It seems that every resident, community group, nonprofit organization, foundation and business in the Scandia area has somehow contributed to the city’s new Water Tower Barn Arts and Heritage Center.

There are the descendants of Henry and Wilhelmina “Minnie” Johnson, dozens of them, who raised enough money — $200,000 — to have the center’s new amphitheater named after the longtime banker and civic booster.

There’s Midco, the city’s internet provider, which has donated $50,000 toward the center’s outdoor cafe and coffee kiosk and is installing $25,000 of free Wi-Fi and service. A sign outside the cafe will read: “Tankhouse Café: Powered by Midco.”

Fans of Scandia’s legendary fast-pitch softball teams got in on the action. They donated $55,000 to the Tankhouse Loft, which will feature signage in honor of the city’s softball success since 1932, including 11 state tournament wins and eight national tournament appearances. That gift, along with another $30,000 in grants from the Minnesota Historical Society, are being used to develop a museum display in the loft.

Residents of the neighborhood where former senator and vice president Walter Mondale had a home — near Cedar Bend on the St. Croix River — have donated nearly $25,000 to have his story honored as part of an outdoor museum display on a new trail that will connect the project’s water-garden play area and the Henry and Minnie Johnson Amphitheater.

“The former vice president fell in love with the river while canoeing along the shores of Scandia with his future wife in 1955,” the display reads. “‘I had a girlfriend named Joan Adams,’ he told the Pioneer Press in 2015. ‘We went up to Osceola and canoed down to Marine on St. Croix. Man, did we have a good time. We got engaged after 53 days; that river did its work.’”

Nearly 100 people, many of whom worked on securing the $4.4 million needed for the Water Tower Barn Arts and Heritage Center, came to the site just south of the Scandia Community Center and east of Gammelgården Museum on Tuesday for a groundbreaking ceremony. The city is having its historic Hilltop Water Co. barn — complete with working windmill — reassembled on the site.

“This project has always been about much more than rebuilding a historic barn,” said Scandia Heritage Alliance board chair Susan Rodsjo, who spearheaded the project. “It’s about creating a place where people of every generation can gather to celebrate our history, enjoy the arts, learn about our environment and spend time together.”

The Fred C. and Katherine B. Andersen Foundation gave an initial $100,000 leadership gift and then gave another $100,000, Rodsjo said. The foundation’s first gift “gave our campaign credibility, inspired others to join us and demonstrated to the state of Minnesota that this community was fully committed to making the Water Tower Barn a reality,” she said.

Half of the money for the project — $2.2 million — came from the state’s 2023 capital investment bill. Another $1.5 million came from grants and donations that the Scandia Heritage Alliance raised.

Another $700,000 came in pro-bono donated services, including project architect Rylaur LLC, donated materials and land from the city, she said.

“What’s extraordinary to me is that about a third of the $1.5 million came from local families, businesses and civic clubs,” she said. “We had donations ranging from $25 to $200,000.”

Secret sauce

Among the fundraisers the group held: selling barn calendars for $25 and Scandia sweatshirts for $50.

How a city with a resident population of fewer than 4,000 and an annual budget of just $2 million raised so much money for the project is a testament to perseverance and community, said Loralee Di Lorenzo, a Scandia Heritage Alliance board member.

“This has to be a white paper or case study one day on the nonprofit and government community coming together and really delivering something,” she said. “I mean, this is the thing every little town wants to do. We said, ‘I wish we could have XYZ,’ and we did it.”

But Di Lorenzo said the “secret sauce” was Rodsjo, a retired marketing communications consultant for Medtronic and Global Air Charters who helped found the Scandia Heritage Alliance in 2016.

“She has pulled all those components together,” Di Lorenzo said. “She got the carpentry class at Forest Lake High School involved in making the Tankhouse Café, for example. It’s like she just thinks of it, and then makes it happen.”

