Next in our series "One Tank Trips," WCCO Radio's Sloane Martin takes us to the small town of Henderson, Minn., which is hoping its annual Sauerkraut Days festival can inject some much needed tourism after a spring marred by flooding.
Henderson, with a population under 900, about 20 miles southwest of Jordan is accustomed to flooding. Seven of the past 10 years they've been dealt bad luck with the rising Minnesota River, but locals say this year has been the worst in recent memory.
Danny Ross, general manager of the Henderson RoadHaus on Main Street, says all but one road in and out of town being shut down for weeks at a time put a strain on the business and his employees. He was forced to cut hours and some workers' commute times increased five-fold.
"We schedule based on what normal volume would be and in the spring time we would start to see motorcycles and getting that tourism coming through," he said.
But the roads are back open and Henderson is ready to do what it does best: welcome visitors looking for a good time in a quaint small town.
"Hubert Humphrey was vice president and after he was vice president he ran again for U.S. senator," Denny Graham, a member of the Kraut Days committee, said earlier this month at a table at Henderson RoadHaus. "They were out in the helicopter flying around and they flew over Henderson and they saw the crowd here and they landed the helicopter so he could come down to the celebration and shake hands."
"Our former mayor says is that the reason we're so friendly here is because we're sick of looking at each other," Thomas said with a laugh. "When somebody new comes into town we're really friendly."
"We love our town and we want to show it off," Rau said.