The recent flooding of the St. Croix River has meant a stressful few weeks for the organizers of Lumberjack Days, which will be held Friday through Sunday in downtown Stillwater.

High water means that the popular annual summer music festival will move to South Lowell Park, south of the Stillwater Lift Bridge. When flooding isn’t an issue, the festival is held north of the bridge.

“Everything north of the park is still under water, and the stuff that isn’t under water is just really muddy, so we’re not able to use all of that area,” said Brian Asmus, an Afton resident who is leading a new group of festival organizers called LJD Events. “We had to change our layout a lot to accommodate for a much smaller land space.”

An updated map for Stillwater Lumberjack Days was released on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. Event organizers had to move events around as parts of Lowell Park in downtown Stillwater are not yet ready after recent flooding of the St. Croix River. (Courtesy of Lumberjack Days)

The high water also forced the cancellation of the 2024 Minnesota Wakesurf Championship — where riders surf a boat’s wake, rather than being pulled — which was set to be held for the first time in Stillwater.

“It is with heavy hearts that we announce the cancellation of the on-water wakesurf competition for this season,” organizer Jeremy Wahlberg wrote in a post on the Minnesota Wakesurf Championship’s Facebook page. “Unprecedented flooding this late in the season in Minnesota has created a situation that, unfortunately, will not be resolved in time to hold a world-class competition.”

Among the issues: the Washington County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol unit couldn’t issue a permit until the river level was below the no-wake threshold, and the watershed district has raised concerns about shoreline conditions due to the prolonged flooding, according to Wahlberg.

A kids’ obstacle course and bingo also had to be cut because of the change in location, Asmus said. “We just don’t have the space for it anymore because we had to condense and cut down our tent sizes,” he said.

But other festival favorites will be back, including the Lumberjack Days Derby car race, the parade, lumberjack demonstrations, medallion hunt, games, rides, log rolling, a pancake breakfast, BMX bicycle jumping and yoga, Asmus said.

Musical lineup

This weekend’s music lineup is heavy on country-leaning singer/songwriters and a few national acts with record deals, including Love and Theft (6:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday), Jerrod Niemann (7:45 p.m. Friday), Craig Campbell (8:45 p.m. Saturday).

Local Prince tribute band Chase and Ovation closes out Friday with a performance at 9:15 p.m., while country artist Canaan Smith is the Saturday headliner, taking the stage at 10 p.m.

Smith is known for his song “Love You Like That,” which hit No. 1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart.

Some of Smith’s fans called Mayor Ted Kozlowski on Wednesday morning to confirm that the country star was headlining Lumberjack Days, he said.

“They were basically screaming over the phone because they were excited that he was coming to Stillwater,” Kozlowski said. “They apparently saw on his Spotify channel that he was playing here on Saturday. They couldn’t believe it was a free show, so they wanted to call the mayor to confirm.”

Robin Anthony, the executive director of the Greater Stillwater Chamber of Commerce, said the musical lineup this year is “epic.”

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“I’m a country freak and a Nashville girl, so I’m very excited about this new direction — bringing new country here to the Valley,” she said. “This is just the beginning of future enhancements of this event which we are very excited about.”

Asmus, who grew up in Stillwater, is part of Minneapolis-based After Midnight Group, the group that owns Hotel Crosby and Matchstick Restaurant & Spirits in downtown Stillwater. He also is part owner of Brian’s Bar in downtown Stillwater.

Asmus, 53, said his country-music connections came from his Cowboy Jack’s days; After Midnight Group owned the five Cowboy Jack’s locations until earlier this year when they were purchased by Jeff Crivello’s Ciao Hospitality Group.

“We have a lot of direct involvement with country music, and we’ve just got a lot of contacts in that genre,” he said. “It’s kind of fitting for the area, and it works. It works really well. We were able to get these great, super-talented artists.”

Frank E. is back

Crews in Stillwater have been busy getting the Frank E. barge restored in time for Lumberjack Days. The barge will serve as the “floating stage” for the musical acts performing in the festival, which runs Friday, July 19, 2024, through Sunday, July 21, 2024, in downtown Stillwater. The last time the Frank E. was used for Lumberjack Days was in 2010 when Chicago was the headliner. (Courtesy of Dave Junker)

The highlight of the festival for some might be the return of the original floating stage — a 30-by-60-foot barge named the Frank E.

City crews recently restored the barge and painted it brown to make its re-appearance at Lumberjack Days, said Stillwater City Council member Dave Junker. “It’s looking fantastic,” Junker said.

Frank E. last appeared at Lumberjack Days 2010. The headliner that year was Chicago, Junker said.

“Fourteen years later, it’s now returning,” he said. “Brian wanted to bring it back, and so did the city. It is so unique to perform on a floating stage. It’s a game-changer.”

