Roadside pumpkins. The first pumpkins of the season have been added to the produce at the Bronk vegetable stand on U.S. Highway 14 atop Stockton Hill. Labor Day might seem a bit early for Halloween, but, hey, you gotta do the pickin’ on nature’s timetable. Image: Steve Lunde

Earlier: Minnesota pumpkin winner at 814-plus pounds

Golf (women): UW-River Falls Falcon Invitational: UW-LaCrosse (2)

Soccer (men): Saint Mary’s 0, Wisconsin Lutheran 0 (draw)

Soccer (women): Winona State 2, Upper Iowa 0

Soccer (women): Wartburg 2, Saint Mary’s 0

Soccer (women):  UW-LaCrosse 7, Dubuque 0

WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a drunk man with a loaded pistol at a neighborhood bar in a West Side residential industrial area. Officers had been called by a bartender who said a hopelessly drunk man wouldn’t leave. When officers arrived, Nathaniel Wayne Burke, 25, of Isanti, was being assisted out by friends because he was falling over and stumbling and couldn’t navigate his way out by himself. It was then that an officer spotted a 9mm pistol under Lee’s shirt in an appendix holster over his belly button. The officer confiscated the gun, which had one round loaded in the chamber and five more rounds in a magazine in the holster. Witnesses said that Burke had been showing off the gun. Hiss blood-alcohol tested at 0.30% — almost four times the legal definition of intoxication. Because of the high alcohol level, Burke was dispatched the hospital to see if his condition warranted detoxification. Burke did have a permit to carry a weapon, but being drink when doing so is against the rules, Police put the weapon into their locked evidence storage room. Lee may or may not get it back.

Burke. Charges include possession of a firearms while intoxicated. Arrest at Steiny’s Bar, a.k.a. the Cornerstone Bar.

35 acres. Prison in the St. Croix River town of Bayport just downriver from Stillwater. Houses 1,200 medium security inmates.

Among prisoners issues: Heat stifling heat, no venting

STILLWATER, Minn. State prisons Commissioner Paul Schnell said an inmate protest at the Stillwater prison was peaceful. The 200 or so prisoners from one cellblock spent most of the day in their commons area playing cards and chatting. Schnell denied a report that inmates had been denied clean water. The situation ended at about 3 p.m., when only two inmates were left refusing to go back to their cells. Those two inmates were taken to a segregated unit and will go through a disciplinary process, Schnell said. The   unrest was a protest to a change the usual cell release periods during Labor Day weekend. These are periods when inmates have access to phones, recreation and showers. Schnell  blamed the cuts on scheduled outside-the-call inmate activities on  “staffing challenges.” The prison is running 17% short of its rostered staff.

Schnell. State corrections commissioner since 2019. Former St. Paul police executive and earlier police chief in Maplewood and Hastings.

Prison conditions

The 120-year-old prison is not climate controlled. Windows, said state prisons Commissioner Paul Schnell. “have many challenges.” Yes, he said, ventilation is a problem. Schnell said that the state  Corrections Department has been studying possible updates  but that they all require approval from the  state Legislature. About staff shortages that led to reduced recreational hours over the holiday weekend – about 50 positions are vacant — Schnell said he is actively working to recruit more officers. The “outside” hours were cut from several a day on weekends to one. Contract negotiations now under way with the prison staff’s union likely will lead improve compensation, he said.

Earlier: Inmate protest at Stillwater ends quietly

WINONA, Minn. – The wonderfully tasty but always elusive-elusive morel, as well as more common varieties of mushrooms, are the victims of the summer drought. So too the foragers, who just can’t find many. One well-known forger, Kalvin Stern, who is certified by the Minnesota Mycological Society, told KIMT that never seen it like this. “I’ve got spots that I’ve been going to for over six years, that I go to every year. and there’s nothing there — just nothing.” Stern’s favorite haunts are near Quarry Hill northwest of Rochester.

Morels. These luscious morels are from 2022. This year our intrepid  photographer couldn’t find any even in his never-tell-where decaying ash in shady woodlands.

