If you’ve been to Hidden Beach (officially Cedar Lake East Beach) this year, perhaps you’ve noticed that a formerly constant presence has been missing.
Steve Vasseur, also known as the Mud Man, is in hospice.
In May 2026, the Hill & Lake Press interviewed Steve and others about his legacy at the beach.
What emerges is an ode to playfulness, to community as family and to the beach as a place to come together.
Steve, who has always experienced the world in his own singular way and keeps his personal life private, gave consent for the material in this article.
Steve was born Stephen Olson in 1953. He went into foster care at age 4 after a visit from Child Protective Services. After that, he did not see much of his three sisters.
He stayed with the Vasseur family and, at age 18, was adopted by the family and graduated from Marshall-University High School in Dinkytown.
He then attended Minnesota City College, now Minneapolis College, where he studied business administration, and has held jobs such as rink announcer for hockey games at the Victory Memorial Ice Arena in North Minneapolis.
His Catholic faith and community at St. Lawrence Newman Center, also in Dinkytown, have been a cornerstone in his life.
Steve started coming to Hidden Beach in 1978, when he found the place “more or less by accident” on a hot day.
Back then, it looked and felt very different from today. Layers of buckthorn and mulberry hid the lake, and only a small footpath led in from Upton Avenue. It was secluded and edgy — and at times a hotspot for crime.
With the support of Kenwood neighbors, the beach got a new design — buckthorn removal increased visibility. Park police presence increased (a City Pages article from 2008 documents the polarized reactions to these changes).
More recently, the neighborhood organization has sponsored events such as yoga, acoustic music, and special events and festivals. But regardless of the look, the mud pit, and Steve, remained constant presences.
Steve has been the Mud Man since 1994, when the original Mud Man, Andrew Foss, “asked [him] to take things over.” Steve says Foss “got the mud pit going in the 1980s,” and over the years, the two formed a friendship. Foss died in 2009 but was still active picking up trash in Kenwood into at least 2000.
The Figures Behind the Mud
Steve has been proud to have the title of Mud Man. His self-appointed duties were cleaning the mud, making sure it was free of debris and twigs; attracting people to the mud pit; making sure folks felt safe and welcome once there; counting the visitors; and of course, compiling the Annual Reports, which highlighted how seriously he took his accountant training and his love of numbers.
The Annual Report (image on page 19) consisted of five sections (all quotes are Steve’s): (1) information about the season, including its length; (2) the overall attendance of the mud pit; (3) a more detailed “attendance analysis,” including categories like “Largest ‘Momentary Load’ (customers ‘served’ at one time)” — in 2024, this was 15, which occurred on the afternoon of Sept. 2; (4) “Special Orders,” which included categories such as “medical cases” (“for treatment of sunburns or other ‘skin disorders’”) and press coverage; and (5) a yearly attendance summary starting in 1994.
Steve also compiled general information for mud pit visitors. Thanks to his fastidious record-keeping, we know about the type of soil in the mud pit (80% “White Clay,” 20% “Black Humus”).
He documented the species of animals in the mud pit, the physical and psychological benefits of mud use — one such example reads “Primitive Playtime for adults with ‘High-Tech Overdose’” — and other categories.
When Tim McManus, a retired math teacher who befriended and appreciated Steve, saw Steve’s Annual Reports, he realized that it was great data. His students used regression models to predict how many visitors there would be to the mud pit based on the weather. “I think Steve got a kick out of that,” Tim chuckled.
At Steve’s bedside, most mementos were from neighbors who knew him from the beach. A poster with Steve’s famous quotes (“Good afternoon!” and “The mud is ready!”) hung next to his bed.
Jars of mud from the pit were on his dresser, and books about World War II history, one of his favorite topics outside the mud pit (in addition to trains), were given to him by Tim and his partner Sally Dargis, neighbors who befriended and appreciated Steve.
A Rainbow After the Storm
On Aug. 11, 2023, Minneapolis suffered a massive hailstorm. Tim and Sally saw Steve running away from the beach and invited him into their home for safety.
Sally stayed with Steve, watching the storm, while Tim went to open the garage for other beachgoers to take shelter. The hail was so big that the house windows started to break. “I think we’d better get to the middle of the house,” Steve said, his eyes huge.
The journey to the beach for Steve was quite the effort. At the end of the 2023 season, Steve was presented with an award from the Kenwood Neighborhood Organization for his 30 years of service, filmed by local volunteers.
In his acceptance speech, he said, “I live over in Northeast Minneapolis. The closest walk in for me is from Hennepin and Franklin, but hopefully that will be fixed up when they finally get the [Green Line] light rail going. That would bring me right to the 21st Street Station.”
Sadly, it appears the Green Line extension will not be completed in Steve’s lifetime.
From Hennepin and Franklin, Steve would wheel a large backpack with him every day. It held his wetsuit, flippers, sunscreen, beverages, a towel, a clicker counter, a spade and hand saw (for mud pit maintenance), and sometimes the day’s food.
Other times, however, beachgoers would give him food from their barbecues. Sometimes, neighbors would bring him a snack or bag lunch.
He wasn’t at the beach for just an hour or two — for his counts to be valid, he needed to stay the whole day. During the season, Steve would go every day to the beach, “weather and schedule permitting.”
(Image: Steve’s 2014 Annual Mud Pit Report)
Community Gratitude
Will Stensrud, who runs beach activities for the neighborhood organization and helped give Steve his award in 2023, has known Steve for years.
He noted, “In the last few years, Steve took up snorkeling in the lake and would need someone to zip up his wetsuit. You would know he trusted you if he turned around in front of you, silently, and waited for you to zip it up.”
A visit to Steve’s neighborhood in Northeast confirms Steve’s playfulness and love of trains.
“He loved Halloween and walking to watch the trains,” Troy Sullivan, Steve’s neighbor, commented. Asked what Steve enjoys about Halloween, Sullivan replied, “He loved giving out candy to kids.”
On a calm visit to the beach one evening in June, the Hill & Lake Press interviewed beachgoers about Steve. “He would always wear the same outfit,” said Chris Hughes of Lowry Hill. “You’d always hear him say, ‘The mud is ready!’ or some other fun line.”
Anthony Art used to live in Uptown and would frequently go to Hidden Beach. “Living in Plymouth, I come here less now, but I still love it,” he remarked. “The mud pit was such a happening spot for so many years thanks to Steve. I’ve really appreciated how much his childlike spirit would incentivize kids and adults alike to go get in the mud. There’s a whole generation of kids that learned that getting dirty was okay thanks to him.”
“I think Steve is probably disappointed that he doesn’t have a successor,” Tim remarked. If any Hill & Lake Press readers are interested in the position of Mud Man, it is open. The pay isn’t great, but the memories will last forever. And the commute should get better soon.
The author would like to thank Sally Dargis, Tim McManus and Will Stensrud for their help on this article.
Paula Chesley writes for the Hill & Lake Press. She lives in East Isles.
