Until 1897, Minnesota’s governors enjoyed unrestricted power to pardon, or commute the sentence of, anyone convicted of a crime in state courts. The first such pardon was given in 1854, the last in November 1896. In that span fourteen governors, from Willis Gorman to David M. Clough, issued more than 1400 acts of clemency (the blanket term for pardons and commutations). They covered crimes ranging from petty theft to murder, and canceled (or reduced) penalties as minor as a one-dollar fine, and as dire as death by hanging.

Frontenac State Park stretches over 2,600 acres along the widening of the Mississippi River known as Lake Pepin. The park is located in Goodhue County on the Mississippi Flyway, one of four major migratory bird routes in North America. With more than 260 bird species recorded within its boundaries, the park is a prime destination for Minnesota birders.

The battle flag of the Twenty-eighth Virginia Infantry Regiment was captured by the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment in the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. The storied Confederate banner has remained in St. Paul continuously since 1886, despite numerous requests to return it to its state of origin.

Christopher Columbus (C. C.) Andrews was a Minnesota lawyer and publisher known for his military service in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas during the Civil War. After working as an international diplomat in the 1870s and 80s, he embarked on a second career as a pioneer of scientific forestry and Minnesota's first chief fire warden. His work led to the creation of the two national forests in Minnesota and a state forest named in his honor.

A migratory diver of the loon family, the common loon (Gavia immer) has been important to people living in the Great Lakes region for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Its striking calls and black-and-white summer plumage have made it an emblem of Minnesota, where more of the birds live than in any other state except Alaska. The loon became Minnesota’s state bird in 1961.

Pilgrim Baptist Church in St. Paul was the first African American Baptist church established in Minnesota. The congregation was founded during the Civil War, in 1863, by enslaved people who had escaped from Missouri, including pastor Robert Thomas Hickman. The church’s third building (732 West Central Ave.) was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Lac qui Parle Mission in Chippewa County was the leading station of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’ work among Dakota people between 1835 and 1854. Though missionaries cited it as the most successful project of its kind among the Dakota, the mission failed in its objective to replace Dakota culture with European American lifeways. Throughout its existence Lac qui Parle was a multicultural community, where Dakota people and European Americans cooperated with each other but experienced deep divides.

The Vermilion Range, with its distinctive hard and high-grade iron ore deposits, looms large in the history of the mining industry in Minnesota. It was the first range to open (1884) and also the first to cease commercial mining operations (1967) due to changes in the steel-making process and the rise of cheaper-to-produce taconite on the nearby Mesabi Range. After mining ended, the area’s protected wilderness spaces—including the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness—took center stage in a new regional economy based on tourism and conservation.

The original Great Seal of Minnesota was created by men who tied their fortunes to the progress (as they defined it) and settlement of the state, often at the expense of Native Americans. Starting in the late 1960s, critics of the seal argued that its imagery reflected an anti-Native American bias. In 2023, a State Emblems Redesign Commission chose a new design for the seal intended to better represent twenty-first-century Minnesota.

In the 1860s, Minnesota experienced rapid population growth due to immigration. To serve the needs of these new citizens, the state legislature passed an act for the establishment of an asylum for the “insane” in St. Peter in 1866. As it filled to capacity and then expanded, it became the primary site for housing mentally ill people considered dangerous or sexually aggressive.