Dakota leaders sign a treaty in Washington, DC, selling their lands east of the Mississippi River for about $500,000 in cash and goods. This treaty, along with the Ojibwe treaty of the same year, opens eastern Minnesota to settler colonists. Representatives for the United States are Joel R.

James Jenkins and his son Steven Jenkins (later Steven Jenkins Anderson) lure Ruthton bankers Rudy Blythe and Toby Thulin to their ten-acre Pipestone County dairy farm, which had been repossessed by Blythe's bank, and kill them both. The murders spur a nationwide manhunt, ending with Steven Jenkins's surrender and James Jenkins's suicide in northern Texas. Steven Jenkins, barely eighteen years old at the time, professes his innocence but is convicted of the murders. Seventeen years later he admitted in an interview that he had killed the bankers.

For its first meeting, the territory's legislative assembly convenes in the Central House, located at Minnesota and Bench Streets in St. Paul. The Reverend Edward D. Neill gives the invocation, and the council meets in the parlor while the house sits in the dining room.

A celebration in St. Paul marks the impending completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad from St. Paul to the Pacific coast. The road is actually completed on September 8. Guests include railroad president Henry Villard, President Chester A. Arthur, Ulysses S. Grant, and General Phil Sheridan.

Captain Seth Eastman begins the first of his four commands at Fort Snelling, this one lasting until October 26. An artist and former instructor of drawing at West Point, Eastman would record in his paintings images of the fort, traditional Dakota ways, and frontier life.

The Czecho-Slovanic Benefit Society, known as CSPS, a free-thought fraternal organization, is formed in St. Paul.

The Oliver Iron Mining Company is organized to work the Iron Range. It would eventually own nearly all of the mines in the range.

The Minnesota Twins play their final game at Metropolitan Stadium.

An assassin attempts to murder the Lakota leader Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake) at the Grand Opera House in St. Paul. Sitting Bull is there as part of a program, where, incidentally, he meets Annie Oakley.

Duluth's Incline Railway makes its final trip. Built in 1891 for $400,000, it had carried passengers up Seventh Avenue from Superior to Ninth Street, a distance of 2,749 feet.

Composer Antonín Dvořák visits Minnehaha Falls and performs for the Czecho-Slovanic Benefit Society (at CSPS Hall) in St. Paul. Inspired by his view of the falls, Dvořák later bases a composition on his "Minnehaha theme": the Sonatina for violin and piano.

The Minnesota Chapter of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union is formed. Temperance unions were dedicated to ending drunkenness.