Mark Fischenich: Ask Us: Mayo explains tree removal at Mankato hospital
Jul. 24—Q: To the Ask Us Editor,
I am curious as to how the administration at Mayo Clinic, an icon of good health, can think that it is a good idea to cut down trees that are hundreds of years old. These trees surrounded a large area that will probably become a parking lot for the facility. So, since the trees were on the edges of the property, they could easily have been saved to provide the oxygen that we all need to stay alive. And they would also provide some cool shade in the hot summer, as well as just look good.
I read that it takes seven to eight mature trees to supply one human with a year's worth of oxygen. I hope those downed Mayo trees weren't the trees that supply you or me.
My question for Ask Us is 'Why were these trees destroyed?'
Thanks for your help.
A: Ask Us Guy — who actually hasn't yet achieved the rank of editor — looked up the documents submitted by Mayo to the city of Mankato, which showed the planned removal of 16 trees near the southwest side of the hospital building in addition to the trees cut down adjacent to Main Street.
The necessity of removing the 16 trees nearer to the hospital was obvious — that's where the temporary helicopter landing site is, and trees and helicopters don't mix. (That spot for air ambulances was needed to replace the rooftop helipad that was shut down during construction of Mayo's massive bed-tower expansion on the opposite side of the hospital complex.)
As for the other trees ... .
"The trees along East Main Street were removed for a parking lot expansion," said Luke Cummings, regional chair of facilities and support services for Mayo Clinic Health System-Southwest Region. "The trees were past maturity and not in a condition to be salvaged. The site development plan includes extensive landscaping and a rain garden for natural management of storm water."
First off, Ask Us Guy is grateful that Mayo takes a different approach to its patients than its trees, because he is past maturity and some days feels like he's not in a condition to be salvaged.
Secondly, the reference by Cummings to extensive landscaping is no joke. While it's difficult to say how many small trees, shrubs and perennials it would take to produce the same amount of oxygen as mature trees, the landscaping plan filed by Mayo with the city promises 69 Technito Arborvitae, 57 Fireside Ninebark, 12 Amber Jubilee Ninebark, 24 Flower Carpet Scarlet Rose, 12 Karl Foerster Grass plugs and 114 Mayo Flower of Hope.
Q: Very interested in your answer!
My parents moved us to Mankato about 1955. I found a hospital receipt for $5 in regards to surgery on my hand (age 5) due to a cut from glass after falling on the ground. The address listed was 238 Rhine Street. I would just like to know if there is a picture or description of the house/farm or apartment there at that time. I tried looking on Google maps and it only shows land!
Thank you for any help on this subject!
A: Decades from now, if people wonder about their childhood home, they'll be able to go to Google's Street View and get a look at their house and their neighborhood thanks to those Google camera vans that cruise across America. Those images are available back to 2008 on a few major streets in Mankato, and it's already a bit disorienting to look at the 14-year-old photos of South Front Street and other parts of downtown Mankato that have changed substantially.
But for people looking back to the 1950s, there's not a whole lot online. After poking around a bit in Mankato City Council minutes, Ask Us Guy learned that "Rhine Street" was renamed "Madison Avenue" in 1972. And he developed a theory that if a little girl fell on the 200 or 300 blocks of Rhine Street in the 1950s and cut her hand, she probably landed on a broken bottle of 3.2 beer.
City permits granted in the second half of the 1950s included licenses for off-sale 3.2 beer sales at Landwehr's Liquor Store, at Hilltop Tavern, at a store of some sort operated by Margaret Jovaag, at Jerry's Standard Service and at a business operated by John Mueller — all on those two blocks of Rhine Street.
Thinking there might be more thorough information at the Blue Earth County Historical Society, he contacted Brianna Krumwiede of the society's research office.
Krumwiede said there was little in the records specifically on 238 Rhine St., although the 1955 city directory listed a Calvin R. Niehaus at the address, which matches the last name of the girl with the lacerated hand. But the society had no other information about Niehaus or the property.
For readers curious about other addresses, the society has a number of resources they can check.
"We have business directories starting in 1852 and our Polk City Directories go roughly from 1892-2002, though we do have some gaps," Krumwiede said. "The directories have a reverse lookup option (researchers can browse by street name rather than by family name or business) starting in 1929."
The society also has files on specific streets in the county and photographs of some streets organized by city and street.
"Going even broader, we have a few resources relating to architecture history in a few Mankato neighborhoods (pattern books and development guidelines) and plat books by township," she said.
Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, 418 S. Second St., Mankato, MN 56001. Call Mark Fischenich at 344-6321 or email your question to mfischenich@mankatofreepress.com; put "Ask Us Guy Deserves to be an editor, with all the rights, privileges and honors appertaining thereunto" in the subject line.
("Good luck with that," his editor said.)