STILLWATER, Minn. – A seven -hour prisoner protest against conditions at Stillwater State prison ended when all but two prisoners returned to their cells. A state Corrections Department spokesperson, Andy Skoogman, said the situation throughout the day was “calm, peaceful and stable.” The emergency lockdown, Skoogman said, was standard procedure in such a circumstance. The same with the activation of a crisis negotiation team and a state-level special operations response team. The response team never entered the unit where the protest occurred, he said. No one was injured.

Earlier: Prison in lockdown after inmates stage sit-down

Among Stillwater incidents

> 2008: Four inmates attempted to tunnel their way out with pilfered tools, including an electric hammer drill. They made it 25 feet guard followed a power cord to the tunnel.

> 2013: An insider tipped guards that an inmate was was planning to fake a suicide attempt and escape when an ambulance would be called to take him to a hospital.

> 2018:  An inmate serving 29 years for murder struck a guard repeatedly in the head with a hammer and killed him.

WINONA, Minn. — A new youth center in Winona opens Wednesday in the Grace Place building at 66 East Second street. John Mullen, director, said kids from kindergarten through high school would be welcome to drop in for homework help, snacks and nightly devotions focused on principles of goodness. There also will be field trips and help finding part-time jobs. The assistant director: Alfreda Green.

STILLWATER, Minn. – The Stillwater State Prison went into emergency lockdown after 200 inmates from one cell block refused to leave an outdoor recreation area and  other common areas and return to their cells.  Protocols went into effect immediately even though Warden Guy Bosch was not on premises when the sit-down began at 8 o’clock Sunday morning. Emergency teams including extra police and firefighters rushed to the prison. All staff were removed from the common areas that inmates had been taken over. Two officers remained in the unit’s secure control area and were in communication other officers in a command center. About 100 prisoners did return to their cells when specifically ordered. ordered. The 100 or so remaining other prisoners in common areas remained peaceful. There was no violence reported, and no injuries. A crisis negotiation team was activated. Inmates said they were peacefully protesting “unsafe living conditions” that included closed windows and inadequate ventilation during recent stifling heat with days hotter than 100 degrees. Also their access to showers and telephones had been severely curtailed in recent weeks because the prison was shorthanded.

Stillwater prison. The main entrance. Capacity: 1,600 male inmates, currently 1,200. It’s been the state’s second largest prison since 2010 when the Faribault prison was expanded to accommodate 2,000 inmates.

Stillwater profile

The prison, just south of Stillwater at Bayport, was built between 1910 and 1914. The prison, classified as. medium security, houses 1,200 male inmates in seven cell blocks. About 100 other inmates are in a nearby minimum security area. Prison grounds comprise 35 acres on the west side of the St. Croix River. The prison is one of 11 Minnesota state correctional facilities. The prison replaced an earlier territorial facility that had been in operation since 1853. The new prison’s design in 1910 was innovative at the time: A “telephone pole” layout had a main hallway connecting the cell blocks.

NEW YORK – The analytics news site Stacker drew on the Forbes magazine data on global wealth to list the five richest billionaires in Minnesota. The list has famliar names:

> Glen Taylor, of Mankato: $2.7 billion. Self-made through printing. 1,088th richest person in the world.

> Stanley Hibbard, of St. Paul: $1.6 billion. From DirecTV and broadcasting (1,735th).

> Jeffrey Michael family, of Minnetonka: $1.3 billion. Self-made in data management (2,101th)

> Martha MacMillan, of Orono: $1.2 billion.  A Cargill heir. (Also 2,144th)

> John Miller, of Plymouth: Also $1.2 billion. Also a Cargill heir (also 2,144th).

Billionaire tidbits

Stacker added these observations: The first billionaire was either Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller in 1916 or automobile manufacturer Henry Ford in 1925. Data are inconclusive. A century later a record 660 people became billionaires globally, tripling the previous year. The Unite States has more billionaires than any other country. Pew Research data show Americans have good feelings about some individual billionaires, like Bill Gates of Microsoft wealth, but see billionaires as a group negatively. Another factoid: Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos is projected to become the world’s first trillionaire by 2026.

