construction | Field 2 Field

Banning State Park was on my radar for a Sunday afternoon hike and the day couldn’t have been much more perfect. The park is located near Sandstone, Minnesota, which is ironic because the park was once a working sandstone quarry that employed 500 workers back in the late 1800s. You can see the remnants of the old power station building as you walk down the Quarry Loop Trail.

Back in the day, people needed the sandstone for construction and, based on what I saw, there’s a lot of it even to this day. Evidently, the strength of the stone and the pink coloring were in high demand by construction companies.

The place has actually seen its share of tragedy. On September 1 of 1894, the great Hinckley forest fire swept through the area, doing a lot of damage to the quarry and the St. Paul and Duluth rail line that was serving it.

One end of the old powerhouse building that powered the Bannon Quarry, which was located
in what is now the Banning State Park near Sandstone, Minnesota. (Photo by Chad Smith)

The business got going again and by 1896, a village was established right above the quarry. It was named in honor of William L. Banning, the President of St. Paul and Duluth Railroad. The village was quickly incorporated into a town of 300 people in 1900. However, the end was in sight for the quarry.

Steel began to take over the construction industry shortly after the dawn of the new century. By 1905, all work at the quarry had come to a close.

As you can probably imagine, with that many trees close together, fires continued to be a problem, and the town of Banning basically ceased to exist in 1912. All that’s left of the quarry itself are a few weathered ruins I have pictured here and on my Facebook page (Link takes you to my photo album).

Banning State Park was officially established by the Minnesota legislature in 1963, containing more than 5,200 acres. The park was expanded a couple times over the next decades, the last coming in 1986 with total acres numbered at 6,237.

A 10-mile stretch of the Kettle River runs through the park and it is absolutely beautiful. There actually was a dam in the river at one point, but the local Sandstone community, the Department of Natural Resources, and the Pollution Control Agency came together to remove the dam back in 1995.

The interior of the old powerhouse that provided power to the old sandstone quarry in
the Banning State Park. I would love to know what it looked like when the place was
active. (Photo by Chad Smith)

If you like to ride the rapids, you’ll have options up at Banning State Park. The Kettle River includes five pretty spectacular rapids, including Blueberry Slide, Mother’s Delight, Dragon’s Tooth, Little Banning and Hell’s Gate. The Minnesota DNR website says those rapids will give you one of the most challenging whitewater experiences in the state.

It’s beautiful up there. I was totally shocked at the piles and piles of sandstone that are still there to this day. Park workers carved trails directly through several sandstone walls and I bet that took a ton of time to do properly. I’ll admit, the sandstone was fun to climb on but if you aren’t wearing boots, it gets a little slippery. Call it a lesson learned.

Sandstone everywhere. This was out in front of what was the stone cutting shed, according
to the park sign. (Photo by Chad Smith)

You can get a map at the park entrance and it costs just seven dollars for a day pass, which I thought was a really good deal. I will tell you that you need to stay on the Quarry Loop Trail if you want to see the old buildings. The signs refer to the Quarry Loop Trail as the “self guided” trail on signs along the way. I’ll warn you and say the trails get a little confusing if you aren’t paying attention and don’t have your map.

Another lesson learned.

I was hoping to see a little wildlife but the best I could do was a woodchuck that ran across my path. Oh well. Make sure you take bug spray. You’ll need it!

Seriously? We needed to tag this building all the way up north? Come on, people. (Photo
by Chad Smith)

The Power House. Sounds like a great name for a restaurant, doesn’t it? (Photo by Chad
Smith)

Employees and management at Vermeer Manufacturing in Pella, Iowa, will always remember July 19, 2018. An EF3 tornado tore through the campus, causing significant damage and a number of non-life-threatening injuries. To add insult to injury, the tornado hit as the company was celebrating its 70^th anniversary.

In the immediate aftermath of the storm, Vermeer CEO Jason Andringa said, “We’ve dealt with several challenges during our 70 years of doing business and we’ve survived them thus far. We plan on doing it again.” That recovery is well underway.

“I was there that day, taking part at an anniversary event at which we had brought in more than 400 customers and dealers,” said Mark Core, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Vermeer. “We had an unbelievably good day. I’d just left to go to another meeting at the corporate building, so I was as far away as I could get from the tornado and still be on the campus.

“The people that were closer than I was described a lot of flying debris,” said Core. “A lot of people in our tornado shelters didn’t necessarily hear anything but they did feel their ears pop. They knew something was close. But, for most people, they really didn’t have any idea how big the tornado was until they walked outside.”

Awe and bewilderment are terms Core used to describe the reactions in the aftermath. Several plants sustained heavy damage and the wastewater treatment facility was a total loss. As the recovery process continues, Core said they will have to demolish two of their manufacturing facilities on the Vermeer campus.

“That means about 30 percent of our manufacturing space will be demolished,” Core said. “It should take two or three years to rebuild, including the time it takes to decide exactly how we want it rebuilt.

“Our CEO (Andringa), the grandson of our founder, set two immediate goals the next day,” Core recalled. “The first goal was getting everyone back to work within 45 days, so they could get back to their normal livelihood. The second was he wanted us to build ourselves back stronger than ever by 2020.

“We got everybody back to work in 31 days,” he recalled. “The second goal is what we’re in the middle of right now. Some things force a company to reinvent itself. Vermeer has never had a financial crisis because of how the owners manage the company. We’ve never been part of a purchase or acquisition. But, we did have a tornado. That gives us the opportunity of a clean slate to improve how we do things.”

In his words, Core said they are “shockingly” back up to pre-storm production levels. They had to shift some of their divisions into rented buildings in order to reclaim some space. He said the workers are more crowded in than they were before. They did have to outsource a few things temporarily as well. He said, “it might look too good to the naked eye,” but they’re still producing at a high level.

“I think a big key to the rebuilding is the passion of Midwest workers who believe in the family and the company,” Core added. “The only way to get everybody back to work in 45 days was to figure out how to get the production lines back in place in 30 days. It hasn’t been easy and there’s still a lot to learn over the next two-or-three months about our temporary world here, but so far, it’s been really pretty amazing.”

The company had a small spike in back orders during the first few weeks after the tornado, but overall, Core said the disruption at the dealer level has been small. He said their dealers did a “phenomenal job” of working with each other to help take care of customers.

“It’s been so much fun to watch the people on our staff rise and shine as they continue to help the company move in the right direction,” Core said with a smile visible even during a phone conversation. “They’ve been able to make quick and smart decisions on things like production, environmental health and safety, facilities, and senior leadership.

“We’ve also had a lot of support from our community,” Core added. “We’ve even had a lot of help from companies that you’d consider our competitors. It’s humbling when you hear from a major competitor that night who told us their people want to head our way and see if they could help us. I think we had a total of eight competitors contact us within the first 24 hours.

Core said it says a lot about people in the business of agriculture, who are always willing to lend a hand in the worst of situations.

“I think we’re getting through this,” Core said.

Here’s a first-hand, birds-eye view of the damage at the Vermeer plant taken by a drone on the same day.

Tag: construction

Banning State Park and a beautiful Sunday afternoon

Vermeer Bouncing Back from 2018 Tornado