What was a riverside bar in southern Minnesota is now an island

ST. PETER, MINN. — No man is an island. Neither was this southern Minnesota sports bar, until the floods came tumbling in.

Neisen’s Riverside Sports Bar in this college town now stands surrounded by water from the swollen Minnesota River.

“Riverside was apparently a good name,” said Katie Straub, the bar’s general manager. “Last I saw the place was Monday.”

St. Peter has known flooding before. Locals recall a deluge in the early 1990s that prompted many property owners on the east of the river to sell their land.

Straub said the bar’s previous owner — back when the joint was called Whiskey River — decided to rebuild higher atop the peninsula, hoping to withstand any conceivable flood.

The current floods in south central Minnesota keep stacking up casualties: a 100-year-old dam upstream from Mankato on the Blue Earth River; farm fields; homes and lakeside cottages in Waterville.

Downtown St. Peter, lined with coffee shops, grocery stores and shops offering Scandinavian goods, remains dry. But water has engulfed large portions of land in the community’s Riverside Park. On Friday morning, gray skies and threats of more rain hung over St. Peter. Local resident Patty Nourie had come to take photos, standing behind the orange road barriers that prevent passage across the truss bridge that’s nearly a century old.

“I’ve been down in Louisiana,” Nourie said. “They’re going [to] have all this water in about two weeks.”

Thick deciduous trees rise above the rushing water. On a sidewalk, small placards announce water-level updates with a picture of Sasquatch. Each time stamp shows the level rising or falling at a given moment.

“It’s already going down,” said Nourie.

For now, Straub said, Riverside Sports Bar remains dry inside. She and the two-dozen employees are waiting for the water to recede before heading back to work.

“Maybe we need new drink specials,” Straub said. “A parking lot lager? Or crappie driveway?”

But only after she boats back to the bar.