Mankato: You've come a long way, baby

Tim Walz's surprising victory is just a symbol of a city's success that has been brewing for a long time

When I first moved to Mankato, Minnesota, in the fall of 1986, I thought I was moving to a giant pit in the known universe, a vacuum, a sinkhole. I had been raised near Palo Alto, California, had lived in the Napa Valley and on the west side of Los Angeles, and was coming from Boulder, Colorado — all cultural and gastronomic centers, not to mention focal points for the wealthy and well-connected.

My wife had been offered two teaching opportunities: one really out in the middle of nowhere at a small Christian college in Kansas and the second at Mankato State University. I had never heard of Mankato State University, though I was well aware of the University of Minnesota, St. Cloud State, Carleton, Macalester, St. Olaf and probably a half a dozen more.

We arrived during a monumental rainstorm. I vividly remember driving the U-Haul truck through hundreds of frogs hopping across Highway 169 as it ran through the City of Lake Crystal, west of Mankato. It literally looked like the frogs were being dumped from the sky.

In the next few weeks I learned a lot about the town, particularly that there were no French restaurants, no Italian, no Japanese, one Chinese, and one "Mexican" that seemed to be serving a Canadian version of the cuisine, whose waitresses were all natural blondes and spoke perfect English. The best restaurant, we decided, was a one-man takeout joint serving authentic southern barbecue in a residential neighborhood stuck between Mankato's limestone quarries and one of city's two large soybean processing facilities. And if you wanted a real cup of coffee or a decent bottle of wine you had to drive to the Twin Cities.

I learned that rust spots on your car or pickup were normal, that if your vehicle had a Japanese name people looked at you strangely, and that if you were accustomed to riding a bike around town, you'd better watch out for your life.

Coming from progressive Boulder, the politics of Mankato were downright scary. The city was run by a dictatorial city manager and who controlled an acquiescing city council. The tearing down of beautiful old buildings and replacing them with ugly new ones had already been accomplished, though a few notable landmarks had been saved due to the diligence of a persistent minority. There were no bike trails to speak of — a shock having come from the bike trail capital of the U.S. And the elected state officials were solidly conservative Republicans whose most important agenda items were to cut taxes on businesses.

I remember the first Mankato mayoral election I voted in. The burning issue was a proposed city ordinance outlawing discrimination against gays, particularly in jobs and housing. The woman who supported the ordinance lost by 100 votes, and the seat of mayor was taken over by a gruff, old geezer who opposed not only gays but sidewalks.

Boulder had reached that fork in the road easily a decade before and had taken the other path. I may not have been in Kansas, but I certainly was not in Colorado anymore.

After frequent trips away and a host of antidepressants I gradually became accustomed to the place, mostly because we suddenly became parents of twin boys a little over a year after arriving, and they gave our lives a lot more focus. I also became involved in the community.

It's now some 20 years later and Mankato has changed immensely. There is still no French or Japanese, but there are two Italian restaurants, one being a ubiquitous Olive Garden. The one Chinese has gone, but it's been replaced by at least ten others. The Canadian Mexican place is still there and does a brisk business. Its waitresses are still blonde and, quite frankly, I've come to appreciate their earnest, upbeat personalities (not to mention their physical appearance) and even the food — as long as I don't think of it as resembling anything south of the Iowa-Kansas border.

The authentic barbecue place has long since disappeared, but a Famous Dave's has arrived to take its place albeit in a more upscale part of town.

Now even the college kids are driving rust-free cars, and most pickups are shiny, new and overwhelmingly huge, the new family vans. Part of that is from better rust coatings. A lot of it is because of growing affluence.

There is now a spider web of multi-use trails in and out of town, so many that Mankato has become a destination spot for recreational bicyclists. It's an improvement I confess I had a lot to do with.

As for historic buildings, I don't think we've lost any in the last 20 years. The old county courthouse was remodeled instead of torn down and has since won awards. And the Louis Sullivan-inspired First National Bank Building was incorporated very tastefully into the new Midwest Wireless Civic Center.

We now have a kinder, gentler city manager, a city council made up mostly of unabashed liberals, and a mayor who is a chiropractor and proponent of nontraditional medicine. Mankato State University is now called Minnesota State University Mankato, and it's recently won an award for being one of the top 100 LGBT-friendly campuses in the country. A lesbian couple started our first decent coffee house, and it's since been joined by many others, including the expected complement of Caribou, Dunn Bros. and Starbuck's.

There is now a real wine shop and wine bar, and even the chain liquor stores offer selections from every wine producing country in the world as well as $100+ bottles of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

In 1986 DFLer John Dorn took the state house seat from the Republicans. He's held it till his retirement this year, and it's now occupied by another DFLer, Kathy Brynaert. In 1990, John Hottinger took the state senate seat by a handful of votes for the DFL party. His successor, Kathy Sheran, won this past fall with nearly 60% of the vote. In the same election voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum banning smoking in all public places, including bars and restaurants.

But perhaps the most meaningful evidence that Mankato has emerged is that one of its own teachers, Democrat Tim Walz, was elected to Congress in a district that covers the southern one-sixth of the state, the first congressional representative from this city in over 100 years. And he did it in a unique and surprising way.

A Mankato observer once remarked that the town was much like Brigadoon: It was filled with talented people, but none ever got out. Today, much of Mankato's talent is still hidden within, but over the last two decades the qualities of the city and its people have become better known.

Brigadoon or not, the city has changed over the last two decades, and most citizens think for the better. But Mankato has also changed me; we have grown closer together, the city and I. I have become more Minnesotan and it more international. And that, I suppose, can rightfully be called progress.