10 years ago (2013)
•If traffic through the front door is any indication, Sturdevant’s recent relocation from Luverne’s East Main Street to Highway 75 was a great move.
Owner-partner Bob Boelman said after 30 years, a handful of people didn’t know there was a Sturdevant’s store in town.
The automobile parts distribution business has been in Luverne since the 1980s.
“A few people told me they thought it was great that Luverne was getting a Sturdevant’s,” Boelman said.
He and his partners — the Sturdevant family — had been thinking about moving to Highway 75 to increase exposure to the passing traffic.
“Then the brewery thing came up,” Boelman said. “Connells were dealing on their building. The buyers wanted more room. So we had a chance to sell our old building. We decided it was a really good time to try to do something different.”
25 years ago (1998)
•Due to renovation of the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90, the Beaver Creek Travel Information Center has been closed and will move temporarily to Luverne.
The travel center, normally at the Minnesota/South Dakota border, will operate in a vacant convenience store in Luverne, one block north of the I-90 exit on Highway 75. It will open Wednesday, April 22, and will remain there until Nov. 15.
The move was possible with the help of Dave Smith and the Luverne Convention and Visitors Bureau.
50 years ago (1973)
•Delegates from 33 congregations, making up the seven-county Worthington Conference of the American Lutheran Church (ALC), will be attending the annual spring convention of the American Lutheran Church Women (ALCW) here on Wednesday, April 18.
Host church for this year’s convention, is Grace Lutheran Church, and all sessions will be held there, starting at 10 a.m. A coffee hour, starting at 9:30 a.m., will precede the program.
75 years ago (1948)
•Completion of the new addition to the city power plant, and completion of the installation of the steam boiler, will cost an estimated $65,000, in addition to what has already been spent. O.J. Pfeifer, Jr., of Pfeifer and Schultz, consulting engineers, told the city council last Thursday night. The Pfeifer and Schultz firm had been employed by the city to supervise construction of the building and the cooling tower. Up to April 1, $38,960.54 has been spent for labor and materials on the addition.
Pfeifer told the council that new plans would have to be drawn in some instances, due to changes at the plant the past few months. The cooling tower, he said, would be in operation as soon as the installation of certain motors and pipes is completed. Several months, with favorable weather, would be required to complete the addition.
100 years ago (1923)
•Discharge of a 750-pound “toe-cap” deposit of dynamite at the Quartzite Quarries, Inc., plant shortly after 6:00 o’clock Wednesday morning fairly shook the earth for an area of at least fifteen miles east of Luverne, rattled windows and dishes, and jarred open doors in numerous homes, as well as awakened thousands of people with a suddenness that left them thoroughly bewildered.
This charge was a portion of the 7,000-pound plant of dynamite that was used in the big blast at the quarries last September, and for some reason this toe-cap charge, which was at the bottom of a 100-foot deep hole on about a level with the loading floor, had failed to go off, although several separated charges immediately above the toe-cap charge, had all exploded. From time to time since the September blast wonderment had been expressed that the ledge at that point was not more thoroughly broken up, but quarrymen had no suspicion that this charge of dynamite had not gone off along with the others at that time.
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