When I walked into Ron’s hodgepodge of a shop in downtown Waterville, I found him working on a puzzle. I asked to take his photo and he agreed. He loves puzzling and that shows. I really like this everyday slice-of-life-in-a-small-town portrait. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
THROUGHOUT THE YEAR, I take thousands of photos, many of them at public events. At these gatherings, whether celebratory or somber, I am drawn to document moments of humanity. Perhaps it’s a look, a reaction, an interaction. I’ve been doing photography long enough to understand when something will make a good photo. And when I say “good,” I mean a well-composed image that tells a story and, hopefully, garners a reaction from anyone who sees it.
I come from a journalism background, earning a degree in mass communications, news-editorial emphasis, in 1978. I was required to take a few photography classes as part of that long ago degree. Those taught me the basics, which I carried with me to every newspaper reporting and freelance job I’ve ever held. I didn’t always have the luxury of a staff photographer. I was the reporter and the photographer.
In the decades since, from film to digital, I’ve gained confidence and skills in photography. And I continue to the love the craft. For me, photography centers on storytelling.
As I’ve been out and about in southern Minnesota during 2025, I’ve used my Canon EOS 60D, an older DSLR camera, to document what I’ve seen. Among the thousands of people photos I took this past year, I chose my top 12 to highlight in this end-of-year post. Only one image, the photo at the top of this post, was not photographed at a public gathering.
Enjoy! And feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
I caught the moment a firefighter rang a bell outside the Faribault fire hall during a 9/11 commemoration. The morning light was perfect and everything fell into place to make this an especially moving photo. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo 2025)
A tender moment when a mom retied a ribbon on her daughter’s Czech costume during a dance at Montgomery’s Czech May Day celebration. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2025)
Oktoberfest in Dundas provided plenty of photo ops, including this one where a young boy wanted to join the dancing adults.Or maybe he was just watching, happy to be on the sideline. Whatever, I like the photo a lot. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo October 2025)
In this inter-generational scene, a grandfather teaches marbles to his grandsons at the Valley Grove Country Social, rural Nerstrand. They were so intent on the game that they paid me no attention, just as I like it. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
I found this scene humorous and likely relatable for every guy who has ever waited for their partner to finish shopping. I took the image outside RR Revival in Lonsdale during a craft show in that small town. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo September 2025)
If ever there was a photo that exudes love of country in rural Minnesota, it is this image of a wagonload of people heading to the Memorial Day program at the Cannon City Cemetery. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2025)
In the context of everything happening in America, especially in Minnesota, this photo sends a strong message of American pride. These Somali-American children, U.S. flags in hand, watched the Memorial Day parade in downtown Faribault. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2025)
As a cannon shot off during the Riverside Rendezvous & History Festival in Faribault, attendees were told to cover their ears for protection. I framed this scene to tell that story. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2025)
There were no second chances to get this photo of two women greeting each other at a downtown Faribault Car Cruise Night. I love the joy I was able to photograph in one single shot. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2025)
The Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show tractor parade offers plenty of photo ops. I see total admiration on this young boy’s face and was delighted to photograph that sweet moment. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)
I loved watching and documenting the younger and older generations shelling corn together at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show in a living rural history scene. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo August 2025)
Benson, Minnesota, along Atlantic Avenue. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
IN THE FAR REACHES of west central Minnesota, two counties in from the South Dakota border, the small farming community of Benson perches on the prairie. It’s a place many might consider the middle of nowhere. But Benson is home to some 3,400 residents, the county seat of Swift County and a town I recently passed through on my way to visit family in neighboring Morris.
A wider Atlantic Avenue street shot photographed near the Demarce Theatre. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
For me, Benson would not be just another dot along the map to my destination. I wanted to stop briefly and photograph the DeMarce Theatre, which my cousin Tim and his wife, Susie, own. Or so I thought. After photographing the theatre exterior, I learned from the proprietor of Rustic Class, a Benson consignment shop, that the Kletschers no longer own the business. That news never traveled to me on the family grapevine.
The Demarce Theatre, when Tim and Susie Kletscher purchased it in 2011. (Photo credit: Tim Kletscher)
I was disappointed, of course, to hear this. Tim and Susie bought the 1925 theatre in 2011, invested thousands of dollars to upgrade to digital projection and a silver screen, operating the business until May 2020. By that time, Tim, a Benson Elementary School teacher, was tapping into his retirement account to keep the business afloat. That’s all history. But I’m grateful to my cousin and his family for the near-decade they kept the theater operational.