The “floating stage” is a selling point when it comes to attracting talent, Anthony said. “These bands are really pumped about playing on this floating stage,” she said. “It’s really different. It sets Stillwater apart.”

Said Kozlowski: “It’s always been magical, and I think the artists love it as well. Where’s a better place to play than on the St. Croix River?”

Asmus and LJD Events signed a one-year contract with the city to take over Lumberjack Days after The Locals, the group of volunteers who revived Lumberjack Days and produced eight summer festivals in downtown Stillwater over the past 10 years, announced they were stepping down.

“I thought it was something that’s got a long tradition, a long history of being done, and it would have been sad to not see it go off,” he said. “It’s just a cool thing for downtown Stillwater, I think, and it’s got room to grow a little bit.”

Lumberjack Days

Lumberjack Days will be held Friday-Sunday in downtown Stillwater.

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Live music will be performed throughout the festival; headliners include Chase and Ovation on Friday night and Canaan Smith on Saturday night.

Other highlights include the Ice Cream Social, 5 p.m. Thursday at the Washington County Historic Courthouse; Lumberjack Days Derby, 2 p.m. Friday down the Second Street Hill near Pioneer Park; and lumberjack demonstrations, medallion hunt, games, rides, log rolling and a pancake breakfast.

The Lumberjack Days Parade is 11 a.m. Sunday; retiring Washington County Commissioner Gary Kriesel will be the grand marshal.

For more information, go to lumberjackdays.com.

The city of St Paul will be holding an emergency preparedness exercise at CHS Field on July 18.

The 55th Civil Support Team, St. Paul Fire’s Hazardous Material Response Team, State Fire Marshal’s office and advanced CBRNE unit will be conducting exercises that strengthen their abilities to better prepare for real world emergencies, according to St. Paul’s fire department.

The exercise will begin at 8 a.m. and conclude at 5 p.m. Responders will be establishing operations, deploying chemical assessment teams, conducting interagency coordination and evaluating emergency preparedness.

Due to the large presence of emergency responders the event may draw questions from the community, but there is no need for concern, said fire officials.

Staging will be on Broadway Street between the St. Paul Farmers Market and main gate to CHS Field. Roads in the area will remain open, but residents should expect some traffic congestion or restrictions.

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A live forum featuring four candidates for Washington County District 3 commissioner will be televised at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 17.

Bethany Cox, Scott “Cutter” Junker, Michael Schultz and Mark Wiens will be competing against each other in the primary election Tuesday, Aug. 13.

The Pre-Primary Forum is an opportunity to showcase the four candidates who are vying to take the place of Gary Kriesel, a retiring longtime Washington County commissioner, according to Marguerite “Margot” Rheinberger, a candidate forum moderator.

Participating candidates will answer questions from a panel of moderators. Rheinberger encourages viewers to contact the candidates directly about any issues not addressed in the forum.

“I do these forums for the voters, not the candidates,” Rheinberger said.

The forum is closed to in-person attendance. It will be broadcast on Xfinity Channel 14 and streamed on Valley Access Channels’ YouTube page.

After the primary, all general election forums are planned to be open to the public. This could include Lake Elmo, Stillwater, Bayport, Oak Park Heights, Stillwater Area Public Schools and more, Rheinberger said.

The two candidates with the highest number of votes in the primary election will go through to the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

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By JOHN HANNA, CAROLYN THOMPSON, GEOFF MULVIHILL and JEFFREY COLLINS Associated Press

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Long before a would-be assassin shot and wounded former President Donald Trump, the fuse of political violence had been burning across America.

Members of Congress have been shot. One lawmaker’s staffers in Virginia were attacked with a baseball bat. In Louisville, a bullet grazed the mayor’s sweater after someone stormed into his campaign office. Someone put a tracking device on the Reno mayor’s car. Officials in South Carolina received death threats over a solar panel plant. And outside Buffalo, a man threw a dummy pipe bomb through the window of a county clerk candidate’s home while her family slept — with a message reading: “If you don’t drop out of this race, the next pipe bomb will be real.”

“There are people who’ve come to me and said, ‘I contemplated running for my town office, and I could never imagine my family going through what you did, so I chose not to,’” said Melissa Hartman, who was targeted in the pipe bomb episode and ran for county clerk after serving as town supervisor in Eden.

The attempt on Trump’s life was the latest and most stunning example of political violence and harassment playing out regularly across America, shaking the foundations of democracy and causing grave concern the atmosphere will worsen as Election Day nears. Trump and President Joe Biden each called for unity after the shooting, with the president telling the nation, “We can’t allow violence to be normalized.”