The cafe, which will serve Swedish waffles, pastries and coffee, is being built by the Carpentry II students at Forest Lake Area High School, and US LBM, the parent company of Arrow Building Center, donated $15,000 for the project to support trades education, Rodsjo said.

The students started building the structure in mid-March, and various trades representatives have been mentoring students to complete aspects such as CAD design, spray-foam insulation and Swedish window trim — all coordinated by the Scandia Heritage Alliance and “taught by professionals in the trades volunteering their time,” she said. “There is a huge shortage of students entering the trades, and this has been a great way to educate the community about trades education programs with the various unions.”

19th-century tankhouse

The reconstructed historic Water Tower Barn is the state’s last remaining 19th-century tankhouse, featuring hand-hewn logs in post-and-beam construction and an operable historic water-pumping mechanism.

A $50,000 “hometown” grant from T-Mobile is being used to purchase and install the historic windmill and tankhouse system in its new location, Rodsjo said. SHA board members applied five times for the grant, which focuses on placemaking, and were awarded the grant in March, she said.

“We knew we needed to up our game after four unsuccessful applications, so I asked local writer Mark Porubcansky, a former editor at the Los Angeles Times, if he would re-write our application,” Rodsjo said. “His poetic storytelling ability did the trick. T-Mobile told us that they received 900 applications in that round — and awarded only 25 grants.”

Other major grants came from the Hardenbergh Foundation, F. R. Bigelow Foundation, Royal Credit Union Foundation, the Manitou Fund, America in Bloom/Canadian National Railway, the Minnesota Humanities Center, Security State Bank of Marine and the Scandia-Marine Lions Club, she said.

In November, the project received a Levitt Family Foundation Music Series grant to put on a series of free concerts in the village center. The three-year matching grant — $28,000 per year — will help transform the site, a former baseball field, “into a lively central public space,” according to the grant application.

Seven free concerts and special events will be held from Aug. 5 through Sept. 12 at the Scandia Community Center and Gammelgården Museum. Among the mix: big band, funk, blues, bluegrass, Southern soul, multicultural fiddle and New Orleans zydeco, Rodsjo said.

The concert series will move to the new Henry and Minnie Johnson Amphitheater once construction is complete next summer.

‘Really remarkable’

“Something really remarkable is happening” in Scandia, said Mayor Steve Kronmiller.

In addition to the new Water Tower Barn Arts and Heritage Center, the city will soon see an extension of the Gateway Trail to William O’Brien State Park; renovations at the popular Gammelgården Museum; new sidewalks and trails in the city’s village center; investments by local businesses; and new playground equipment installed at Scandia Elementary School.

“Each of these projects serves a different purpose, but together, they create something very powerful,” Kronmiller said Tuesday. “They add value to life in Scandia. … As we break ground today, we’re not just celebrating this project. We are celebrating a community that continues to invest in itself while staying true to our values. The future of Scandia is bright, not because we are becoming something different, but because we are becoming an even better version of who we have always been.”

The residents of Scandia are adapting the area, largely founded by Swedish immigrants, for the 21st century, said Sen. Foung Hawj, DFL-St. Paul.

“All of us are immigrants to this country, including me,” Hawj told those who gathered at the ceremony. “I came in the ’80s, and many of your ancestors came in maybe the early 1900s or maybe late 1800s. We all have immigrant stories to tell. The immigrant story is always one of open arms. Regardless of which immigrant group you are, it’s always a story of resiliency — the struggle, the suffering that you overcome. … When we share this story together, we boost up the goodness of Minnesota.”

With its water-garden play area and splash pad, wetland boardwalk and community-focused programming, the new arts and heritage center is designed to draw and serve residents from around the area, including Marine on St. Croix, May Township and Forest Lake, Rodsjo said.

“The support we’re seeing shows what’s possible when a community dreams together,” she said. “With every contribution of time, talent and funding, we’re weaving a legacy that reflects the spirit of Scandia. It’s rooted in history and alive with resourceful creativity.”