The territorial legislature incorporates the St. Peter Company, which is authorized to engage in milling and waterpower work and to develop real estate. The company's stockholders hope to move the state capital to St. Peter, but their efforts are thwarted by Joseph Rolette (see February 27). James J. Hill purchased the company's charter in 1901, hoping that its real estate powers would prove useful to the Great Northern Railway.

The first state capitol building burns. Three hundred people escape safely, but the building, including the law library, is a total loss. Luckily, most of the Minnesota Historical Society's artifacts are rescued from the basement.

Patrick Des Jarlait is born on the Red Lake Reservation. As an artist, he painted colorful, stylized images of traditional Ojibwe life.

The Upper Louisiana Territory, including present-day Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, is formally transferred from France to the United States in a ceremony in St. Louis.

Mickey's Diner in St. Paul, built in 1939, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Mississippi, Pillager, and Lake Winnibigoshish bands of Ojibwe sign a treaty with the US government that consolidates and expands the Cass Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Leech Lake Reservations into the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in north-central Minnesota. The treaty, which would be renegotiated in 1864, requires numerous Ojibwe living elsewhere in the state to move to Leech Lake.

Rutherford B. Hayes, between terms as governor of Ohio, spends the morning in St. Paul visiting the state capitol and "other places of note in the city." He served as US president from 1877 to 1881.

Kanabec County is formed out of Pine County. Kanabec is an approximation of ginebig, the Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) word for "snake." The Snake River (Ginebig Ziibi) flows through Kanabec County.

William Dunwoody is born in Pennsylvania. After moving to Minneapolis in 1869, he would find his fortune in the grain and flour business. By the time of his death in 1914, he would contribute millions of dollars to a number of civic organizations, including the Dunwoody Industrial Institute, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, and the YMCA.

The last guest checks out of Stillwater's historic Sawyer House, which had operated as a hotel for sixty-seven years. The Lowell Inn was later built on the same site.

The Arrowhead Bridge across the St. Louis River opens, linking West Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin.

The Minnesota State Legislature passes a law requiring that diesel fuel sold in Minnesota must contain at least 2 percent bio-diesel from animal or vegetable fats. The law also projects future increases in this percentage, up to 20 percent.