The Minneapolis Public Library opens, with Herbert Putnam as librarian. Under an agreement with the Minneapolis Athenaeum, the public library board provides a building and staff to lend the Athenaeum's books, thereby making them available to the citizens of Minneapolis.

Horace W. S. Cleveland is born in Lancaster, Massachusetts. A visionary landscape architect, he designed parks and boulevards in the Twin Cities, including Como Park, St. Anthony Park, Minnehaha Park, Summit Avenue, and the drives along the Mississippi River.

A mob attacks the Brainerd jail, where two Ojibwe brothers, Te-be-ke-ke-sheck-wabe and Go-go-once, are being held for allegedly murdering a woman. The men are taken to a nearby pine tree and hanged in front of a crowd of 1,000. After the lynching, a rumor spread among Brainerd's residents that angry Ojibwe were planning to attack the town. Sheriff John Gurrell telegraphed Governor Horace Austin for help. Three companies of troops were sent out, arriving on July 25.

Army Lieutenant Albert Lea, commanding a group of US Dragoons, arrives at the future site of his namesake city.

The steamboat Yankee proves that the Minnesota River is navigable by traveling for 300 miles upstream from Fort Snelling.

J. Paul Getty is born in Minneapolis. An entrepreneur, he would become a billionaire in the oil business, and he would bequeath much of his fortune to the Getty Trust, a philanthropic organization that supports the visual arts.

Four Minnesota regiments help defeat the Confederate army of General John Bell Hood outside Nashville, Tennessee. Over the course of this two-day battle, the Minnesota losses—302 killed, wounded, or missing—are the greatest the state suffers in any Civil War engagement.

A lyceum is organized in St. Paul. Lyceums were cultural centers that sponsored lectures, classes, and other activities.

Richard W. Sears is born in Stewartville, Minnesota. While a railroad freight agent in Redwood Falls, he bought an unclaimed shipment of watches and sold them through the mail at bargain prices. From this mail-order idea developed the A. C. Roebuck and Company, housed on the seventh floor of the Globe Building in Minneapolis. Renamed Sears, Roebuck and Co., the business was eventually headquartered in Chicago.

A runaway wagon strikes a streetcar traveling down Walnut Street on St. Paul's Ramsey Hill, causing the streetcar to lose control and rocket to the bottom of the hill. Surprisingly, given the hill's steep incline, there are no injuries.