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MNopedia

A resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events, and things in Minnesota history.

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Children’s Preventorium of Ramsey County

The only institution of its kind to operate in Minnesota

Highway 61 in Minnesota

A vital transportation channel along the state’s eastern corridor

Swift and Company ICE raids, 2006

The federal immigration raid that reached into southern Minnesota

Jun Fujita Cabin, Rainy Lake

A St. Louis County hideaway built by a famous photographer

White Earth Land Recovery Project

A project based in the White Earth Reservation of Ojibwe

Minnesota Human Rights Act

The state's first major human-rights law

Toastmaster (bread toaster)

The world's first automatic pop-up toaster, designed in Stillwater in 1919

St. Peter State Hospital

Minnesota's first hospital for people with mental illness

Spotlight On LGBTQIA History

Rochester Pride
Over the Rainbow: Queer and Trans History in Minnesota
Intersection of Sixth and Minnesota Streets, St. Paul
Arrest of Cecelia Regina Gonzaga, 1885
Black and white photograph of Jack Baker and James Michael McConnell applying for a marriage license in Minneapolis, 1970.
Baker v. Nelson
Bisexual pride flag
Bisexual Organizing Project
Flora Dora Girls
Drag Performance in Minnesota, 1880–1950
Edna Larrabee and Beulah Brunelle
Escape from Shakopee State Reformatory for Women, 1949
 ACT UP handbill
HIV/AIDS Crisis, 1981‒1997
Minnesota AIDS Project Pledgewalk
Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP)
Color image of Minnesota Representative Terry Morrow (DFL) speaking on the House floor against SF 1308, 2011.
Minnesota Amendment 1
Governor Harold Levander signs the Minnesota State Act Against Discrimination
Minnesota Human Rights Act
Images from a poster used by Minnesota Men of Color, ca. 2000. The organization’s founders, Nick Metcalf and Edd Lee, are pictured at the top right and bottom left. Photographs by Chuck Smith.
Minnesota Men of Color
Photograph of Ozaawindib Lake
Ozaawindib (late 1700s‒?)
Stephen Kulieke (center bottom) with Cuban refugees
Positively Gay Cuban Refugee Task Force
Black and white photograph of Allan Spear, 1997. Photographed by Minnesota Senate photographer.
Spear, Allan Henry (1937–2008)
Lenette and Lauraine Lee
Transsexual Research Project
Black and white photograph of Joseph Israel Lobdell, also called Lucy Ann and La-Roi Lobell, ca. 1854.
Trial of Joseph Israel / Lucy Ann Lobdell
See all spotlights


June 6

1736

Twenty-one French soldiers and voyageurs are killed in a fight with an allied group of Dakota, Ojibwe, and Teton Lakota on an island in the Lake of the Woods. The men were part of a post set up by Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye.

1849

Major Samuel Woods leads a group of cavalry from Fort Snelling to map the Red River valley and select a site for a new fort. Captain John Pope drew the map. Pope would later lead the Union Army to defeat at Second Manassas in the Civil War, after which he would return to Minnesota to oversee federal forces during the US-Dakota War of 1862.

1877

The Minneapolis Base Ball Association is organized, and two days later the team plays Fairbanks of Chicago, winning 4-3.

1889

The University of Minnesota Law School graduates its first class, a total of three men. The following year's graduates number forty-five.

1910

Paper milling in International Falls begins as eighteen tons of newsprint are manufactured. Paper production remains a major business of the city today.

1945

In a horrifying multiple-murder, Robert Doan of Mahtowa clubs to death his wife and three of his four children. He also sets fire to the house, killing the remaining child. Doan had "lost his temper" after being fired from his job as a bulldozer operator at the Duluth Williamson-Johnson Municipal Airport and then getting into an argument with his wife. His first trial closes with a 9-3 deadlock because, according to the defense, Doan had signed a confession under extreme duress and he later denied the murders during the trial. At a second trial Doan is sentenced to life imprisonment for second-degree murder.

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From The Minnesota Book of Days (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

Recently Added Articles

William Little Wolf, ca. 1917
Little Wolf, William (1899–1953)

William Little Wolf left his home on Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation as a child to attend a series of boarding schools. In 1917, he ran away from Carlisle Indian Industrial School in order to join the Navy and fight for the United States in World War I. He earned praise for his service as a gunner on the USS Utah and returned in 1919 to live out the rest of his life in Minnesota.

Burnquist campaign poster, 1918
Republican Primary Election, 1918

The Nonpartisan League nominated Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. as its candidate to challenge Governor Joseph A. A. Burnquist in the June 1918 Republican primary. Although Burnquist prevailed and went on to win the general election in November, the bitter, often violent campaign transformed Minnesota politics.

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