The Google map below (appropriately displaying Copyright), shows the location of our apartment above Kraher's Meat Market that dad owned. It is shown as a small red rectangle near the intersection of Main Street and Mantorville Avenue. The longer vertical rectangle on Mantorville Avenue between 1st and 3rd street is where the noise was coming from.
In those days, Mantorville Avenue was beautifully lined with tall elm trees (maybe mixed with maple, cottonwood and oaks).
Loving Rose and I were in Kasson on September 17, 2010 (After this Post was written). I photographed the intersection of Main Street and Mantorville Avenue specifically to add to this Post. We are looking north in the photo toward the original (or replacement) trees. Rose is walking north on the right side of the red building on the corner. Kraher's Meat Market (Humble Blogger's home) was a few buildings to the left of the photo on Main Street. The Market is now a "P & P TV & Appliance" store.
Intersection of Main Street (left to right) and Mantorville Ave. 9/17/2010
Back to my story. This particular 1950's evening, grackles collected en masse in the trees on Mantorville Avenue during their migration. The following You Tube "Grackle Attack" video [from "snowdog" in Garwood, NJ January 2007] suggests what we saw that evening.
The shotgun blasts were from the guns of town fathers shooting up into the grackle filled trees! As soon as a volley of blasts were fired, several grackles dropped dead onto Mantorville Avenue and the noise caused the rest of the grackles to fly into the air.
A minute or so later, more grackles would alight in the trees only to be blasted once more followed by some of their brethren falling into the street. The men removed the dead grackles after each volley. I don't remember if there was a total count. People lined the street and cars stopped on either end of the melee to watch. I've got to believe the town policeman was there also.
This continued till dark when most of the birds left for shelter elsewhere. For me this was "A Lucky Shot" amplified many times over. We were astounded that the men took liberty to use shotguns so close to homes in town for the purpose of dealing with the nuisance, noise and droppings of the migrating grackles. Apparently this moment in time had been slowly building over the course of a week as neighbors constantly complained about the grackles. Out of their complaints was born the bright idea that shotguns would be the best way to deal with the problem.
I'm quite certain that evening was the first and last time there was slaughter on Mantorville Avenue (or any other street for that matter) in Kasson, MN. After the ordeal, the town fathers had second thoughts about the safety and effectiveness of their methods. However, I as a kid was glad to have been there as a witness so I could tell the story so many years later!
