Theater Mu is Minnesota’s first professional Asian American theater company. Since its founding in 1992, it has impacted both local and national theater landscapes, helping to create a pan-Asian community of artists and presenting world-premiere productions that illuminate Asian American experiences.

Grand Portage (Gichi Onigamiing) is both a historic seasonal migration route and the traditional site of an Ojibwe summer village on the northwestern shore of Lake Superior. In the 1700s, after voyageurs began to use it to carry canoes from Lake Superior to the Pigeon River, it became one of the most profitable fur-trading sites in the region and a headquarters for the North West Fur Company.

The JEM, the only remaining movie theater in Fillmore County, first opened its doors at the end of 1935. Although the JEM has had many owners—it even operated for a short time as a bowling alley—for generations it has been a centerpiece of Harmony’s Main Avenue and a community gathering place for entertainment and cultural events.

For five decades, Bemidji’s public library operated in a one-story, brick-and-stone neo-classical structure designed by Haxby & Gillespie and built in 1909. It is a well-preserved example of the libraries throughout Minnesota—and the United States—that were financed by Andrew Carnegie.

The stretch of land between present-day St. Paul, Minnesota, and Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, served as a highway for Native and mixed-ancestry (metis) fur traders—especially those with French heritage or kinship ties—during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Building on Native trade networks, they created new communities, adapted to cultural change, and contributed to Minnesota’s recognition as a state in 1858.

The Ames-Florida-Stork House was completed in 1861 on the banks of the Crow River in Rockford, Minnesota, and was listed on the National Historic Register in 1979. In 1986 the house was sold to the City of Rockford, and the Rockford Area Historical Society was organized to manage the house as a museum. The historical society also runs historical programs, hosts on-site events, and preserves related archives.

Antoine Grignon was a French Indigenous interpreter and fur trader who lived and worked along the Mississippi River between Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and St. Paul, Minnesota. With Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Dakota, and French roots and a bilingual education, Antoine, like many mixed-race people, was frequently called upon to interpret or negotiate for the US government.

The Beltrami County Poor Farm provided shelter and care for elderly and disabled people from 1902 until 1935, when old-age assistance programs replaced the poor farm system.

Thomas D. Schall was twice a self-made man: first in rising from rural poverty to become a lawyer, second in recovering from an accidental blinding to serve twenty years in Congress.

From his teenage enlistment in the Minnesota National Guard through his retirement as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff forty-six years later, John W. Vessey Jr. served his country through several wars and many peacetime assignments. After retiring from the Army, he was appointed as envoy to Vietnam to resolve issues about missing American military personnel.