducted by the regional medical examiner at Mayo Clinic in Rochester.
$12 million to jail detainee for medical negligence
SHAKOPEE, Minn. – A man whose medical needs were ignored in the Scott County jail in 2020 has won a $12.2 million settlement. Terrance Dwayne Winborn, of Marshall, now 62 years old, lost both hands and suffered a heart attack, a stroke and skin lesions all over his body because jailers left him unattended 39 hours rather than get him to a hospital. Winborn spent four months in hospitals, including two months on a ventilator. To settle the case, Scott County agreed to the settlement. In a video, Winborn was shown dealing with difficulties without hands, including feeding himself. He said he eats two meals a day because three takes too much energy. He already has incurred $2 million in medical expenses and needs continuing care. Winborn’s attorney blamed the jail’s indifference that allowed a bacterial infection “to run rampant.”
Winborn. Had been in the Shakopee jail on suspicion of drunken driving.
$250,000 grant to Winona Volunteer Services
Construction progress. At Second and Laird streets. Winona Volunteer Services operates a food shelf and a used clothing shop and offers a wide range of services, including home-delivered meals and assistance to needy households and the homeless.
Progress continues on consolidation
WINONA, Minn. – The Bremer Trust, launched in 1944 from the fortune of banker Otto Bremer, awarded $250,000 to Winona Volunteer Services toward a central facility that is under construction on East Second Street. The charity organization plans to integrate the delivery of basic needs services in the $4.8 million 22,00-square foot building. The Bremer grant includes a direct payment of $100,000 for construction and $150,000 to match the organization’s own new fund-raising. The new building combines separate operations at two nearby addresses
Emergency, fire crews make 49 calls
WINONA, Minn. – The Fire Department reported 33 emergency medical calls plus 16 fire calls in recent days:
> Tuesday, October 3: 10 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
> Monday, October 2: 5 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
> Sunday, October 1: 5 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
> Saturday, September 30: 3 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
> Friday, September 29: 4 medical calls plus 2 calls.
> Thursday, September 28: 4 medical calls plus 3 fire calls.
> Wednesday, September 27: 2 medical calls plus 1 fire call.
Earlier: Emergency, fire crews 60 calls
Farmer badly hurt when combine goes into ditch, rolls
ARCADIA, Wis. – A combine overturned on a dirt road southeast of Arcadia, pinning the driver to the ground. Christiaan Bezuidenhout, 48, was freed by Arcadia first-responders and airlifted to an Eau Claire hospital. His condition was listed as serious. The accident was about 6:35 p.m. on Oak Ridge Road near Lisowski Lane. Bezuidenhout was heading north on Oak Ridge Road and slipped into the ditch and overturned.
MyPillow Guy: “I’m broke” but yet defiant
CHASKA, Minn. – Pillow manufacturer Mike Lindell acknowledged he’s financially broken by legal bills that are piling up as a result of his claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against his erstwhile buddy Donald Trump. The admission was on Lindell’s own South Dakota-based FrankSpeech web channel. Lindell had made millions of dollars since 2011 by promoting his MyPillow products to insomniac late at night on cable television channels and became a cult character. He expanded a factory in Chaska and hired hundreds of production workers to meet the demand. He bought a private jet and wrote a book about praising God and overcoming addictions. In 2016 became a major supporter of Trump for president. In the 2020 election when Trump lost the presidency, Lindell concocted elaborate conspiracy theories and claimed that voting machines had been rigged. Two voting machine manufacturers, Dominion and Systematic, sued for $1.3 billion and $1 billion. Lindell’s legal bills drained his fortune. Last week his attorneys abandoned him as a client because he was delinquent on his legal bills. Meanwhile, Walmart and other retailers had dropped MyPillow products rather than be associated with Lindell. In his new video on FrankSpeech, Lindell called himself a victim of “cancel culture.” He proclaimed thar he wasn’t done fighting: “I’m never going to stop trying to secure elections for this country ever.”
Lindell. In his high-flying days a sought-after speaker at right-wing events. This was at a prayer breakfast in Milwaukee in 2019.
Marijuana impairment charge to depend on test
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman was taken in after an officer found her sitting at an East Side corner and smelled marijuana. Savanna Pearl Peterson, 18, admitted to smoking earlier, the officer said. The case began at a stop sign at Third and Lafayette streets about 11:20 p.m. Peterson was taken to the station house for a check of bodily fluids to determine whether an arrest would be warranted. The tests were sent to a state lab, which usually needs several days to return. Peterson was released to a sober party to take home.
Test for emergency alerts Wednesday
ST. PAUL, Minn. – A test of the national emergency alert system will sound Wednesday on phones, radios and televisions at 1:20 p.m. Central Time. Don’t panic. “This is only a test,” said Dana Wahlberg, state public safety coordinator. The purpose: To ensure the effectiveness of cellular and broadcast connections in announcing emergencies. Test messages will be broadcast in English and Spanish, Wahlberg said.
