Color postcard of the Dancing Pavilion at the Hotel Del Otero, c.1910.

Dancing Pavilion, Hotel del Otero, Spring Park, Lake Minnetonka

Color postcard of the Dancing Pavilion at the Hotel Del Otero, c.1910.

Lake Minnetonka Resort Hotels

From early inns and boarding houses to the magnificent three-hundred-room Hotel Lafayette, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, Lake Minnetonka was transformed into one of the resort capitals of America. In the 1870s and 1880s, tourists from across the nation came to stay at the resort hotels that prospered on the shores of one of Minnesota's most famous lakes.

Wilford "Captain Billy" Fawcett with a trapshooting shotgun. Fawcett captained the U.S. trapshooting team at the 1924 Olympics

Wilford "Captain Billy" Fawcett

Wilford "Captain Billy" Fawcett with a trapshooting shotgun. Fawcett captained the U.S. trapshooting team at the 1924 Olympics

Photograph of an exhibition golf match between Wilford "Captain Billy" Fawcett and American champion Walter Hagen at Breezy Point Resort, 1926.

Exhibition golf match at Breezy Point Resort

Photograph of an exhibition golf match between Wilford "Captain Billy" Fawcett and American champion Walter Hagen at Breezy Point Resort, 1926.

Spectacular Fair: The Minnesota State Fair

In this Collections Up Close video podcast, Minnesota Historical Society collections assistant Christopher Welter shares a few of the thousands of State Fair photographs in the MHS collection, with a special emphasis on the fair’s more spectacular offerings.

Ampers Podcast: MN90: My State Fair is Bigger than Your State Fair

Minnesota State Fair employee Brienna Schuette considers whether the Great Minnesota Get-Together can claim to be the biggest state fair in the United States.

Ticket allowing admittance to the Minnesota State Fair, 1895.

State Fair ticket book

Book of three complimentary tickets permitting Roger Sherman Mackintosh and a female guest to attend the 1895 Minnesota State Fair, held between September 9th and 15th. The book originally contained six tickets; tickets 1, 2, 3 and 5 have been removed.

Color photograph of a dress made out of butter cartons used at the Minnesota State Fair, 1965.

Dress made out of butter cartons used at the Minnesota State Fair

Dress made out of butter cartons used at the 1965 Minnesota State Fair to promote the American Dairy Association of Minnesota. The dress has a Bertha collar and center back zipper; hook-and-eye closure at the collar; and a matching lined cape-let with a center front opening and plain rounded neckline edged in rick rack. A band with hidden buttons and snaps holds the cape and neckline in place. The A-line skirt has a waistline band with two plastic buttons and buttonholes in front and an inverted front pleat edged in rick rack. Round-cornered squares have been cut out from one-pound butter cartons representing various Minnesota creameries and machine-stitched onto the cape and skirt in horizontal rows to a stiffened interfacing.

Black and white photograph of crowds at the Midway, Minnesota State Fair, 1963,

Midway, Minnesota State Fair

Crowds at the Midway, Minnesota State Fair, 1963.

Colored postcard depicting harness-racing at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand, c. 1910.

The races, Minnesota State Fair

Postcard depicting harness-racing at the Minnesota State Fair Grandstand, c.1910.

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