Intense partisanship, punctuated by violence, has long been a part of American politics. In 1798, congressmen from opposing parties brawled in the U.S. House chamber, beating each other with a cane and fireplace tongs. Four presidents have been killed by assassins, with other presidents and candidates wounded or targeted. Yet the attack on Trump evoked memories of more recent incidents.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords was wounded in a 2011 shooting outside an Arizona grocery store. Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, now House majority leader, was shot in 2017 while practicing for a charity baseball game. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was the target of a foiled kidnapping plot uncovered in 2020.

Even after the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol shocked the world, political violence continued.

A man with a hammer bludgeoned the husband of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, in their San Francisco home in 2022. Last year, a man with a history of mental illness went to the Fairfax, Virginia, district office of Democratic U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, looking to kill him with a baseball bat. Connolly wasn’t there, so the man attacked two staffers.

And there are dozens of stories from far lesser-known political officials like Hartman.

She lost her county clerk race and hasn’t sought elective office since in her town of 7,700, home to the only factory making metal kazoos in North America. The man who threw the dummy pipe bomb pleaded guilty. Hartman said he was paid to do it by a neighbor, and she remains skittish two years later when approached in public.

In York County, South Carolina, a booming suburb of Charlotte, North Carolina, County Council Chairwoman Christi Cox said that after the attempt on Trump, she felt compelled to speak about a letter she recently received. She’d sent her three kids to get the mail and read it while they were nearby — a threat to kill her unless she stopped a solar panel manufacturer from building a $150 million plant receiving council-approved incentives. Cox is a Republican; an additional letter threatening the council’s only Democrat came to county offices.

“Our country is in a very dangerous and dark place right now, and I feel like some of that is spilling over to our community,” she said at the council’s Monday night meeting. “The level of anger, hate, lies, accusations, fearmongering — it is rampant.”

In Reno, Nevada, a far-right movement has targeted local politicians. Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve doesn’t know whether someone in that movement had the tracking device put on her vehicle, and she tries to avoid going to public places alone.

“I think people really forget that we’re human beings,” she said.

In Louisville, Kentucky, in 2022, a man burst into Mayor Craig Greenberg’s campaign headquarters, firing shots. A bullet grazed his sweater. Staffers were unharmed.

“Absolutely no good came from Saturday’s heinous act,” Greenberg said Monday. “But let’s hope it’s finally the wake-up call.”

Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss called the assassination attempt a moment to “reset.” Moss, who’s Jewish and gay, faced personal threats over the years, including one from a man charged with using social media to threaten the lives of Jewish Michigan state officials.

“I hope this is a moment that all of us on all sides of the political spectrum can say we all were saved by that bullet missing President Trump,” Moss said.

The attack came a day after governors at a National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake City committed to collaborating on public service announcements and other campaigns to show voters they can get along with political rivals.

“We can disagree without hating each other,” said outgoing chairman Republican Spencer Cox, of Utah.

Cooling the political climate will require both a change in messaging at the top and a willingness of rank-and-file voters to move closer to those who disagree with them, said Austin Doctor, of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center.

“It takes a lot of work and consistent commitment to the values of democracy,” Doctor said. “The question that we have to continue to ask is: How do we veer out of this potential spiral?”

In Oklahoma, Pat McFerron, a pollster and GOP consultant, said closed party primaries in safe districts encourage candidates to use extreme rhetoric. It would be toned down, he argued, in a single open primary.

“Most of the candidates I know, in their heart of hearts are people who want to make a difference who prefer an environment that wants consensus,” McFerron said. “If you’re going to be successful, you have to play the game that’s in front of you.”

Some Republicans — including vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance — quickly blamed Biden and fellow Democrats for portraying Trump as a threat to democracy. On Facebook, Alabama’s GOP lieutenant governor, Will Ainsworth, held “the radical left” responsible and said its agenda attacks Christianity and is “evil incarnate.”

Social media has helped fuel threats. In a 2021 survey of 112 public officials, the National League of Cities found the overwhelming majority – about 4 in 5 – experienced harassment, threats or violence. Most said it happened through social media; more than half said it also occurred at public meetings.

Threats of violence were also amplified starting in 2020 with the coronavirus pandemic, as public health officials imposed restrictions. Ohio’s state health director resigned after armed protesters came to her house; the health officer for Orange County, California, quit after weeks of criticism and threats over requiring face coverings in public.

And Trump’s false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen has spawned threats against local election officials, making some miserable or anxious enough to quit. Many are closely watching the upcoming election.

“It’s hard to imagine there is not an election jurisdiction in the country that now is not on high alert for the potential for political violence in the 2024 election,” said David Levine, a former local election official in Idaho.

Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas; Mulvihill, from Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and Collins from Columbia, South Carolina. Associated Press writers Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta; Matthew Barakat in Springfield, Virginia; Bill Barrow in Milwaukee; Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan; Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; and Gabe Stern in Carson City, Nevada contributed.