College scores
Soccer (women): Bemidji State 2, Winona State 1
Soccer (women): Saint Mary’s 0, UW-Stevens Point 0
Volleyball (women): Wayne State of Nebraska 3, Winona State 1
Minnesota prep
Volleyball (girls): Pine Island Panthers 3, St. Charles Saints 0
Volleyball (girls): Chatfield Gophers 3, Rushford -Peterson Trojans 1
Police gig 11 liquor vendors in underage stings
WINONA, Minn. – Eleven liquor establishments made an illegal under-age sale to a police decoy in the latest check on compliance with terms of their city-issued liquor licenses. In all, 26 establishments were checked. Most passed. Those that failed were issued a fact sheet on license requirements but not formally cited. Police consider compliance checks more as educational than punitive, said Deputy Police Chief Jay Rasmussen. Making an illegal sale, police said, were:
> Discount Liquor, 1733 West Service Drive.
> East Side Bar, 851 E Wabasha Street.
> El Patron, 1415 W Service Drive.
> Fifth Street Liquor, 501 West Fifth Street.
> Mango’s, 408 U.S. Highway 14.
> Kwik Trip store, 375 Cottonwood Drive.
> Sammy’s Pizza, 126 West Second street.
> Signatures, 22852 County Road 17.
> Sinclair station, Mankato, 952 Mankato Avenue.
> VFW, 208 E 3rd Street.
> Zaza’s, 529 Huff Street.
None of the 26 establishments in the compliance check were included in a check conducted in July. A third check in coming weeks will mean all 73 places with liquor licenses will have been checked this year, Rasmussen said. The latest checks were between 4 and 8 p.m.
Passing grades
Receiving certificates of appreciation for compliance:
> Bub’s, 65 East Fourth Street.I
> Gabby’s 179 East Third Street.
> Hy-Vee grocery, 1475 West Service Drive.
> Kwik Trip store, 1058 Homer Road.
> Kwik Trip store, 770 East Broadway Street.
> Kwik Trip store, 1601 West Fifth Street.
> MGM Liquor, 850 Menard Road.
> Midtown Foods, 126 East Fifth street.
> Sinclair store, 1650West Service Drive.
> Sliced, 66 Center Street.
>Third Street Liquor, 157 East Third Street.
> Westgate Bowl, 1429 West Service Drive.
A 25th establishment was closed. A 26th’s bar was not open.
How the compliance checks worked
An underage volunteer, arranged by the local chapter of the Alliance for Substance Abuse Prevention, attempts to make a purchase.
> If asked for an age-confirming ID, the volunteer produces a personal driver license that shows age as under 21.
> If the volunteer os served, either a deputy sheriff or a city police officer, enter and issue a fact sheet about the law against serving anyone not yet 21.
> If the underage voluhteer was denied service, the officers issue a certificte of appreciation for compliance.
How they voted: On ousting House speaker
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House speaker, third in succession to the presidency, has been ousted. The vote by the House, 216-210, ended Kevin McCarthy’s House leadership after a tumultuous 10 months. McCarthy was first elected to the House in 2006. There was no heir apparent for House speakership. The majority Republicans have only a razor-thin House margin and lots of internal divisions that have stalled decision-making on policy issues. Here is how House members from Minnesota and Wisconsin voted on McCarthy:
To remove McCarthy
Angie Craig, D-Mn2 (south suburbs)
Betty McCollum, D-Mn4 (St. Paul)
Ilhan Omar, D-Mn5 (Minneapolis)
Dean Phillips, D-Mn3 (west suburbs)
—
Gwen Moore, D-Wi4 (Milwaukee)
Mark Pocan, D-Wi2 (Madison)
To keep McCarthy
Tom Emmer, R-Mn6 (north suburbs)
Michelle Fischbach, R-Mn7 (rural west)
Brad Finstad, R-Mn1 (south)
Pete Stauber, R-Mn 8 (Iron Range)
—
Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wi5 (Clyman)
Mike Gallagher, R-Wi8 (Green Bay)
Glen Grothman, R-Wi6 (Campbellsport)
Bryan Steil, R-Wi1 (Janesville)
Tom Tiffany, R-R-Wi7 (Hazelburst)
Derrick Van Orden, R-Wi3 (Prairie du Chien)
Farm fire in final stages when crews arrive
EYOTA, Minn. – A wind-driven fire destroyed a barn and damaged two farm buildings and three silos north of Eyota. There were no injurie. Nobody was at the farm when the fire began, which delayed a fire call, said Eyota Fire Chief Jeff Peck. The roof of the main structure had already collapsed when fire crews arrived about1:30 p.m., Peck said. Fire departments from Dover, Eyota and Rochester responded.
Scorched outbuildings, silos. Fire at 10836 County Road 9 East near Eyota. Image; Rochester Fire Department
Fravel bail upped to $3 million in murder case
WINONA, Minn. – Bail for Adam Fravel has been increased to $3 million to reflect new more serious charges of first-degree murder in the slaying of his ex-girlfriend Maddi Kingsbury. Judge Nancy Buytendorp ordered the new bail at the request of the prosecution. Fravel, 29, of Mabel, had been held lieu of $2 million bail since his arrest June 9. His attorney, Fravel’s attorney, Zachary Bauer, told the court that Favel can’t afford to post bail.
So much produce, so many people
Schwertels’s roadside stand. Midway on U.S. Highway 35 in Wisconsin between Bluff Siding and Centerville. Lots of pumpkin, lots of hay, lots of shoppers. Image: Steve Lunde
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