The steamer Algoma wrecks on Isle Royale, killing nearly fifty passengers.

Horace Austin, sixth governor of Minnesota, dies in Minneapolis. He was born on October 15, 1831, in Canterbury, Connecticut. After serving as judge in Minnesota's sixth district, he won the governor's seat over Democrat George L. Otis in 1869. As governor, Austin established a state board of health, divided the state into three Congressional districts, and initiated a geological and natural history survey supervised by the state university.

The Grand Opera House in Minneapolis hosts the first American performance of the English translation of Donizetti's opera Anna Bolena.

The old Mendota bridge to Fort Snelling opens and is dedicated to the men of the 151st Field Artillery who had been killed in World War I.

Ilhan Omar is elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives. A Somali immigrant to Minnesota, she is the first Somali American and Muslim woman to serve in the state legislature. In 2018, she became the first Somali American elected to the United States Congress.

George A. Hormel launches his packinghouse in Austin, operating out of an old creamery.

Spanning a narrow stretch of the Mississippi River in Bemidji, the Nymore Bridge is a notable example of early-twentieth-century construction. Completed in 1917, it owes its success to innovative engineering, attractive design, and local funding. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Oak savannas—open grassland studded by tall, spreading oak trees—once covered 10 percent of Minnesota, mostly in the southeast quarter of the state. They are an attractive ecosystem for animals such as deer, turkeys, and red-headed woodpeckers. Before European immigration, indigenous people valued the savannas for the good hunting they provided, fostering and maintaining them through the regular use of fire. In 2017, only about 1 percent of the savannas that existed 200 years ago remains.

Ernest Oberholtzer first paddled the lakes of the Rainy Lake watershed in 1909. Starting in the 1920s, he lived on Rainy Lake’s Mallard Island and was a prominent conservationist. He led the campaign for legislation to protect the watershed, including parts of what would become Voyagerus National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The Augustana Synod of the Lutheran Church gives Eric Norelius permission to open an academy. First established in Red Wing, then moved to East Union, the college (which later became Gustavus Adolphus) was in St. Peter in 1876.

A forest fire begins on the railroad line between Duluth and Hibbing and burns for the next three days, reaching Duluth on the thirteenth. Thirty-eight communities, including the cities of Cloquet, Carlton, and Moose Lake, and the towns of Adolph, Brookston, Munger, Grand Lake, Pike Lake, and Twig, are burned and 435 people are killed. After the blaze, forest salvagers cut 1.6 million tons of lumber.

Governor Mark Dayton issues a proclamation declaring this date to be the first state-wide Indigenous Peoples' Day, celebrated in place of Columbus Day. Grand Rapids, Minneapolis, and Minnesota State University, Mankato, had adopted the holiday in 2014.