Nestled in a corner, away from the more high profile Division Street and retirement homes, is a little greentriangular slice of East Northfield; it sits between the highway (Dahomey Avenue), and within South Linden Street and West Nineth Street. I walked and recorded the sights and sites!

Path A : Where I Started

I began along the Mill Towns State Trail, an ongoing project to “connect the cities of Faribault, Dundas, Northfield, Waterford, Randolph, and Cannon Falls,” according to the Minnesota DNR. The Cannon River meanders along the trail until it dips below the Dahomey Avenue bridge, disappearing to the other side of the highway.

The first thing that I noticed was the pickleball court, which had a really inviting atmosphere. Balls were readily available in boxes and there was a sign that shared meeting times and the website for the Northfield Pickleball Association, which I never knew existed! (They’re free to join, too.)

As I continued along the trail, bikers zoomed past me, presumably townies (Northfield locals) getting their exercise in. The trail moved away from the river and began to hug the highway, with a long clover-ridden field to the left. I walked past a nice playground set and came up closer off the path to a enclosed shelter.

This shelter was put in place by the Northfield Lions Club, which is a part of the wider non-profit humanitarian organization Lions International. This club hosts regular meetings in Northfield spots like Flaherty’s Lanes, the local bowling alley, and seems to have a goal to shape the park and nearby Veteran’s memorial to provide shelters, parking spaces, open lawns, and more. As I researched into this more, I realized that much of the things that I saw and noted, like the amount of parking spaces that were alongside the lawns, or memorial trees, were all part of community effort and an ongoing drive to further shape the park space.

Path B : The Neighborhood

The neighborhood that bordered the park was in a lot of ways very similar to the park: there was lots of green in the form of lawns, and there was a sense of the place being older than the areas around Carleton. I noticed a lack of sidewalks, which was a little unusual compared to the rest of East Northfield, so it stood out to me.

Surprisingly, along the mottled asphalt and pavement, I noticed that there was a bike lane on 8th Street, which was really interesting to me because it ended at the curve of parking lots at 8th and Poplar.

I was intrigued by this bike lane, because it seemed newer, as are most of the lanes in Northfield, and then when I did more digging, I found out that some of the community was proposing to connect this lane to the Mill Towns State Trail as well! The people who were suggesting this were from the groups of the “Lions Club, Northfield Area Veterans Memorial, Village on the Cannon, Defeat of Jesse James Days, Northfield Garden Club, Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, and city staff,” according to the Riverside Lions Park Long-Range Plan. Slides show below found here.

Overall, it was interesting to go to a part of Northfield that I had only previously sped through before along the Trail, to take a deeper look at the facilities, the people who were behind the parks and the future plans that they have for the space. While I won’t be in Northfield for much too long (2 years left!), I do think that I will be able to see what may unfold in the upcoming months in terms of development and change. Being more aware of how the clubs and groups in Northfield work together to discuss how they want to change their town is awesome.

Before I sign off, I want to leave behind a funny story. I ran into someone kicking a box of donuts around the sidewalk of the Mill Towns State Trail by the Veterans Memorial, some of which hopped out and fell on the ground. The guy then picked up the donuts, put them back in the box, and then proceeded to go up to me and offer me some! I was a bit taken aback and refused, to which he then pushed the box even closer to me! He then tossed the box into the trash at the Lions International shelter…!

Thanks for reading!

-Brett