Dassel, MN

At the 2020 census, Dassel was a Meeker County city of 1,472 people, platted in 1869 and named for railroad official Bernard Dassel. The railroad and later highways made it a small transportation and farm center, with U.S. Highway 12 and Minnesota Highway 15 crossing through the city. Its strangest chapter began in 1937, when Lester Peel started collecting ergot from discarded grain at Universal Laboratories. During World War II, the Dassel plant became the country's first reliable domestic ergot supplier, turning a crop fungus that farmers discarded into a medical commodity.

The old Universal Laboratories building now houses the Dassel History Center and Ergot Museum, after local volunteers cleaned it up, secured grants, and removed six inches of pigeon droppings from the floor. The museum holds the ergot story, seed-corn history, local records, newspapers, photos, and family histories. Outside, the 1931 White Eagle gas station—better known as the Mushroom Building—marks the old Highway 12 and County Road 4 corner. Dassel is a town where a weird grain by-product and a mushroom-shaped gas station do more historical heavy lifting than a slogan ever could.