The only Socialist mayor of Minneapolis (1917–1919), Thomas Van Lear was a machinist and influential union leader. Socialist opposition to World War I proved a major factor in his failure to win reelection in 1918, after which he retired from politics. A talented writer and orator, he later helped found and lead the short-lived Minneapolis Daily Star.

Norwegian immigrant musician F. Melius Christiansen founded the St. Olaf College Choir in 1911. Through his career as a conductor, composer, and arranger, he established the preeminent Lutheran a capella (unaccompanied) choral tradition in America.

Jeffers Petroglyphs is an internationally significant Native American sacred site and the location of the largest group of Indigenous petroglyphs (rock carvings) in the Midwestern United States. Situated in Dakota homeland, it is sacred to multiple Native American nations, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Iowa, and Ojibwe.

Residents of Windom, a community in southwestern Minnesota with approximately 3,000 citizens, created a musical concert series in 1948. The series’ governing body, the Windom Concert Association, became one of the longest continually operating Minnesota organizations of its kind.

Talcot Lake County Park, a forty-acre piece of land situated in Cottonwood County on Highway 62 between Windom and Fulda, offers visitors a place to appreciate the wildlife and natural beauty of Southbrook, the county’s southwestern-most township.

In 1957, a group of German clubs based in the Twin Cities came together to form the Volksfest Association, which represented German Minnesotans at that year’s centennial statehood celebration. After the centennial, eager to obtain an official building, it raised money through selling bonds and organizing fundraising events. In 1965, it purchased a home on Summit Avenue for $57,500 and refurbished the interior to accommodate large social gatherings.

Joseph Linwood Laughy was born in 1897 and moved to Baudette, Minnesota, in 1915. In April 1918, four days after the United States entered World War I, Linwood signed up for the Navy. After serving only five months, he was killed in an accident, making him the first victim of the war from the Baudette area.