12 December 2009 Gem Lake News - Laserfiche WebLink

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Gem Lake News Page 2 of 6 The Highway 61 Make-Over that Changed Gem Lake Forever example of a road that needed a makeover to keep pace with its ever increasing automobile traffic. As the suburbs began to grow dramatically after World War II, this old fashioned road plan wouldn’t work anymore. So began a major project to “un-kink” the road. In reality, this was a precursor to today’s “Unweave the Weave” project that just wrapped up for the I-694/35E junction point. There were many notable examples of why this needed to happen--first and foremost being driver safety. For example, careless, inattentive or drunk drivers were often unable to negotiate the corner when they crossed over the railroad bed in the area past the current bowling alley on Hoffman Road. As a result, they ended up in the railroad ditch or even on the tracks, according to long time Gem Lake resident Dick Arcand. This area is now covered by modern day Highway 61. The railroad bed isn’t visible anymore from the highway. Another problem was very much related to nature. Frogs crossed the road in masses during the summer in the area of the old township hall (current day Hoffman Road) seeking the cool water of Goose Lake. There were so many frogs in the early 1950’s that cars running over them created a slippery slime that is described by Lloyd and Madonna LaBore as “gruesome.” Naturally, the slime and sliding cars created their share of accidents. (YUCK!!) The project to realign Highway 61 to its present day route seemed to take forever, according to Gem Lake residents. It created noise, confusion, a complete rerouting of traffic away from Gem Lake’s business district, and even a tragic accident. Lloyd LaBore remembers the dust, the noise and the endlessly rerouted cars as the highway was ripped up and rebuilt. “You could hear the trucks at 5 a.m. each morning, filling Goose Lake with sand," says Lloyd. Prior to the project, Highway 61 steered clear of Goose Lake, traveling along what is now Hoffman Road instead. The construction meant that a route was created right through the middle, cutting the lake into two parts. The filling process went on for many months, using sand and gravel hauled in from a nearby gravel pit. “When I was a kid, there used to be an island in the middle of Goose Lake. You could walk out to it when the lake was dry. I think the new highway took a route that covered up that old island, but still a lot of fill was needed," says Lloyd. "Remember, these were the days before air conditioning. We kept our windows open and we heard all those trucks going back and forth with their heavy loads.” Both Lloyd and Dick Arcand remember one night when a drunk driver ignored the construction barriers and drove his car right into the freshly laid concrete somewhere near Hoffman’s Corner. “That section of the road had to be redone. I remember the car was stuck pretty good,” says Dick. One major consequence of the Highway 61 straightening was to reroute traffic away from a major part of the Gem Lake business district. The old highway traveled right in front of White Bear Floral and Hoffman’s Grocery. The newly built Highway 61 traveled behind these businesses and in front of a new car dealership called Tousley Ford. While Tousley Ford (which opened after the construction project) was later happy, the owners of the grocery store and the floral shop were not quite as overjoyed. “We saw a drop off in traffic,” says Lorraine Birkeland, owner of White Bear Floral. “It wasn’t right away, but within 6-8 months it was apparent that things had changed.” (concluded on page 5)