Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe

Inyan Ceyaka Otunwe (Village at the Barrier of Stone), also called Little Rapids or simply Inyan Ceyaka, was a summer planting village of the Wahpeton Dakota. Located near present-day Jordan on the Minnesota River, the village was occupied by the Wahpeton during the early 1800s, and likely before. Burial mounds indicate that Paleo-Americans—possible ancestors of the Dakota—lived at the site as early as 100 CE.

Fort Snelling in the Civil and US–Dakota Wars, 1861–1866

During the Civil War era, Fort Snelling served as an induction and training center for nearly twenty-five thousand soldiers. Many of them fought in the Civil War. Around fourteen hundred of the troops raised at the fort served in the US–Dakota War of 1862. After that war, a concentration camp for Dakota non-combatants was established near the fort. Following the Civil War, the fort supported US military expeditions against Indigenous people and the garrisoning of western posts.

University District, Minneapolis

For much of the twentieth century, a section of Southeast Minneapolis was called the University District. By the 1980s, parts of the same area were known as Marcy-Holmes and Dinkytown. The emergence and disappearance of the District as a place name occurred as the neighborhood’s relationships with the rest of the city and the nearby university changed.

Kilmarnock Books

The Kilmarnock Bookstore in downtown St. Paul brought writers and artists together at the dawn of the Jazz Age and helped inspire some of the best work of their careers. Nearly a hundred years later, the Twin Cities are considered among the most literary cities in the United States.

Donaldson’s

Donaldson’s, also known as William Donaldson and Company and L. S. Donaldson’s, was a Minneapolis department store located on Nicollet Avenue and Sixth Street. Started by two immigrant brothers, the company grew to be one of the major retail chains in the Twin Cities, rivaling Dayton’s for much of the twentieth century.

Minnesota Machinery Museum

When Hanley Falls School closed in the late 1970s, a few local residents saw an opportunity. Committed to sharing the history of their community, they transformed the white, two-story building on the town square into the Minnesota Machinery Museum. Since 1980, the museum has collected vintage farm equipment and created exhibits celebrating the history and agricultural tradition of Yellow Medicine County.

Dayton’s

Dayton’s began as a single store at Seventh Street and Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis in 1902. When the last Dayton family member retired from leadership in 1983, the company had stores nationwide and profits of over $240 million. It became Target Corporation in 2000.

Fort Snelling in the Expansionist Era, 1819–1858

The U.S. Army built Fort Snelling between 1820 and 1825 to protect American interests in the fur trade. It tasked the fort’s troops with deterring advances by the British in Canada, enforcing boundaries between the region’s Native American nations, and preventing settler-colonists from intruding on Native American land. In these early years and until its temporary closure in 1858, Fort Snelling was a place where diverse people interacted and shaped the future state of Minnesota.

Watertown Bell Foundry

For thirty years, William Bleedorn was one of only a few cow bell manufacturers in the United States. Between 1863 and 1885, his foundry in Carver County produced thousands of bells that were used by farmers across the country.

West Side Flats, St. Paul

From the 1850s to the 1960s, St. Paul’s West Side Flats was a poor, immigrant neighborhood—frequently flooded but home to a diverse group of Irish, Jewish, and Mexican workers and their families. In the early 1960s all residents were moved out to make way for an industrial park.

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