“Where the coffee’s hot, the lakes are cold, and all the children are above average.” — Serving the Chain since 1897.
Tuesday, July 7, 2026 · July 7 Edition · 9 story item(s) in this section.
Independence Day
For decades the Fourth’s flotilla was a spontaneous thing you joined when you felt like it and left when your cooler ran dry. Saturday it had a route, a start time, and a grand marshal. The lake endured.
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Outdoors
A young bull, rare this far south, spent two days on the quieter of the Pelicans. Even the moose, the Mud Lake faction noted with satisfaction, skipped the fancy lake.
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Around Town
The longtime children’s librarian was taken ill over the holiday weekend and is recovering in the Cities. Summer reading continues, in newer and slightly overwhelmed hands.
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Business
Yvette Boone left commercial lending in the Cities to run First State Bank of Misquah, succeeding Howard Lindgren after thirty-one years. She came, she says, on purpose.
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City Council
The July 7 meeting takes up the most consequential agenda in months — and, among lighter business, what to do about the mark Al Lundquist left on Main Street.
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Heritage
One of the oldest structures on the Chain — a landmark older than the state’s memory of it — will see another generation, thanks to a crew, a family, and a sum nobody quite wants to print.
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Business
Annika and Jonas Holt will pour the Chain’s first pints in the building that once made the town’s butter. The Pilot once eyed the same back hall for its press, and never quite moved in.
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Looking Ahead
Entry books are out, the second-week-of-August dates are set, and the Bjornstads and Aakres are once more “coming along nicely,” which longtime fairgoers know to translate as: war.
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