(upbeat music) - [Promoter] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(loon calls) (upbeat rock music) - Cruising your way next Off 90.

In Austin, we knit together a story about yarn.

We talk to the former head of Rochester Civic Music.

We attend an indigenous festival in Mankato, and we present a story about a truck museum in Rochester.

It's all just ahead, Off 90.

(upbeat music) Hi, I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip Off 90.

If you are a serious knitter and live in a small community in Southeast Minnesota, you might not have a dedicated yarn store.

A mother and daughter from Austin have solved that with a yarn store on wheels called the YarnMobile.

Let's ride along and check out the inventory.

(playful music) - [Lindsey] Knitters are really tactile and crocheters, you know, we wanna touch it.

We care about how things feel, particularly, if you're wearing something close to your skin.

So, the touch and the feel of the yarn, how soft it is, is always really important.

We have a wide range of different fibers.

So, we have a lot of wool and alpaca, but also things like linen, cotton, silk, plant-based fibers.

- Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa, there's a real dearth of small yarn shops.

You can find the big box, less expensive yarns, but not the beautiful yarns that you wanna sit and knit a whole sweater out of.

- We're always complaining that we don't have a local yarn store here in Austin.

The closest store is probably about an hour, an hour and a half drive away, which is a long drive if you wanna just shop for some yarn.

(playful music continues) - We started the business, when I came home home with this idea and mentioned it to Lindsey, she got all excited.

And then all of a sudden three weeks later she said, "I found us a truck."

And I'm sort of going, "Whoa, you took that and ran with it."

(playful music continues) - As soon as she came up with that idea, it just made perfect sense to us that this way we could bring the yarn store to all of these communities in Southeastern Minnesota, that don't have local yarn stores of their own.

- People are just so excited to come and have this yarn brought to their town.

- We wanna love them and we wanna be passionate about them because we know if it's product that we really love and that we use ourselves, that then it's easier to tell the customers why they'll love it too.

(playful music continues) - We started taking the truck out.

And had wonderful reception.

We had other towns calling us and asking us to come to their town and do an event.

And then the pandemic hit and everything shut down.

We had barely gotten off the ground, when everything had to be put on hold.

- My mom's house has become sort of corporate headquarters unofficially, just because we need a staging area when we get, for example, a big shipment of new inventory and we have to go through everything, check it, enter it into our online inventory, organize everything.

- We're regularly sending out packages to people through the website, but it's when you do it in person.

And they are excited about finding a color that they've been looking for or a specific type of yarn that they want to knit with.

- That's where it's really beneficial.

Having the actual physical store location that people can come to so they can see what they're buying in person.

You can hold up different colors next to each other, to see how they'll look together.

(playful music continues) It's fun to get to work with somebody else who is as passionate about this as I am.

We both have such a love for knitting and for yarn.

She's the one who actually first taught me how to knit.

As long as I can remember, my mom's crafts were around the house.

- I love this business.

I love this job more than, practically, any other job I've had.

And a large part of that is I'm doing it with my daughter.

When someone's that excited at about what you're doing, you have to love it.

- The business is still very new and we've been really, really excited at the reception that we've gotten.

It's so much fun just seeing people get excited when they see us and learn about us.

So, we just wanna keep building, you know, we want more people to find out.

We like to bring the truck to new places that we haven't been yet.

And just, hopefully, get out there more and let people know that we're here.

(playful music continues) (upbeat music) - For 32 years, Steven Schmidt programmed music for the city of Rochester.

If you saw a band at Down by the Riverside, that band was hired by a department led by Steven.

He's also a musician himself.

Schmidt has retired after 32 years at his job.

Now he'll focus on his own music.

Let's give a listen.

(gentle guitar music) - I'm often asked, you know, who's your favorite artist?

I don't have one, Because I never did the music for me.

I always did it for the constituents that I served.

It was for the audience.

- And we congratulate him for a job well done and wish him continued success and happiness in his retirement.

- Steve's been a central part of the music scene in Rochester for a long time.

And I think largely that has gone unnoticed as far as the person of Steve being critical to that.

Steve is not about the self-promotion in that way.

He's really about performing the work of the city and doing a service to the people of Rochester.

