Through the years
- 1909The Waconia Creamery Association’s creamery stands at 301 South Elm Street
- 1930sThe creamery’s building on this corner, with its tall smokestack
- 1932Minnesota sues the creamery for polluting the lake, one of the country’s first environmental lawsuits
- 1986A survey finds the lake cleaner than in the early 1900s
- TodayMaplecrest Commons
The story
The Waconia Creamery Association ran a creamery at 301 South Elm Street by 1909. By the 1930s its creamery stood here, on the northwest corner of 1st and Maple. Its smokestack shows in the background of street photographs from the 1940s, and smoke rises from it in the parade photographs of about 1954.
In 1932 Minnesota’s Attorney General Benson sued the Waconia Creamery for polluting the lake, one of the first environmental lawsuits in Minnesota and in the country. It ended with the creamery and the city both promising better sewage treatment. A survey in 1986 found the lake less polluted than it had been in the early 1900s.
The Maplecrest Commons apartments stand on the corner today.