The new owners updated the movie theatre inside and out. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
And I’m grateful to the new owners, Randy and Pam Marran of St. Michael for purchasing the theatre, revamping and reopening it in June 2022. I understand small Minnesota prairie towns like Benson and how even one business closure matters to the people who live there. Like anywhere, people want to see their town thriving, not dying. They want local entertainment options. Distances are far on the prairie.
The front of the theatre received a complete facelift. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
That the Marrans, like my cousin, recognized the value of a theatre in Benson speaks to their understanding of this rural region. Pam grew up here with family still in the area. Their daughter Tyler manages the theatre. Like the Kletschers before them, the couple has poured plenty of time and money into the theatre with interior remodeling, installation of used leather seats, and a new facade and marquee. They’ve made an investment in Benson.
No need for Benson residents to drive out of town to see a movie. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
As I consider this, I can’t help but think that my city of nearly 25,000 does not have a movie theatre. While I’m not privy to details concerning its closure many years ago, I do know that locals were driving out of Faribault to a south metro theatre to see shows. Today that continues with three theatres within 20 minutes of my community.
Back in November, this movie was showing at the Demarce Theatre. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
I expect on cold winter evenings like we’re experiencing now in Minnesota, the good folks of Benson are thankful to have a movie theatre in town—a place to escape into a film, to connect with friends and family, to down a soda or an alcoholic beverage, to purchase pizza, a pretzel or mini donuts, to dip fingers into a big bucket of buttery movie popcorn.
Likewise, movie theatres remain open in towns near Benson. There’s the Grand Theatre in Madison, the Millennium Theatre in Montevideo and the Morris Theatre in the college town of Morris. None of these prairie places are particularly large population-wise with 1,500-5,200 residents. But still they have theatres, a spot for locals to watch a movie about Minnesota native Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” or “Sonic the Hedgehog 3.” Admittedly, I am not a movie-goer, having last stepped inside a movie theatre in May 2019, then requesting a refund not long into the film due to its violent content. (In fairness to me, I went with the guys in my family and knew nothing about the movie.)
A residential neighborhood within blocks of the Demarce Theatre. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo November 2024)
That the residents of Benson, Madison, Montevideo and Morris have movie theatres in their towns is remarkable really. In Benson, my cousin Tim and his wife, Susie, and now the Marran family, recognized the value of investing in their community, in this place perched on the Minnesota prairie just 40 miles from the South Dakota border.
A vintage 1969 or 1970 Chevy pickup truck parked in a car port at Twin Lakes Auto Parts in Waterville.(Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
EVERY PLACE HAS CHARACTER, especially small towns. Or at least that’s how it seems to me, someone with an affinity for rural. I am not a big city girl, preferring quiet Main Streets to city traffic, low-slung buildings to soaring skyscrapers, small gatherings to crowds. I feel grounded, rooted, at home in rural locations.
One of Waterville’s most unusual homes, a small house sandwiched between businesses along Main Street. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
For me a day trip to explore small towns is as appealing as a day in the big city for someone who prefers cities. We are all different and that is a good thing.
A ghost sign on a downtown building. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Recently I toured seven area communities in a single day while working on a photo essay column for SouthernMinn Scene, a regional arts and entertainment magazine. I found myself photographing scenes well beyond the scope of my themed essay focusing on small town bar exteriors and signage. With camera in hand, I always scan for interesting photo ops.
Vintage bullhead art signage hangs on the Waterville Event Center. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Among my stops was Waterville, in the southern Minnesota lakes region of Le Sueur County. Summertime residents and visitors plus bikers pedaling the Sakatah Singing Hill State Trail swell this town’s population well beyond 1,868. Waterville folks definitely recognize the value these people bring to the local economy, to the community.
Unexpected art on the side of the Corner Bar. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
I realize not everyone sees what I see upon walking through a small town business district like that in Waterville. I tend to notice details, oddities, the small things that make a place interesting. I’ve photographed the heart of Waterville several times, so this trip I mostly zeroed in on different details.
I see this often in small towns, specific notes left for delivery drivers. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
I should note that I’m particularly drawn to signage—handwritten to business signs.
Classic’s Pub opens soon in this massive building. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Waterville will soon be home to two new businesses, as noted on signage. Classic’s Pub, a bar and event center featuring displays of vintage cars and motorcycles, is opening in a spacious corner building along South 3rd Street. Waterville has several other bars. But I’m excited about this one (not that I’ve been in the others) because of its vintage theme.
Another business opening soon in Waterville. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
And just across the street, a sign notes that The Cleaver & Corn is opening soon, serving sandwiches, gourmet specialty popcorn from the local The Snack Shack, sweets and more. That, too, sounds like a great addition to the community. And the business name…I find it particularly creative.
