Mankato Minnesota: In all my travels I find this town quite possibly the only town formerly known as a blue skunk. As the snow begins to fly this late fall evening, I remember the walking tour and the many different designs and shapes of many buildings. Housing designs influenced by the French, English, Italian, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Grecian (Alphabet included). I have lived in Mankato at 6 different locations over the course of 5 years and yet I never managed to be completely aware of my surroundings. Being a part time non-car owner, I have walked past many of these buildings before never realizing the age and significance of each of them. I can recall the amount of pavement we walked on during the course of the tour, varying in color, age and state of repair. When I realize, everything man creates is in a state of repair. We build and tear down and rebuild and refurbish and tear down again, only to rebuild. What can be the reason for this?

Government Center Photo by Robert Oberg

I wonder at the small diversity of trees as we pass each front yard, some have fruit others just big leaves and still other yards contain plastic figurines. Nature has a natural coarse of action for reproduction and maintenance that man cannot duplicate in fabricated form. I happened to notice the large amount of green zone space downhill (west) from the government center.

The high statue above the landscape to show that justice will prevail. I imagined this effect every fourth block or so . . . hhmmm . . . we’d have an awful lot of justice in Mankato!

The city creates life and the heartbeat of civilization; in Mankato due to size restrictions that heartbeat is different than what is found in larger towns. To the visitor what may seem to be a sleepy mid-western town with “ not much to do ” is in fact a city with opportunity and creativity unlike average mid-western towns of this size. When citizens care, they make the town they live in livable.

Robert Oberg

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