Mathias Baden reports:

“A ways out there, but an appealing combination of pastoral and urban.”

Sound familiar, like someone is mentioning a little town you might have in mind?

In the July edition of Mpls St Paul magazine, Brian Lambert, Shawn Gilliam, and Sarah Howard combined to write an article about the best places to live in the Twin Cities, and Jordan made the list of 20 “great neighborhoods.”

The writers took into account crime statistics, school quality ratings, subjective insights of real estate industry professionals, and historical home sales.

Those who work at the Scott County Fair Office in St. Lawrence Township, near Jordan, took the Jordan Independent staff on a tour of the grounds and told about their favorite things at the fair. This year's county fair runs July 23-27. Check out these videos:

Thirty years ago, an aluminum canoe flew off the top of a car and hit another car driven by Wanda Lucius of Jordan. Lucius' car spun out of control. Beverly Dorn of Lydia, a passenger in the car, and Lucius ended up in separate hospitals.

For more information, read the Looking Back column in the June 26 issue of the Jordan Independent. Read it online in the Print Edition section, or subscribe by going to www.jordannews.com/subscribe.

Shannon Fiecke of the Shakopee Valley News reports:

John Danio doesn't even drive Highway 169 regularly – his wife does – but he's still fed up with what he calls the "unpredictable bottleneck," and he has no hope the state will fix it anytime soon.
His wife often leaves 20 to 30 minutes early to ensure she gets to work in Minnetonka on time.
Danio works from a home office in Shakopee's Southbridge area, minutes from the highway he has given up using.

Thirty years ago, the Jordan City Council directed the city engineer to do a feasibility study in regard to providing curb and gutter for the 48 homes of Brentwood.

For more information, read the Looking Back column in the June 5 issue of the Jordan Independent. Read it online in the Print Edition section, or subscribe by going to www.jordannews.com/subscribe.

Cosmic Journey

Jordan Middle School students got a chance to explore the final frontier from the safety of the gym last week. The school hosted the Minnesota Planetarium Exloradome portable planetarium. The program – housed in an inflatable dome in which students laid on the floor and gazed at projected video on the ceiling – allowed students to visit almost anywhere they wanted within our solar system. They also had a chance to see most of the known universe when the projected video brought them outside the solar system and outside the Milky Way galaxy.

On a kayaking trip from Helena Township, through Sand Creek Township, into Jordan on Sand Creek, a few guys found out that with a little ingenuity, you can surf the local creek. These guys are lucky to have not broken their necks, they said.

They also said it's easier than it looks.

As expected, the lobbying effort waged by the city of Jordan at the State Capitol failed this year.

Here is a look at some of the numbers involved in the May 1 motorcycle accident that killed Jordan’s Walter L. Cobb:

2
fatal accidents along the Union Pacific track in Jordan in the past three years

3,300
feet, approximately, between the train crossing at which Cobb died and the crossing at which Scott Fahrenkamp died on Jan. 12, 2006