A customer pulled up to the hardware store on his riding lawnmower. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
As I walked about the downtown, I saw a whole lot of character. In buildings. In signage. In storefronts. Even in a John Deere riding lawnmower driven to and parked outside Harry’s True Value Hardware.
Waterville Hardware Hank, just across from True Value. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Just across the street sits Waterville Hardware Hank, offering a second option to locals, cabin owners and campers. I’ve been inside this store with its narrow aisles and original wood floors. Not this trip, though.
Lots happening at the Corner Bar in June. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo June 2024)
Rather, I kept my feet on the sidewalk and pavement, opting to photograph downtown Waterville while outdoors only. That focused perspective revealed plenty of character that makes this small town unique, welcoming, a place I always enjoy visiting.
The mural graces a wall of the community center, across the street from the former Jon Hassler Theater. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
I remember the mural from my last visit here in 2013. I appreciate this public art now as much as I did then, for art can reveal much about a place.
In the heart of the community, the Jon Hassler Theater and Rural America Arts Center, now closed. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo November 2013)
While Plainview has lost some of its “arts” character with closure of the Jon Hassler Theater and Rural America Arts Center, it will always claim title (along with Staples) as the boyhood home (s) of noted Minnesota writer Jon Hassler. He moved to Plainview with his parents at the age of 10, remaining there until shortly after his 1951 high school graduation.
Hassler’s Grand Opening is based on Plainview.
Hassler, one of Minnesota’s most-beloved authors, focused his fiction on small town life. That includes Grand Opening, a novel based on Plainview. As in real life, the main character’s parents buy a run-down grocery store in rural Minnesota.
Source: Afton Press
While I have not yet read Grand Opening, I just finished Days Like Smoke, A Minnesota Boyhood. This is Hassler’s memoir, a manuscript published by Afton Press in 2021, many years after the author’s 2008 death. Edited by friend Will Weaver, another well-known Minnesota writer, this slim volume offers insights into Plainview, into Hassler’s experiences there and how that shaped his writing. He credits his parents’ Red Owl Grocery Store as the training grounds for his writing, the place where he acquired the latent qualities necessary to the novelist. In that grocery store, Hassler stocked shelves, ground coffee, interacted with and observed customers, and more.
The land (farming) is integral to the economy of Plainview, which is surrounded by corn and soybean fields. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
This sentence in Hassler’s memoir is so telling of the influence Plainview had on his writing: I see the villagers passing along the checkout counter like the cast of characters they eventually turned out to be in my novel about this village in the corn. I love that phrase, “village in the corn,” for it fits agriculturally-based Plainview. The community is home to food processors, Plainview Milk Products Cooperative and Lakeside Foods, and celebrates Corn on the Cob Days each summer. Farming centers the local economy.
Two of the people featured on the mural. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
It’s the people, though, including the characters, who truly define community. And Hassler shares plenty from Plainview, where he lived across from the stockyards for awhile, tried to derail a train, played high school football for the Gophers, watched endless movies at the Gem Theater, bloodied the nose of a third grader, sat at the bedside of his dying 11-year-old friend, biked to the bluffs along the Whitewater River to camp and fish, served as an altar boy…
The mural includes a faith-based dedication to Pauline Redmond. She co-owned the North Country Anvil Magazine/Anvil Press with her husband, Jack Miller. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
In his memoir, Hassler remembers St. Joachim’s Catholic Church and Immanuel Lutheran Churchstanding as sentinels of the soul at opposite ends of Main Street. That’s such an insightful visual. Hassler valued his Catholic upbringing and faith throughout his life. But he also admits in his memoir to the strong current of religious animosity running under the surface of daily life in the village of my youth between Catholics and Lutherans. This comes as no surprise to me, growing up in rural Minnesota with the same denominational tension.
People also define place as noted on the mural. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted photo May 2022)
It was that undercurrent—specifically the defeat of Hassler’s father in a school board election—which ultimately caused Hassler’s parents to leave Plainview and return to Staples. He writes: I, newly graduated from high school, loved Plainview too dearly to follow them.
The interior entrance to the Jon Hassler Theater, photographed during a 2013 visit to Plainview. (Minnesota Prairie Roots copyrighted file photo November 2013)
Hassler’s love for Plainview endured, long after he left to attend college, then to teach, then to write and then to retire in 1997 after 17 years as writer-in-residence at Saint John’s University. Visit Plainview today and you get a strong sense of the place that shaped this writer. While businesses and people have come and gone, at its core, this remains “the village in the corn.”
TELL ME: Have you read any of Jon Hassler’s 12 novels or his nonfiction? I’d love to hear your take on his writing and what books you recommend.
Please check back for more posts from Plainview next week.Be sure to read my previous posts on Plainview published this week.
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