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In the Midst

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"...for Cokato, Anderson and Calgren. Play Ball!"

5/6/2023

 
Gordon W. Nelson. "...for Cokato, Anderson and Calgren. Play Ball!" In the Midst Of, Cokato Historical Society (Spring 1998) v. 18 no. 2. 
Picture
Members of the Cokato Team outside the Sweet Shop: Gordy Forsman, Clair Peterson, Wayne Larson, Alden Burkstrand, Harold Anderson, Clay Calgren, and Gordy Nelson.
It could be any Sunday afternoon from May through August during the golden era of Cokato "town team" baseball from 1933 through 1939. The locale for today's game is Legion Park, arguable the finest baseball facility in this part of the state, certainly among the very few with a grass infield and sunken dugouts. So what if left field slopes slightly away from the infield toward the tennis court. Credit and a sense of deep appreciation should go to Luther "Fisk" Peterson for the countless hours he spends each summer maintaining this community asset.

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SWIMMING LESSONS FROM SUSIE

10/26/2022

 
Museum Staff, "Swimming Lessons from Susie." In The Midst Of, Cokato Historical Society (June, 2019) vol. 39 no. 2.
Picture
Swimming lessons at Brooks Lake with Paulie Anderson-Watson. Year unknown. If you have any other photos of swimming lessons at Brooks Lake please give the museum a copy.
​Susie Keskey began teaching swimming lessons on Brooks Lake on June 19, 1961. The lessons were sponsored by the Red Cross and the American Legion. They featured four divisions of instruction: Swimmers, Intermediate, Beginners, and Lifesaving. Keskey recalled that “When we had swimming lessons in early June the kids had a hard time staying warm. I had a lot of blue lipped kids.” She also remarked, “We would always bring a salt shaker to take off the blood suckers.”
When the museum staff begged Keskey for more stories about her time at Brooks Lake, she told us, “During playtime,
either before or after a swimming lesson, one of Nancy Dokken’s sons found an arrowhead in the water. I told him to take it to his mother and ask for a history lesson.”

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LOST COKATO: THE COKATO WINTER ICE CARNIVALS

6/29/2021

 
Mike Worcester, "Lost Cokato: The Cokato Winter Ice Carnivals." In The Midst Of, Cokato Historical Society (Winter, 1998) vol. 18 no. 1.
Picture
​Cokato Winter Carnival Speed Skating Competition in Peterson Park.
When most people think of Cokato festivals, the Corn Carnival usually comes to mind.  But in Minnesota, as the St. Paul Winter Carnival has shown, those cold months of December through February can be fertile ground for some fun times.    So in December 1939, when members of the Cokato Association for Public Affairs (a forerunner of the Cokato Chamber of Commerce) proposed some sort of winter festival for Cokato, nobody found it an odd idea.

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