Albert Alonzo Ames, called “Doc,” was mayor of Minneapolis four times, between 1876 and 1903. Though he earned notoriety as "the shame of Minneapolis" for his involvement in extortion and fraud during his last term in office, Ames also won praise for his work as a doctor and an advocate for veterans.

Vincent Raymond (V. R.) Dunne dedicated his life to improving the plight of workers. A leader in the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike and convicted in the Smith Act Trial of 1941 for his involvement in the Socialist Workers Party, Dunne fought many battles in labor and politics.

Morton gneiss (pronounced “nice”), named for the town in Renville County where it has been quarried, is one of the oldest stones on the planet: about 3.5 billion years old. It is known for its beauty as an ornamental stone in buildings and monuments.

Introduced to the public in 1980, the Post-it Note has become one of the Minnesota-based 3M Company’s most successful products.

Frances Andrews worked as an advocate for social justice, education, and conservation in the early twentieth century. She called for preservation of the forests and lakes that became the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and experimented with land restoration in northwestern Wisconsin. Her legacy includes an endowment that continues to support social and environmental causes in the 2010s.

On October 30, 1991, no one in Minnesota foresaw a blizzard. Local meteorologists predicted a few inches of snow. The snow began to fall in the early to mid-afternoon of October 31—Halloween Day— and fell steadily for almost three days. When it stopped, snow measured over thirty inches in the eastern part of Minnesota, from Duluth to Dodge Center, breaking a record set in 1882.

In 1959, a new orchestra was formed in St. Paul in order to attract more people to downtown. The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra (SPCO) held their first concert on November 18, 1959, in the Central High School auditorium. Since their debut, the SPCO has won several awards and has become the only full-time chamber orchestra in the United States.

The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (DM&IR) was a small railroad that hauled iron ore and taconite from the mines of northern Minnesota’s Mesabi and Vermilion Iron Ranges to docks on Lake Superior at Duluth and Two Harbors. It operated in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

From ancient times to the present, a pipestone quarry in southwestern Minnesota has been a sacred gathering place for Native nations from all over North America. Modern highways following traditional migration routes used by indigenous people intersect at this venerated place, designated a national monument in 1937. Dakota people called it―and still call it―Inyan Sa K'api, [the place where] they dig the red stone.

From 1900–1915, the girls’ preparatory school Graham Hall catered to well-to-do Minneapolis families with an elite pre-college curriculum. The school also offered a general course of study and elementary education. Graham Hall was eventually reincorporated under a board of trustees as the Northrop Collegiate School, which, in turn, became a part of the Blake School.