Wayzata has always needed a place where the community can see itself.
For generations, local newspapers recorded the life of this town: the decisions made at City Hall, the accomplishments of students and athletes, the opening of a new business, the passing of a longtime resident, a championship season, a community celebration, and the stories of the families who helped build Wayzata.
Wayzata.com exists to continue that tradition.
Founded in 1996 by Daniel Gustafson, Wayzata.com is a locally published news and community platform devoted to telling the stories of Wayzata and the Lake Minnetonka area — past, present, and future.
Our work follows in a long tradition of community journalism represented over the years by publications including the Wayzata Reporter, the Minnetonka Herald, and later the Lakeshore Weekly News.
The technology has changed.
The purpose has not.
Carrying Forward a Wayzata Publishing Tradition
Long before websites, email newsletters, social media and digital photography, Wayzata had its local newspapers.
Among the most important was the Minnetonka Herald, published in Wayzata for decades and closely associated with longtime publisher M.G. Gullixson.
Under Gullixson and his partners, the Herald became more than a newspaper. It became part of the everyday life of the community.
Its pages carried City news, school activities, high school sports, business announcements, weddings, births, civic organizations, military service, community gatherings and the names and accomplishments of ordinary residents.
In doing so, the newspaper created something larger than a collection of weekly stories.
It created a record of Wayzata.
Gullixson also understood that no publisher could create that record alone.
The Herald relied on contributors and correspondents from communities around Lake Minnetonka who wrote about the people, organizations, neighborhoods and events they knew firsthand. Their voices helped the newspaper capture details of local life that no single editor or reporter could possibly see on their own.
That spirit of community participation is something Wayzata.com hopes to carry forward.
Gullixson himself represented an older model of community publisher. He was not removed from the place he covered. He was a teacher, businessman, civic participant and publisher who lived among his readers and took part in the life of the community.
That tradition matters to us.
Wayzata.com does not claim to be the Minnetonka Herald, nor could any modern publication recreate another era. But we believe strongly in the idea behind it: that a community is stronger when someone is paying attention, asking questions, taking photographs, preserving its history and recording what happens here.
A community does not remember itself automatically.
Someone has to keep the record.
That is part of what Wayzata.com is here to do.
What We Cover
Our focus is intentionally local.
We cover the people, institutions, places and events that shape life in Wayzata and around Lake Minnetonka, including:
- City government and civic affairs — City Council decisions, public projects, development, planning and issues affecting the future of Wayzata.
- Wayzata Public Schools — students, teachers, programs, milestones and the stories unfolding throughout the district.
- High school athletics — teams, athletes, coaches, accomplishments and traditions that bring the community together.
- Local businesses — openings, expansions, anniversaries, entrepreneurs and the businesses that give Wayzata its character.
- Community events — festivals, fundraisers, celebrations, civic organizations and the gatherings that connect neighbors.
- People — residents whose lives, work, accomplishments or service have contributed to the community.
- History and heritage — the buildings, families, photographs, businesses and stories that explain how Wayzata became the community it is today.
- Lake Minnetonka — the lake itself and the communities, traditions and issues connected to it.
Some stories are breaking news.
Others may have been waiting 50 or 100 years to be told.
We believe both belong here.
More Than a Website
The name Wayzata.com dates to 1996, when the Internet was only beginning to change the way communities communicated.
Today, Wayzata.com operates across several forms of media.
Our website provides timely local reporting and an extensive, growing archive of community stories. Our print editions bring selected stories, photography and local advertising back into a physical format that can be picked up, shared and saved. Photography and video allow us to document Wayzata visually, while social media and email help those stories reach readers wherever they are.
In that sense, the tools are very different from the printing presses that once operated in downtown Wayzata.
But the underlying work is remarkably similar:
Find the story. Get it right. Preserve it. Share it with the community.
Local History as Living History
History is an especially important part of our mission.
Wayzata’s history is not confined to museums or history books. It remains visible in its streets, parks, homes, businesses, institutions and families.
Many of today’s stories reach backward.
A park can lead to the story of the coach whose name it carries. A longtime business can reveal generations of local entrepreneurship. A house can tell the story of a family, an architectural era and a changing neighborhood. A photograph from decades ago can suddenly explain something residents pass every day without noticing.
Whenever possible, Wayzata.com connects those pieces.
We work with historical photographs, newspaper archives, public records, firsthand recollections and local historical resources to help preserve those stories and return them to public view.
Because local history is most meaningful when people can see how it connects to the place they live today.
Our Approach to Journalism
Wayzata.com believes local journalism should be accurate, fair, useful and recognizable to the people who actually live here.
We rely on public records, firsthand interviews, original photography and video, historical sources, government documents and direct observation.
We also use modern technology where it can improve our work.
That includes artificial intelligence tools that may assist with tasks such as organizing research, reviewing large amounts of source material, transcription, editing and developing background context.
Technology, however, does not replace editorial judgment.
Stories are selected, shaped, reviewed and published under human editorial responsibility. Facts matter. Sources matter. Context matters. And when a story becomes part of Wayzata’s permanent public record, getting it right matters.
The tools available to a publisher have changed dramatically since the days of the Minnetonka Herald.
The responsibility has not.
