By the 1970s, Red Wing's famed Main Street scarcely resembled its 1870s glory days. But Red Wing was revitalized in the following decades by the vision and initiative of the Red Wing Shoe Company's William D. Sweasy.

Minnesota State Senator Anton J. Rockne took pride in the nickname "Watchdog of the State Treasury." Yet as America's Great Depression deepened in 1932, he fought against programs for the poor and his opponents branded him "Commander-in-Chief of the Hunger Brigade."

Samuel Bloomer served in Company B of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. He was the regiment's color sergeant, and after the war was deeply involved in civic life and the Grand Army of the Republic.

Eugenie Moore Anderson emerged as a trailblazer for American women in international diplomacy during the post-World War II era. In 1949 she became the first American woman to hold the rank of ambassador.

Adam Marty was a member of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war he became Commander of the Minnesota Department of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

The fate of the Union army hung in the balance on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Confederate soldiers punched a hole in its defenses and only the men of the First Minnesota Infantry, led by Colonel William Colvill, stood in their way.

After New York City schoolteacher Harriet Duncan came to Minnesota in 1868, she became an advocate for temperance and women's suffrage. She was president of the Minnesota Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for seventeen years and urged the WCTU to work on behalf of women's rights more broadly.

In December 1901, botanist Alexander Pierce Anderson created puffed rice while experimenting with starch crystals in his laboratory. Although he did not yet realize the significance of his discovery, Anderson's new breakfast food would make him a nationally known figure and the face of a Quaker Oats advertising campaign for almost a decade.

The US–Dakota War of 1862 was a turning point in Minnesota history. Joseph Godfrey, an enslaved man, joined the Dakota in their fight against white settler-colonists that summer and fall. He was one of only two African Americans to do so.

Fur trader and translator George Bonga was one of the first Black people born in what later became the state of Minnesota. His mother was Ojibwe, as were both of his wives. Through these relationships, Bonga was part of the mixed racial and cultural groups that connected trading companies and Native Americans. He frequently guided white travelers and traders through the region. Comfortable in many worlds, Bonga often worked as an advocate for the Ojibwe in their dealings with trading companies and the United States government.