A Step Back in Time: Lost fountain

Published 10:16 pm Tuesday, July 30, 2019

By Submitted

A description of Albert Lea was included on the back of this postcard of a water fountain which was once in the intersection of East Park Avenue Boulevard and Fountain Street in 1891. Irv Sorenson wrote that the fountain was the pride of the neighborhood in his illustrated feature “Hi-Lites and Shadows,” which ran in the Tribune in 1953. By 1920, the city planned to pave the road and blast the fountain out of the intersection with dynamite. While residents got an injunction to stop the city from using an explosive, the city succeeded in removing the fountain by digging out the ground below it. The fountain then fell below the street level, and the area was filled in with dirt and paved over. The crumbled remains of the fountain were rediscovered during another street project in June 2016. - Provided

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