Nellie Francis pressed the limits of what an African American woman was permitted to achieve in early twentieth-century Minnesota. She was a churchwoman, clubwoman, suffragist, organizer, singer, civil rights worker, patriot, and wife to Minnesota’s first African American diplomat, William T. Francis.

Gouverneur Kemble Warren, topographer, Civil War veteran, and accomplished engineer, served his entire career with the U.S. Army. During his service, he mapped the tributaries of the Mississippi River and transcontinental railroad routes. As the first district engineer in St. Paul, he worked to preserve St. Anthony Falls and designed the nation’s first reservoir system. Glacial River Warren, which carved the Pleistocene channel now followed by the Minnesota River, is named for him.

Anna Sheerin Lowe became Murray County's first female sheriff (and the second female sheriff in the state of Minnesota) when the Murray County Commissioners appointed her to fill her husband’s unexpired term in 1923. Faced with the difficulty of enforcing Prohibition laws, Lowe fulfilled her duties as sheriff and won the respect and gratitude of the community for her three years of service.

During World War I, branches of the Red Cross, YMCA & YWCA, and Salvation Army from across the U.S. collaborated with the Army and Navy to provide aid to service members. The work of Minnesotan volunteers not only maintained morale at the front but also provided a bridge of support between those overseas and their loved ones back home.

In August 1900, rail service to the community of Currie began with the completion of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha branch line from Bingham Lake. A hand-operated turntable was built the following year, expanded in 1922, and used until the advent of diesel locomotives in the 1950s. In 1972, a local 4-H club restored the historic turntable and preserved Currie’s railroad heritage through the creation of the End-O-Line Railroad Park & Museum.

Insect pests have harmed harvests in Minnesota country since European immigrants first arrived in the area. Most local farmers, however, did not actively manage pests. Instead, they planned for the risk of losing some of their crop. It took both huge losses from the late 1800s grasshopper plagues and the industrialization of agriculture for Minnesota’s government to invest in pest management methods.

Built between 1996 and 2001, the Hopperstad Stave Church Replica in Moorhead, Minnesota, stands as a testament to Norwegian culture and heritage in the Midwest. It serves as an educational tool in the local community and is operated by Clay County’s Historical and Cultural Society.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser was a prominent, self-made lumber capitalist and millionaire in the Midwest during the Gilded Age. Nicknamed "the Lumber King" and "the Timber King" during a time when lumber ranked alongside iron and the railroads as a source of industry, Weyerhaeuser created a syndicate that controlled millions of acres of timberland. The syndicate also controlled sawmills, paper mills, and processing plants.