A portion of Highway 5 south of Side Lake is temporarily closed after a culvert failed causing a partial washout.
Highway 5 is closed from approximately 0.8 miles south of Side Lake to about 1.5 miles north of Green Rock Road. Detour signs are being posted directing travelers to use Green Rock Road, Sturgeon Road and McCarthy Beach Road as an alternate route.
St. Louis County Public Works expects repairs may take about a week and will provide an update when the road is able to reopen.
Nearly 37% of residents in the Arrowhead region, which includes St. Louis County, qualified for a property tax refund in 2023, the most recent year for which information is available.
Under the leadership of Chamber President Matt Baumgartner, Duluth and St. Louis County Days has become a respected presence at the Capitol. Legislators expect it. Policymakers notice it. And participants leave knowing their region’s voice has been heard.
For now, the political formula in Minnesota’s 8th District remains remarkably consistent. Duluth votes. The Iron Range votes. Then the rest of northern Minnesota votes. And the rest of northern Minnesota is usually enough.
Duluth and St. Louis County are not asking for luxury investments. They are asking for help maintaining systems — water treatment plants, shoreline protection, waste management infrastructure — whose costs exceed what local taxpayers alone can reasonably sustain.
How do you replace lost industrial base? How do you stabilize tax revenue? How do you bring consistent, year-round activity back into a hollowing downtown? Rochester, Cleveland and Pittsburgh leaned into medicine and were successful.
The lesson is not that every project will succeed. It is that progress requires participation — from developers, from institutions and from city leadership willing to remove obstacles rather than manage decline.
Howie is editor & publisher of 50-Yard Football The Indoor Football League, founded in 2009, enters its 18th consecutive season in 2026 as the longest continuously operating indoor football league in the United States and the sport’s de facto major league. With 14 teams across eight top-50 media markets,
