Ruth Boynton was a physician, researcher, and administrator who spent almost her entire career at the University of Minnesota (U of M). She worked in public health and student health services at a time (the mid-twentieth century) when there were few women in either of those fields. She was director of the University Student Health Service from 1936 to 1961, and the facility was renamed Boynton Health Service in her honor in 1975.

General Lauris Norstad helped engineer World War II victories for American air forces in Africa, Europe and Asia from 1942 to 1945. As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from 1956 to 1963, he faced an even more dangerous challenge—the very real threat of nuclear holocaust.

Charles Joseph Biederman of Red Wing, an influential and non-conformist American Modernist painter, sculptor and art theorist, made a lasting mark in American and international art circles.

One of the first female professors in the United States, Maria Sanford was an English professor at the University of Minnesota for nearly thirty years. Her exceptional teaching, notable public lectures, and active community leadership led many to call her "the best-loved woman in Minnesota."

By the 1970s, Red Wing's famed Main Street scarcely resembled its 1870s glory days. But Red Wing was revitalized in the following decades by the vision and initiative of the Red Wing Shoe Company's William D. Sweasy.

Minnesota State Senator Anton J. Rockne took pride in the nickname "Watchdog of the State Treasury." Yet as America's Great Depression deepened in 1932, he fought against programs for the poor and his opponents branded him "Commander-in-Chief of the Hunger Brigade."

Samuel Bloomer served in Company B of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. He was the regiment's color sergeant, and after the war was deeply involved in civic life and the Grand Army of the Republic.

Eugenie Moore Anderson emerged as a trailblazer for American women in international diplomacy during the post-World War II era. In 1949 she became the first American woman to hold the rank of ambassador.

Adam Marty was a member of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war he became Commander of the Minnesota Department of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR).

The fate of the Union army hung in the balance on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. Confederate soldiers punched a hole in its defenses and only the men of the First Minnesota Infantry, led by Colonel William Colvill, stood in their way.