Big-time light displays have a long history locally
Dec. 18—Huge holiday light displays are often fueled by one or a few neighbors who catch the Clark Griswold fever to do much more than string some lights along the roof and add a lighted snowman in the yard.
The spectacular 14-year-old light display at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth started five years early with an ambitious light display by a guy named Nathan Bentley who started going bonkers on lights at his home in nearby Esko. As such addictions go, Bentley kept adding more and even used some neighbors' fields to create parking lots for the growing number of spectators.
The mayor of Duluth called him one day and asked if he'd move the displays to Bayfront Park. Today the Bentleyville Tour of Lights is backed by numerous Duluth businesses and civic groups that have made it bigger and better each year.
The Kiwanis Holiday Lights in Mankato's Sibley Park started in 2012. It grew from an idea by Kiwanis member Scott Wojcik who remembered a similar event in his hometown of Marshfield, Wisconsin.
While the extravagant Sibley lights didn't grow directly from a local guy's yard display, it leapfrogged off of two longtime neighborhood displays — Mary Circle in upper North Mankato and North Broad Street in Mankato.
A Blue Earth County Historical Society article from 2012 said that in about 1980 Dan Menden and his family turned some homemade lawn ornaments and strings of lights into a seasonal phenomenon.
Soon his Mary Circle neighbors joined in and the street temporarily turned into a one-way, drawing a constant stream of vehicles and almost 100 tour buses. It grew to a point it became a Top 10 tour group event in Minnesota.
But for many locals, the North Broad Street light displays were the longstanding tradition between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The corridor, near Tourtellotte Pool, was a perfect setting as a wide boulevard, with two rows of mature trees, lined the middle of the street. Lee Schweim is credited with kicking off the decorating, lighting up the boulevard trees. Eventually power and outlets were run to the median to power the lights.
Soon, virtually every home for several blocks on both sides of Broad were decked out with lights.
One of the focal points for the thousands of visitors who drove or walked through the displays along Broad Street was my wife's aunt and uncle, Lorraine and John Busch. Their house was perched next to a small, but deep stream and they installed a lighted railroad track and train going over the stream, with lighted skaters on the stream.
The problem with neighborhood-based extravaganzas is it becomes taxing on residents, particularly as they and their kids get older. In the late '90s the Broad Street displays began to dim and an attempt by a local group to resurrect them didn't take hold, ending the event. By the early 2000s, the Mary Circle lights also went dark.
The Kiwanis lights have the advantage of an ongoing stream of new and returning volunteer groups to pitch in, while earning some donations to the various nonprofits they belong to.
And while the Sibley lights have a bright future, other groups are aiming to expand holiday displays.
Mankato's Old Town businesses are hoping to get funds to support a larger light display in the district that has become a hotbed for shops and entrepreneurs. The addition of more lights in the City Center would revive a tradition of lights and trees that started in the 1940s when the downtown was the only shopping and entertainment district.
Whether it was families with kids viewing displays downtown decades ago at Mary Circle and Broad Street, or now Sibley Park, the memories and simple joy of the holidays stick with people all their lives.
Tim Krohn can be contacted at tkrohn@mankatofreepress.com or 507-720-1300.
