Found this old article I remember reading from the Pioneer Press dated 4/6/2012. Click the link and there are a few cool pics to see.
http://www.twincities.com/2012/04/06/buds-landing-lives-on-at-dakota-countys-spring-lake/
Too bad the family’s wishes were not followed. Pretty sure the county has no plans to keep a bar down there or open a boat ramp there. But, who knows?
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Bud’s Landing lives on at Dakota County’s Spring Lake
Author
By MARICELLA MIRANDA | Pioneer Press
PUBLISHED: April 6, 2012 at 11:01 p.m. | UPDATED: November 10, 2015 at 8:13 a.m.
Gene Josephs found his little piece of heaven when he was 6 years old.
In 1943, his father bought land along Spring Lake in northeastern Dakota County, a cherished spot for duck hunting and fishing on the Mississippi River backwaters. Today, Josephs’ property provides the safest access to the lake, which is surrounded by steep terrain and thick woods.
After nearly 70 years in the Josephs family, the land will become public.
“I can get very emotional about this place,” said Josephs, now 75 and living in West St. Paul. “I love it with every ounce of my life. But better things will come.”
Josephs and his sisters are selling the 36 acres in Nininger Township to Dakota County. Most of the site will be part of the new Spring Lake Islands Wildlife Management Area, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will relocate a public boat launch to the site.
Josephs agreed to sell the land on one condition, he said. The site had to be called “Bud’s Landing” in memory of his father, Budwah Josephs, who died 16 years ago at age 83. He also asked that a cabin his father turned into a “beer joint” be preserved.
“I’ve got 70 years of this place in my blood,” he said.
After Josephs’ mother died, the land went to him and his four sisters.
On a gray morning in March, Josephs visited Bud’s Landing. The dilapidated beer joint faces Spring Lake, which became part of the Mississippi when the 1930s construction of Lock and Dam No. 2 inundated the low-lying lake basin. A one-room cabin, a concrete outhouse and a boathouse are scattered around the site. Time, weather and flooding have turned the buildings into ghostly ruins.
The beer joint’s bright green trim is a contrast to the gloomy day. Hanging on the beer joint’s shingle siding are handwritten signs, telling of a time when renting a fishing boat cost about $6 a day. Another sign advertises Grain Belt as the beer of choice.
Inside, a wood-burning stove is turning to rust across from a dusty pool table on the sinking wood floor. A mounted deer head and painted glass lamps are still hanging.
On the other side of the billiards room, an antique white refrigerated Coca-Cola cooler collects dirt in its crevices. Nearby is a makeshift kitchen, where Josephs’ father used to fry Polish sausages and hot dogs and make ham sandwiches for customers. On the wall, lines and dates in black marker are records of past floods – some dating back to the 1960s.
“I just love this place,” Josephs said. “I’m gonna cry. I’m going to miss it very much.”
IN THE FAMILY
Josephs’ father bought the first plot on the property in July 1943.
By 1947, he had spent about $1,000 to buy six 6-acre parcels.
Josephs said he still remembers the 18-mile drives his family took every summer from their home on the West Side Flats in St. Paul to Bud’s Landing. For the 40-minute ride, he and his sisters would fight over who got to sit in the car’s rumble seat.
“It was just farms and country,” he said. “It was another world and we loved it.”
Josephs said he was his father’s “right-hand man” for maintaining the property. Some days, Josephs would cut the grass with a push lawn mower – an all-day chore.
When his father opened the beer joint, Josephs helped him serve customers, running back and forth from a “spring box” to fetch beer and pop. The spring box was a makeshift cooler in the lake, made out of logs, kept cool by a natural spring. Remnants of it remain, but the logs are beginning to drift into the lake.
Some days, his father juggled working at the beer joint at night with his day job at the Swift and Armour packing plants in South St. Paul.
Josephs said that as the years went by, he took on more responsibility.
His dad stopped operating the beer joint when he was 75, but he helped keep the site going for duck hunters until he was about 80.
In 1996, Josephs’ father died. His mother died two years later.
Josephs and his nephew now maintain the land for their friends who hunt, some of whom have been visiting Bud’s Landing with their families for generations.
Jim Deering, 64, of South St. Paul said he began hunting at Bud’s Landing in the late 1950s with his grandfather. Now, he hunts there every year with his son, who is 32.
Deering hopes that one day, his grandson will hunt there, too.
“It’s one of the few places that you can still enjoy waterfowl hunting,” Deering said. “We weren’t into harvesting numbers of birds. It was more just for the enjoyment of a place to go that’s close to the Cities, where you can still get that true outdoor feeling.”
Deering considers the place “history.”
“It put a tear in my eye” hearing that the land was being sold, he said.
But Deering supports making the property public – as long as the county’s plans won’t change too much, he said. He also wants the beer joint to be preserved.
“That was an icon,” he said.
DECISION TO SELL
For Josephs, it gets harder every year to keep up the land.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m too old.”
But deciding to sell wasn’t easy, he said. Dakota County first approached him a few years ago, but Josephs said he wasn’t ready to let go and the $400,000 offer wasn’t enough.
“I have the most strategic spot,” he said.
Al Singer, the county’s land conservation manager, said the property has now been appraised for more. In 2011, the county approached Josephs again. In February, the county offered him and his family $682,000.
The family accepted the deal.
The county has asked for about $520,000 from a Metropolitan Council program for buying land for regional parks. The council will decide later this month whether to award the grant.
The remainder would come from the county’s capital improvement funds for parks.
The sale is expected to close in July if everything is approved, Singer said.
Bud’s Landing provides the safest access to Spring Lake and its river islands, Singer said.
The existing boat launch operated by the DNR is farther downstream, he said. But the road to the launch is steep and parking is limited. When winds are heavy, treacherous currents and high waves make the area unsafe for boaters.
The county also hopes Bud’s Landing will be a stop along the Mississippi River Regional Trail, a 27-mile path in the works that would stretch from South St. Paul to Hastings. The trail is expected to wind for 6 miles through the Spring Lake Park Reserve.
“This is really going to eventually provide a greater access for people to use and enjoy Spring Lake,” Singer said. “It will…change this portion of Spring Lake Park as an opportunity for a real nice picnicking area.”
MEMORIES INTACT
Josephs said his father’s legacy won’t be completely lost.
As part of the plans to preserve the beer joint, the county would move the building to a higher elevation, where flooding would not damage it, Singer said.
“We’re trying to figure out if there’s a way to preserve it,” he said, “to help tell the story of the property – just be a reminder of what that area was like a long time ago.”
The other buildings would be demolished.
The earliest Bud’s Landing could be open to the public is 2014.
The county also asked Josephs to help with plans to turn the land into public space. The job wouldn’t pay anything, Josephs said. But in return, he’ll still have a key – so to speak – without having to worry about paying property taxes or keeping up the land.
“I’ll just be able to love it,” he said. “That’s what I want to do.”
Maricella Miranda can be reached at 651-228-5421. Follow her at twitter.com/mariwritesnews.
