News Highlights

Former mayor may have taken monument out of town

A Minnesota State Mankato history class has discovered that a former Mankato mayor in 1994 may have whisked away a stone marker memorializing the Dakota hanging.

2006-05-31
By Dan Linehan, Free Press Staff Writer [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 5/31/2006]

MANKATO — A local man known for his disappearing act may have been behind another, less public, disappearance.

Former mayor Stan Christ was apparently driving the truck that drove the Dakota hanging monument out of town in 1994. The granite slab was bound for a representative of the Dakota American Indians and never seen again, at least not by anybody looking for it now.

If true, it wouldn't be the last disappearance Christ has had a hand in. After serving as mayor for nearly a decade, Christ resigned in October of 1999 and skipped town without leaving a forwarding address.

The development comes with the city's response to an inquiry from a Minnesota State University history class.

It was revealed earlier this month that the monument was given to a "representative" of the Dakota. But, despite months of searching, the class learned of Christ's involvement from the letter, which was dated May 30.

It's based on the memory of Public Works Director George Rosati.

He and two other employees were asked by former Public Works Director Paul Baker to load the monument on a truck, according to the letter. Baker is now deceased.

"I Know this. I know it's gone," Rosati said. It's not "buried under a sand pile," nor is it "crushed and under the levy."

He says the monument "represented something negative to them."

City Manager Pat Hentges says "we've had no contact whatsoever" with Christ. He also said it's Rosati's recollection that the monument was roughly as big as a tombstone — not nearly 8,500 pounds, as reported in a previous Free Press story.

He also noted that no one was very excited about the monument when it sat in a city scrap pile between 1971 and 1994.

For Jay Busby, an MSU student leading the class' search for the marker, the development was a little too convenient. It's nice and easy for the city, he implies, that this new source is nowhere to be found.

So, Busby is taking the news "with a grain of salt." But he's already looking for Christ.

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