The movie Mallrats opens. Filmed at the Eden Prairie mall and directed by independent film sensation Kevin Smith, the movie flops in theaters but develops a cult following.

The brothel of St. Paul's most famous madam, Nina Clifford, is demolished after fifty years of business at 147 Washington Street.

Clyde Elmer Anderson is born in Brainerd. A champion of social and humanitarian causes, he would serve a record eleven years as the state's lieutenant governor beginning in 1939 and then as the state's twenty-eighth governor from 1951 to 1955. He died in 1998.

The St. Paul Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor (later the Society for the Relief of the Poor) is organized to give aid to people who need food, fuel, and work. Early officers include Henry M. Rice, Alexander Ramsey, Henry H. Sibley, and William R. Marshall.

James Griffin becomes the first African American deputy chief of police in St. Paul.

International passenger ship traffic returns to Minnesota when the Columbus, carrying a load of German passengers, visits the Duluth-Superior harbor.

Rosalie Wahl is the first female justice appointed to the state supreme court.

Horsecars begin hauling passengers in St. Cloud.

St. Paul hosts the state's first St. Patrick's Day parade. Although Irish immigration to St. Paul did not peak until 1890, many Irish had already settled in town, working both as household servants and as laborers on the docks of the Upper Landing.

Forest fires destroy Baudette and Spooner, killing twenty-nine people and burning over 220,000 acres of land. During this dry year, over 900 fires had burned in twenty-nine counties, causing forty-two deaths. Graceton, Pitt, Cedar Spur, and Williams also burned.