Lydia: The town that time forgot

During an attempted 2013 trek from Minnesota to California, Nathan Mehlhoff passed through Lydia, Minn., after taking a wrong turn on his way to Jordan. Tiny Lydia was a pleasant surprise — though he's from Lakeville, Mehlhoff hadn't known it existed.

"No matter how slow you're going, you might miss it," he said.

Located at the center of Scott County, Lydia was once a place where residents could shop, eat, send letters and go to church without straying too far from home. At one point, it had a shot at becoming the county seat.

But years of losing attractions and being bypassed by development left the unincorporated town in limbo.

Key businesses taken out by a fire in the mid-1950s weren't replaced. An education center that opened in the fall may move to Shakopee. And residential development has avoided the spots closest to town, where there are wide swaths of land but not the utilities and roads to support new building.

"There's really not a lot there. You grow up and move on," said Scott County Commissioner Joe Wagner, who lives in Jordan. "Lydia just kind of limps along."

For a small, religious community of European immigrants, Lydia was home before Minnesota was a state.

There's evidence of the past at Lydia Zion United Methodist Church, where a wall is adorned with late-19th century photos of solemn-faced congregants, and a German-language stone medallion displays an 1892 founding date.

Pastor Larry Kasten lives with his family in a house just behind the church. Kasten and his family arrived in Lydia a decade ago, after a bishop's direction moved them from the town of Ortonville, Minn., on the South Dakota border.

It was the first time Kasten had heard of Lydia.

"I was afraid we'd be moving into the Cities. I'm kind of more of a rural person," he said. "And so when we got here, it was just a wonderful, pleasant surprise."

The church draws about 170 congregants from across Scott County, with occasional visitors from elsewhere. A guest book with entries dating back to July 27, 1980, shows hometowns as far away as Colorado, Washington, Florida and Oregon.

Lydia once had about a dozen businesses — gas stations, a feed mill, a general store.

"It was kind of a swinging deal," said Jim Corniea, who bought Lydia's Country Prime Time Restaurant in 1986.

Over the course of the last three decades, Corniea, 80, has seen his fellow businesses disappear as big-box stores and shopping centers have drawn residents' pocketbooks away from home.

Country Prime Time — a bar since Lydia's early days, as evidenced by a still found in the basement — has become the town's unofficial community center.

"That place is the closest thing I think there is on Earth to that sitcom 'Cheers,' " Wagner said. "You go in there on an evening, and I've got to tell you, you look around and it's the same faces sitting in the same barstools."

Farmers stop in for coffee after early-morning milking. Lunch starts at 11 a.m., offering up plates of meat and potatoes or slices of banana cream pie. Corniea estimates that the restaurant serves 30 lunches and 40 to 50 dinners per day.

"Coming in here is like going back home, they say," he said of his customers.

In the late 1800s, Lydia was the same size as nearby Prior Lake. But Prior Lake got a railroad and Lydia didn't, and now, Lydia residents worry that their much-larger neighbor might one day swallow them up.

"There's kind of a sense of a little bit of foreboding," Kasten said.

Still, the church is planning a $700,000 expansion with a fellowship hall, offices and a kitchen. The congregation also wants to provide affordable child care and meeting space for an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter.

At the town center across the street, there's another sign of community: a monument erected in 2002 to memorialize Lydia's roots. With an uncertain future on the horizon, community members are making an effort to preserve their history, said Pam Killian of the Lydia Area Historical Society.

The gravestone-like marker reads: "Lydia, 1854. Center of Scott County. Unincorporated community of English, Irish and German farm and business families."

An old-fashioned water pump beside the stone marker has rusted over and a garden planted around it lies dormant, save for a few bright yellow crocuses that have just begun to blossom.

Emma Nelson • 952-746-3287