What stands out in my mind is how well he brought quality music to of the city of Rochester for so many years and touched so many people and did it without bringing particular attention to himself.

The fact that after all these years, we still have a vibrant Civic Music Department in Rochester, one of the few in the country, I think, that's testimony to how well Steve managed the role of general manager.

And he left this legacy now of musical history behind, and he set the tone for the future as well.

- One of the unique things about the city of Rochester is they, specifically, do have a department that is about music in the city.

Rochester Civic Music brings music to the community.

And, you know, it is funded by the city of Rochester.

It has an advisory board.

And when Steve was Manager of the Civic Music department, he would've served as kind of the, you know, the person who, you know, would tell us about what's going on with the city of Rochester music.

And then we would give him feedback and he would bring that back as part of curating the programming.

Crack Collective is a London-based Ethiopian band.

Beautiful music, you know, Ethiopian, drums, vocals, et cetera.

And I noticed that there was this young woman in the back of the auditorium watching.

She comes up and she starts dancing with the band and just the look of sheer joy and transportation on her face.

This is music from her homeland of Ethiopia.

In that moment, she was transformed back to her home, even though her home is here in Rochester.

And that for me is kind of one of the most important things that I feel Steve has brought to Civic Music.

He's always furthering this idea and this sense of home.

- The moments that meant the most to me are those moments when we touched a young student's life and they said to me, "This is the music that I grew up in my home country before I immigrated to Rochester."

Or those nights when there were standing ovations down by the Riverside and the crowd just went wild.

(upbeat music) It's really the audience reactions, because what really mattered was being able to touch those concert goers.

Imagine the number of artists I've had the opportunity to bring to Rochester during my time at Rochester Civic Music, 30 years.

In some of those years, we did as many as 100 distinct services.

I'm confident that I built a strong foundation for Rochester Civic Music.

And I'm confident that it will continue to serve audiences and artists for many years to come.

We did very good work there.

We developed strong networks of artists to bring to Rochester.

We did a great job of building partnerships with people who help us to present our programs, be it a rural library or the schools.

♪ Do my duty ♪ ♪ I hope to be home soon ♪ - I think, it's clear that Steve himself being a musical performer had a profound influence in his ability to identify talent.

Clearly Steve knows the business of performing and he understands the hard work of being a musical performer.

I think, that played a positive effect in his ability to select great artists.

♪ You helped me through the turn around ♪ - In all the time that I was working as an arts administrator, I never stopped playing the guitar.

I never stopped writing songs.

I never stopped recording.

Now, that I pivot into retirement, I'm able to get to know all of these instruments again.

Some of them that I had neglected for far too long.

(gentle guitar music) ♪ The very best place... ♪ I'm finding that I'm able to be that artist that I always was.

But I never really had the time to invest and really honing my craft because there was always the next conference that I needed to go to.

I needed to get to the next showcase performance to see this artist I was thinking on presenting.

I needed to book the next season.

Even when I did recording, I go back and I listen to some of my last two records and I go, wow, those songs were way too fast.

Why was I in such a hurry?

Well it's 'cause I was thinking about the next task.

I was double tasking.

I don't have to do that now.

And I'm really able to live that life of an artist to return to that.

♪ I'm moving along that open prairie ♪ ♪ Really don't know what I might find ♪ (upbeat rock music) - Several blocks in Mankato's downtown are designated as Old Town.

The neighborhood is known for its art scene and it's thriving, small businesses.

Mankato's indigenous community has a long history in Old Town.

We take in an event known as the Indigenous Art Festival.

(tribal chanting and drumming) - The Old Town Indigenous Art Festival is a three day event that has snow sculpting, artist market and classes.

So, we have some drummers here, singers.

The upstream singers are here when they do traditional native singing and drumming.

And it's very powerful.

We have indigenous teachings, native teachings, there's a animal hide teaching class.

There's a teaching of the significance of the bison and buffalo.

We also partner with the MNSU College and they are providing support as well.

Hello, I'm Justin Ek and I'm one of the event coordinators for the Old Town Indigenous Art Festival.

The goal of the event is to share wisdom and share culture in the hopes of reconciliation for our area.

- One of the things that I really appreciate is the indigenous marketplace.

Lakota Made is a big indigenous herbal shop.

