Have you checked out the Eden Prairie Puzzle Library? Eden Prairie resident Paul Kautz’s project appears to be the first of its kind. Modeled somewhat on the concept of the Little Free Library boxes that hold books for the taking, the puzzle library is free for community members to use, but it also requires users to register and check out, then return, the multi-piece pastimes. Kautz (pronounced “Cow-tz”) started the puzzle library in 2020, as a way to help people maintain connections during the COVID-19 shutdowns. After hosting a puzzle exchange table in his neighborhood during social isolation, “We had…
Author: Joanna Werch Takes
Joanna Werch Takes
Joanna Werch Takes began her professional journalism career at a weekly community newspaper in Iowa. After moving to Minnesota, she spent several years as an editor at a magazine aimed at hobbyist woodworkers. Joanna and her family have lived in Eden Prairie for over 20 years. She is a former member and officer of the Eden Prairie Women of Today service group and a former Girl Scout leader in Eden Prairie. Contact Joanna at: joanna.takes@eplocalnews.org
These days, you’ll find Sever’s Fall Festival on a 100-acre campus east of Highway 169, south of Shakopee — but it all started in Eden Prairie. Sever Peterson III, a resident of Eden Prairie, and his wife, Sharon, still live on the farm in the Minnesota River valley where both Sever and his father were born. In the mid-1990s, as they faced a struggling economy for their corn and soybean crops, “We were thinking, ‘What else could we do to keep our family involved in agriculture?’” Sever said. The idea for a corn maze arose after the Petersons visited an…