Founded in 1994, the Minneapolis-based Confederation of Somali Community in Minnesota (CSCM) is one of the oldest Somali-operated nonprofit organizations in the state. For more than two decades, it has provided job and education services as well as health care and legal assistance to members of the community who face language and cultural barriers.

Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, migrant workers, mainly from Mexico, have played a vital role in Minnesota’s economy, often working in low-wage farming and food-processing industries.

Ojibwe oral tradition identifies Little Round Hill, a small elevation on the banks of the Crow Wing River, as the location of a late-1700s French fur trading fort and a skirmish between Ojibwe hunter-traders and Dakota warriors. Located in Old Wadena County Park at the confluence of the Partridge and Crow Wing Rivers, it was the site of the first intensive archaeological excavation within Wadena County.

Minneopa State Park, located in southern Minnesota, is Minnesota’s third-oldest state park. It was created in 1905 to preserve Minneopa Falls, a two-tiered waterfall once described as nature’s masterpiece. The park has since expanded to include Minnesota River frontage, the historic Seppman stone windmill, and a herd of American plains bison.

The Minneapolis flour-milling industry peaked during World War I when twenty-five flour mills employing 2,000 to 2,500 workers played a leading role in the campaign to win the war with food. Minneapolis-produced flour helped to feed America, more than four million of its service personnel, and its allies.

By the late 1890s, bonanza farming had stopped bringing good incomes to large landowners. Immigrants who arrived in northwestern Minnesota learned quickly that the Red River Valley soil was some of the richest in the state. An experiment station was started in 1895 that led to the founding of a boarding high school to train young people to work on farms as farmers and homemakers.

The first licensed female pilot in North Dakota and a pioneer of aviation, Florence “Tree Tops” Klingensmith made a name for herself in air racing circuits, winning several prizes and setting records. At a time when women were expected to stay at home, Klingensmith followed her own path.

The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company, better known as the Milwaukee Road, was a large railroad network that operated in the state of Minnesota for nearly 130 years. It provided freight and passenger service to many communities, playing a vital economic role. In 2017, much of the Minnesota route survives as a part of the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Oak savannas—open grassland studded by tall, spreading oak trees—once covered 10 percent of Minnesota, mostly in the southeast quarter of the state. They are an attractive ecosystem for animals such as deer, turkeys, and red-headed woodpeckers. Before European immigration, indigenous people valued the savannas for the good hunting they provided, fostering and maintaining them through the regular use of fire. In 2017, only about 1 percent of the savannas that existed 200 years ago remains.