And I look forward to perusing their shop as well as all the independent makers and they have different classes going on.

They had yoga yesterday and I know they've been having some tribal teaching classes and I think that's really important to keep passing on parts of the culture.

My name is Heather Friedli and I am the team captain of Team Kwe.

I've been snow sculpting for 15 years.

This is my 15th season and I've been doing it competitively for at least 10 of those 15 years.

Our family is a part of the Little Traverse Bay band of Odawa Indians.

That's Anishinaabe, but from Michigan.

And my sister and I are first generation descendants.

To begin a snow sculpture, first the block needs to be built.

So, I sent specifications to Justin, they had a team of people, built the snow block pack in the snow.

And once the form is removed, then we come in.

We come and bring our designs.

So, as a team we get together, we discuss what we wanna build.

Its significance for ourselves and the community.

And then we do usually like a top down view and a side view of drawings.

So that way we can kind of see it in the round.

And then when we come out, we work together by marking the form, making major cuts with either saws or chisels.

And then we kind of build it from there, always talking, always working together as a team.

So, the piece is a fancy shawl dancer and she's got her shawl in a big kind of nice vertical formation with the fringe flying.

And the bison is right next to her.

So they're kind of like friends.

- They're really bringing with them their energy and their experience in creating kind of non-traditional art.

And we're really excited about all the opportunities they're gonna be able to bring for the future.

Hi, my name is Natasha Frost, and I'm the owner of Wooden Spoon and also Frost Plaza.

So our Old Town community has a vibrant art scene.

It has amazing small businesses.

And one of the best parts about Old Town is that we come together as a business community in order to support each other.

And that's a key theme of the event this weekend.

So, we have a really great collaboration as business owners in Old Town and Justin is full of ideas.

And so, he brought this idea to one of our meetings and all of the business owners throughout Old Town were very excited and very supportive.

And so, while I was there from the beginning, it's really been Justin and the other business owners who've been leading the way making it happen.

And with the generous contributions throughout the businesses and also from around the state, it really came to fruition.

- The Old Town Association is something that has morphed a lot over the years and the businesses that are involved and take the spearheaded charge of that.

Recently, we kind of did the Day of the Dead event and my family spearheaded that, and kind of got the support of all these businesses, 'cause they trust the artistic vision that that's part of the piece that's gonna bring us into the future and bring, you know, revitalize our area.

So, the businesses are very receptive to culture.

They're very receptive to arts and bringing something different to our region.

That's what our district does.

- We're already talking about what's next?

What are the different events that we can bring in that bring their artistic vision with the vision of creating Old Town as an arts and culture small business district.

I think, it's really important for businesses to understand having a path of reparations actually benefits everyone.

So, it's not about just giving yourself and your money and your support to indigenous voices.

It's about amplifying and lifting us all up together.

And that's a really critical piece that I think all businesses across our region could really value and benefit from as we move into the next phase of our Old Town Association.

- I think, it's really important to come and be a part of your community.

And be a part of learning about other cultures, if it's not your community, in particular.

And so, I think, it's educational as well as fun.

You get to try something new or different or participate in things that you wouldn't otherwise do.

And to come see the snow sculpting, which is kind of a rare thing and unique, especially, for Minnesota.

- This is a space for us to share our culture and that we live in a world where we consume so many things, media and so many different things that we've seen it all, you know?

And this is a space that is collecting things you might not have seen and things that are interesting that you don't see every day.

Things that are handcrafted by artists that have traditional art styles that don't get seen on your every day to day things and it's medicine and that these kinds of experiences they heal you from the inside out.

(tribal chanting and drumming) (upbeat rock music) - They're billed as The Trucks that Built America.

If you love trucks, you'll want to brake for a Rochester museum that's devoted to them.

(nostalgic music) - Mack trucks really built America as it is today, whether it's the highways, the dams, the skyscrapers and so, I was really impacted as a child to see these trucks and it started off when I was probably 10 years old.

We had a customer that had a 1918 Mack truck that was displayed at the Chicago World's Fair originally.

- [Bob Nuss] This particular truck had never been restored.

It was at the World's Fair in 1934 in Chicago.

- And he was actually a client of my grandfather, Charlie Nuss, from Rockford, Illinois.