SPRING GROVE, Minn. – A pedestrian was struck on a Spring Grove Street and injured about 7:30 a.m. Steven Neal Ranzenberger, 68, of Spring Grove, was taken 35 miles to a LaCrosse hospital. His injuries were non-life threatening, a Houston County deputy said. The vehicle, a 2019 Jeep Renegade driven by Jadyn Sophia Randall, 24, of Mabel, was heading east toward Mabel on State Highway 44 at Division Avenue South. Randall was unhurt.

Lake Michigan shipwreck. The wreckage of the Trinidad suggests it descended relatively slow and settled right-side up in its final resting place. Based on sonar, archeologists Brendon Baillod and Robert Jaeck put together this 3-D model. Image: Historical Society of Wisconsin

Canal bump, poor maintenance blamed – not weather

ALGOMA, Wis. – A 138-foot schooner that sank with a cargo of coal in 1881 has been located 10 miles off Algoma in 270 feet of water. Although at the bottom of Lake Michigan 140-some years, the wreckage is remarkably well preserved, said maritime historians Brendon Baillod and Robert Jaeck. They found the wreckage with side-scan sonar. Many personal possessions of the crew were in place, they said. Captain John Higgins and the crew escaped the sinking ship and rowed eight hours to Algoma. The ship went down off the main channel and 120 miles short of its destination, Milwaukee. Once ashore, Higgins reported he believed the ship had been damaged passing through the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal and was leaking. When pumps couldn’t keep up, the crew scuttled the vessel. Too, the Trinidad’s owners apparently had not invested well in maintenance. Higgins said he once was almost killed when a rotting spar broke off and fell on him. When it sank, the Trinidad was 14 years old.

Trinidad. In the background of this photograph at a crowded harbor. The schooner was built in 1867. Mostly it hauled grain. On the final voyage the cargo was coal.

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A fight broke out with shots being fired at a teen-age birthday party at the Graham Arena complex on the Rochester fairgrounds. No one was injured. The combatants dispersed as police arrived. But already, witnesses said, three shots had been fired. Officers didn’t find any shell casings. It appeared, though, that one bullet punctured the radiator of a Volkswagen Jetta. This was about 10 p.m. at a quinceanera, a traditional Mexican celebration for girls on their 15th birthday. Space had been reserved for the arty. Police said the fight involved youths 15 to 20 years old.  They believe there was a single shooter.

Volleyball (women): Winona State 3, Lake Superior State 1

Volleyball (women): Winona State 3, Northwood 1

Volleyball (women): Elmhurst 3, Saint Mary’s 0

Volleyball (women): UW-LaCrosse 3, St. Scholastica 0

Volleyball (women): UW-LaCrosse, Lawrence 0

Volleyball (girls): Eau Claire Regis-Altoona-McDonnell Rams 2, LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 2,

Volleyball (girls): LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 2, Onalaska Lutheran Vikings 0

Volleyball (girls): LaCrescent-Hokah Lancers 2, Baraboo Thunderbirds  0

CHATFIIELD, Minn. – A Rochester driver suffered sustainable injuries when his vehicle struck signs and a light pole on U.S Highway 52. Patrick Francis Hrabem 53, was taken 24 miles to a Rochster hospital. The accident was about 5:05 p.m. at Grove Street Northeast. Hrabem was driving a 2017 Toyota Rav4. His airbag deployed.

WINONA, Minn. – Firefighters needed two hours to control a major fire inside a large metal building at the giant scrapyard owned by former Mayor Jerry Miller and his son the state senator Jeremy Miller on Winona’s Far East End. All fire-fighting units were dispatched to the scene about 7:30 p.m. Off-duty crews were called in and also suburban Goodview fire units. It was not believed anyone was injured,  Fire Chief Curt Bittle said. Besides the main structure, no other buildings were involved. The cause was investigation, Bittle said.

On Shives Creek. Miller Scrap & Disposal stretches half a mile along Shives Creek in former wetlands where the creek flows into the Mississippi River. Images: Winona Fire Department