Celebrating 150 years isn't a one-day event in Sleep Eye, in fact, it's a year-long event.
The Brown County city is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year and they are doing so with Summer Fest, a birthday celebration honoring Dakota Chief Ishtakhaba, and they will even honor a famous baseball game that featured Babe Ruth.
"We're trying to draw out some of the things that are going on around the community," said former councilmember Joann Schmidt, who now runs the city's website. "We're trying to pull in anything going on here in Sleepy Eye so everyone knows what's going on."
Sleepy Eye was platted in 1872 and established as a city in 1903. Today a monument towering above the city streets honors Chief Sleepy Eye, whose bones are buried beneath.
"We have a good relationship with his descendants who've visited us and his grave site a few times," Mayor Wayne Pelzel said.
While big celebrations have taken place celebrating 150 years in Sleepy Eye, there's also been a focus on smaller celebrations.
"It's the little reminders," noted councilwoman Christina Andres, who is also the Executive Director at Sleepy Eye Area Chamber of Commerce. "Whether it's the small news articles, a billboard, creating a new logo to use on all of our city publications, just to keep that in peoples' viewfinder that this is a year to celebrate."
August is one of the prime months for the year-long celebration. Aside from Summer Fest, the Veterans Park is set to receive a fully restored Vietnam-era Huey helicopter.
Kurk Kramer, the Sleepy Eye Economic Development Authority Coordinator, has been working closely with the Sleepy Eye American Legion Post #7 to make the project possible.
"The helicopter is being restored in Tampa, Florida and will be here by August 5," Kramer said. "It will also be featured in our Summer Fest parade."
This years marks the 100th anniversary of Babe Ruth's famous exhibition baseball game played at the Sleepy Eye Baseball Park.
The game happened October 16, 1922 featuring Ruth and his New York Yankees teammate, Bob Meusel, as part of a 19-stop barnstorming tour of the western part of the country.
Ruth hit two home runs that game. One of those home run baseballs ended up in the hands of a young child by the name of Len Youngman. Youngman, who passed away at the age of 107, was also in a famous photo featuring Ruth and Meusel that was taken during their stop in Sleepy Eye.
"We're planning to make this celebration an annual event," Kramer said. "This first year we'll unveil a plaque commemorating that Babe Ruth played here. We'd like to do another plaque next year of the box score because there were a lot of local people who played in that game. There are plans to get a bust of Babe Ruth as well to put at the park that still exists today."
Celebrating 150 years in Sleepy Eye not only gives community members a chance to reflect on the past, but it also gives them a chance to look towards the future.
City Manager, Bob Elston, has been with the city for about 20 years, formerly serving as the director of utilities for 16 of those years. He believes the city continues to strive thanks to leaders throughout the community.
"We've been blessed with two mayors in the past 20 years," Elston said. "It's a conservative community, but they invest the money where it's needed such as infrastructure. If you let things slide, then other things slide with it. If you can keep up with that and keep putting money in the right places, you're getting your young people back to help keep the community moving forward. You don't have to be a big community in order for it to grow. Everybody says they have fine people, we just happen to have the best. It's a really nice thing to be part of."