- My dad found those trucks with a company in Chicago.

They purchased them or Barton purchased them.

- From Burch & Carmichael in Rochelle, Illinois.

And he brought that 1918 Mack truck to Rochester for an open house.

And I can remember, I'm guessing that I was about 10 or so looking at that truck that was, I don't know, 85, 90 years old at the time, but I was amazed at the history and to think about Mack trucks being a US company, American company that started in 1900, pretty intriguing.

And then to go further on to say how Nuss has been involved with Mack trucks over the years, really, it's a great, it just, you really feel grounded as to where your roots came from.

As I got older, I had met some people and talked more about old trucks.

And then one day I bought an old truck that needed restoration and I was really excited.

And about a year and a half later, we restored the truck and I thought, wow, this is amazing.

Like this is it.

This is the pinnacle of collecting old trucks, is one truck.

But then I took the truck to a truck show in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a dear friend of mine, I knew him well.

And he said, "Wow, that's a great truck."

He goes, "When are you gonna finish it?"

And I didn't even know what to say.

I said, "I think I did finish it."

Right, and he said, "Well, it looks great.

Don't get me wrong, but it's just had this big empty flatbed, right?"

And he said, "Who ever thought or ever heard or saw a truck that wasn't hauling something?"

So he quickly came up with an idea to have a bunch of old wine barrels that he had in his museum that he was able to let me acquire.

And we put together our very first truck, which is this 1923 Mack AC that we call the wine truck.

And so, that's how it started.

As I talked to more people traveled to more shows, (camera shutters) one truck leads to two, two leads to three.

And the next thing you know, you've got a big collection.

And, you know, each one of these trucks tells a story, which I love.

It's really amazing.

I've got this Boulder Dam behind me.

This is a 1932 Mac truck that built the Boulder Dam.

It was one of 17 super-duty Mack trucks that worked on the Boulder Dam.

And it's the only complete one left in the world.

- [Narrator] An unbroken parade of heavy-duty trucks, each handling from 8 to 10 tons of rock, labored up over the steep roads, cut into the canyon walls to dispose of the material in the gulches adjacent to the dam site.

This phase of the task, which entailed the excavation and the handling of over one and a half million cubic yards of material was completed within a period of 13 months and was considered the most grueling portion of the work, for both men and machinery.

- Ultimately, all these trucks tell a story and they tell a story of the people, the men and women that built this country.

And for us to put this museum together, we are honored to have these pieces in our collection.

- And, I think, having this museum is a tribute to what we've done, but so we can show the history of our industry here.

And when kids come in and people that they just can't believe what you've done here.

- We're kind of caretakers, I guess, of these trucks and these stories, I guess.

And we've taken it upon ourself to bring 'em back to life, Tell their story and set 'em up for future generations to understand the history, understand the stories and carry on the legacy of really trucks that built America.

- So, I think, this is all part of the history and when people have a comfort level, when they come in and see this, that you built this like you didn't just pile the money up in the corner, or you can't take it with you.

Like I said, you only got temporary custody of it.

So, thank you.

(nostalgic music continues) (soft jazz music) - Mankato was once known as the home of a college for business and accounting students.

It was called Mankato Commercial College.

We take a look at the school in this video from the Blue Earth County Historical Society.

(soft upbeat music) - The Mankato Commercial College had a long history.

Started by J.R. Brandrup in 1891, The school was originally located in the 300 block of South Front Street.

Brandrup's idea was to teach business by doing, rather than learning from a book.

He invested in state of the art technology so students could learn at their own pace and have a variety of different experiences.

When the block was sold in 1905, Brandrup moved the school to the west side of the 100 block of South Front Street, until a fire burned the school in 1915.

While the school was being rebuilt on the same site, the commercial college operated out of the upper floors of the Richards Block with Star Drug on the first floor.

The college moved into their new building in 1916 and remained there until 1974 when urban renewal changed the area.

The commercial college operated until 1981.

The final building still stands as apartments today.

For more information about historical topics, visit our website at blueearthcountyhistory.com.

- That's all for this episode.

Thanks for riding along.

See you next time Off 90.

(upbeat music) - [Promoter] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bird calls) (upbeat music)