Our Publisher
Daniel Gustafson founded Wayzata.com in 1996 and serves as its publisher and editor.
A longtime Wayzata resident, Gustafson’s connection to the community extends beyond publishing. His involvement in local civic and historic preservation efforts has provided a firsthand view of how Wayzata has grown, changed and worked to preserve the character that makes it distinctive.
He and his wife, Elisha, are also licensed Realtors® affiliated with Coldwell Banker Realty in Wayzata.
That combination of publishing, civic involvement, local history and real estate provides a perspective grounded in the physical community itself — its neighborhoods, lakefront, businesses, public spaces, architecture and people.
Like the community publishers who came before him, Gustafson believes a truly local publication should be created by people who know the place they are covering.
Not from somewhere else.
From here.
Why It Matters
National news is everywhere.
Truly local news is increasingly difficult to find.
Yet the decisions made within a few blocks of home often have a more immediate effect on daily life than events taking place hundreds or thousands of miles away.
A development proposal changes a neighborhood.
A school decision affects thousands of families.
A small business becomes a local institution.
A coach influences generations of children.
A historic building disappears.
A longtime resident dies, taking memories with them that may never have been written down.
Those stories matter.
And without local journalism, many of them simply disappear.
Wayzata.com exists so more of them do not.
A Record for the Future
There is another audience for everything we publish: people who have not read it yet.
Years from now, someone may search for the history of a building, a business, an athlete, a City decision, a family or an event and discover a Wayzata.com story.
That person may be a resident.
They may be a student.
They may be a historian.
They may be someone’s grandchild.
That is why we think of Wayzata.com not only as a source of today’s news, but as an expanding archive of the community.
The Minnetonka Herald left behind thousands of pages that now allow us to look back into Wayzata’s past.
Our hope is that the work being created today will serve the same purpose for someone many years from now.
For Our Readers — and Contributors
The Minnetonka Herald was never the work of one person alone.
Writers and correspondents from communities around Lake Minnetonka contributed local news, observations, photographs and stories from the places they knew best. Together, those voices created a richer and more complete record of community life.
Wayzata.com wants to continue that tradition.
We welcome contributors.
You do not need to be a professional journalist.
You may be a resident who knows the history of your neighborhood, a parent who follows a school activity closely, a former athlete with a story worth preserving, a photographer documenting life around the lake, a business owner who knows the history of a local institution, or simply someone who has noticed a story that deserves to be told.
We are especially interested in contributions involving:
- Wayzata neighborhoods and neighborhood history
- Lake Minnetonka communities and traditions
- Wayzata Public Schools
- High school athletics and alumni
- Local history, photographs and family archives
- Civic organizations and volunteer efforts
- Arts, culture and community events
- Local businesses and the people behind them
- Personal recollections of Wayzata and Lake Minnetonka
- Interesting people whose stories might otherwise go untold
- Original photography and video documenting community life
Some contributors may write a single story.
Others may want to become regular correspondents covering a neighborhood, school, team, organization, subject or corner of the community they know especially well.
Both are welcome.
We believe some of the best local journalism begins with a simple sentence:
“You should know about this.”
If you know something Wayzata should know, remember something that should be preserved, have photographs that should be seen, or simply enjoy writing about this community, we invite you to become part of Wayzata.com.
Contributions are subject to editorial review for accuracy, fairness, relevance and clarity.
We do not want every story to sound as though it came from the same writer.
Quite the opposite.
We want historians to sound like historians. Coaches to sound like coaches. Neighbors to sound like neighbors. Students to bring the perspective of their generation. Longtime residents to share memories that cannot be found in a government archive or database.
Our role is to help those voices become part of a trustworthy public record.
The goal is simple:
Let the community help tell its own story.
That was one of the strengths of local newspapers such as the Minnetonka Herald, and we believe it can be part of the future of Wayzata.com as well.
Residents. Historians. Photographers. Students. Coaches. Business owners. Civic leaders. Alumni. Neighbors.
If you have something meaningful to contribute, we’d like to hear from you.
For Local Businesses
Local journalism and local business have always grown alongside one another.
The advertisements in historic community newspapers were themselves part of the record — documenting the stores, restaurants, professionals, builders and entrepreneurs who helped shape their communities.
That relationship continues today.
Advertising with Wayzata.com helps businesses reach an educated, engaged and influential audience of residents, homeowners, community leaders, visitors and people with a strong interest in Wayzata and Lake Minnetonka.
Advertising also helps support the continued production of local reporting, photography, historical research and community storytelling.
Opportunities are available across Wayzata.com’s digital, print and community platforms.
For businesses that want to be part of the life of Wayzata, there is value in appearing alongside the stories Wayzata is already reading.
An Invitation
Wayzata.com is for the people who live here, the people who grew up here, the people who work here, and the many people who simply love Wayzata and Lake Minnetonka.
Read the latest stories.
Explore the archives.
Subscribe to our updates.
Send us a photograph.
Tell us about someone whose story deserves to be told.
Write about the neighborhood you know better than anyone else.
Share a piece of Wayzata history that has been sitting in a family album for generations.
Become a contributor.
Because the story of a community should never belong to only one writer or one generation.
It belongs to the people who lived it.
Our job is to help preserve it.
Wayzata.com
Local news. Local history. The continuing story of Wayzata.
