COURTLAND — As a passel of dignitaries — including the governor, a U.S. senator, a congressman, a state commissioner, legislators and local officials — marked the day the final stretch of four-lane U.S. Highway 14 from Rochester to New Ulm was completed, Crystal Rudolph was looking forward to being one of the first to travel on it.
“I’m excited to drive home on it,” said Rudolph, the business manager at Olson Motors (formerly S&S), who lives in New Ulm.
When Highway 14 between Nicollet and New Ulm was shut down two years ago to begin the construction, the used car dealership was hit hard.
“It was a huge drop in business,” she said. To make matters worse, “Google (maps) never was able to figure out how to get to us. They sent people into a corn field. We watched someone literally driving into the field.”
At 39 degrees with a 30 mph north wind, hundreds of people gathered Tuesday on the new overpass just north of Courtland to celebrate the occasion and cut a ribbon before the highway officially opened to traffic at 5 p.m.
The Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School band played “Take me Home, Country Roads” before dozens of speakers talked of the decadeslong push to create the four-lane.
“Well folks, we did it. We reached the finish line,” said Greg Ous, district engineer for the Minnesota Department of Transportation.
The $83.5 million project converted the two-lane highway to a four-lane divided highway and added new interchanges at Brown County Road 37 near New Ulm and Nicollet County Road 12/24 near Courtland.
“To say this is a day we’ve been waiting for is an understatement,” Gov. Tim Walz said. “We would be out here in a blizzard to do this.”
While a long list of former and current federal, state and local elected officials have worked on funding for Highway 14, Walz singled out the mayors along the route.
“This was a mayors’ project.” He and other speakers said the mayors along the route always supported projects on the highway that were not in their area, believing that eventually the whole route would be done.
Walz’s advocacy for the project spans back to his time in Congress and the death of his Mankato neighbor.
“As someone who has lost a neighbor on this road, I know that for the Minnesotans who travel Highway 14 every day, this project is personal. After years of working on this in Congress, I’m incredibly proud to see the final miles of this project completed,” Walz said. “This expansion will keep Minnesotans safe while expanding economic activity across southern Minnesota.”
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan said the highway is an investment “in the safety and vitality of communities across southern Minnesota.”
Minnesota Department of Transportation Commissioner Nancy Daubenberger said she knows the highway work has been disruptive. “We want to thank the communities who live on this corridor for their patience with the many construction projects over the years.”
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the federal government funded 67% of the entire Highway 14 project from Rochester to New Ulm. She said past and current federal lawmakers from both parties, including U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, the late U.S. Rep. Jim Hagedorn, former congressman Tim Penny, U.S. Sen. Tina Smith, state legislators from southern Minnesota and local officials never wavered in advocating for the highway over the years.
Taking the cost of each segment and the year the money was spent — including the $52 million spent in 1979 to build the four-lane bypass in Mankato ($221 million in today’s dollars) — the cost of the entire four-lane construction from Rochester to New Ulm would top $1 billion in today’s dollars.
Long time coming
A Highway 14 Partnership, consisting of city and county officials as well as southern Minnesota legislators, has been around since 1990, but discussions of expanding the two-lane road to four lanes dates back to the 1960s.
For years hopes were bleak for completing the last 12.5-mile stretch from Nicollet to New Ulm, as cost estimates rose and funding didn’t come through.
But MnDOT was able to secure a $48.2 million federal loan that charges just 1% interest and in 2020 Walz announced the project would get another $22 million federal grant that doesn’t need to be repaid.
The federal loan and grant were successful in large part because of the economic impact of an upgraded highway and because the two-lane Highway 14 was long the most dangerous in Minnesota.
Nicollet Mayor Fred Froelich, in 2020, noted that the first expansion of Highway 14 to four lanes started in 1959. “Since then, 150 lives have been lost.”
While much of the east end of the highway from Rochester to Owatonna was completed over the years, key Mankato area segments weren’t done until the early 2000s, including sections between Eagle Lake and Janesville and then, in 2006, the link to Waseca. The expressway was then finished between Waseca and Owatonna.