10 years ago (1993)"Cargill Grain Division of Hills has taken another step to promote agriculture locally. The rural Hills business contracted with Southern Minnesota Construction Co. Inc. of Mankato to have five-tenths of the road sprayed with a newly developed product, soybean oil ‘soapstock.’ ‘It’s a new type of dust suppressant that uses products from agriculture. We were interested in giving it a try,’ said Cargill manager Jim Reiff."25 years ago (1978)"Winds gusting to 95 miles per hour, hail, heavy rain and even a possible tornado left extensive damage and a tremendous clean-up project behind them as they swept through the entire area Thursday night. The area immediately surrounding Hills was fortunate with little damage to buildings, however, several trees in Hills were downed or destroyed by the winds. In Steen, also hit hard by the storm, one tree, which almost fell on buildings owned by Ernie Hall, managed to remain standing until Friday when it was removed by Bravo Construction Co."50 years ago (1953)"Early Saturday morning around 3 a.m. one of the worst wind storms to hit the area in some 15 years struck, leaving considerable damage to buildings and trees here. A hailstorm accompanied it, doing almost total damage to some crops here. About three and one-half inches of rain fell in Hills during the short stay of the storm, which hit spasmodically. The hail hit north, west and east of town apparently, doing damage in spots only, while just across a road there was no damage from it. North of town, the Nels Kolsrud farm was pretty badly hit, while west of Hills, Norris Rye and Bennie Thompson had beautiful fields of corn badly damaged."75 years ago (1928)"The Hills kitten ball team motored to Rock Rapids last Thursday where they crossed bats with the team at that place. The game ended in a tie, and now they have to do it all over again." 100 years ago (1903)"Johann, the Austrian, is progressing finely in this country. He is now a valuable member of Boone’s cement gang and can understand anything from cuss words to the six o’clock whistle. It doesn’t seem to worry him much whether he ever discovers his relatives or not."
