The Agricultural Extension Service of the United States (AES) began as an educational component of land-grant universities. In Minnesota as in other states, the federally funded and organized services of AES provide practical agricultural training to people outside of a university setting.

Minnesota became a U.S. territory on March 3, 1849. After much debate, the new territorial government chose St. Paul as the permanent capital city. The first capitol building was completed in 1853 and served as the seat of Minnesota's territorial and early state government until it burned in 1881.

The Banfill–Locke House in Anoka County stands on the east bank of the Mississippi River, just outside of downtown Fridley. The property has been used as many things since its original construction in the 1840s, including a tavern, a dairy farm, a private home, and an art gallery. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Minnesota turkey industry began with small backyard flocks raised on family farms. The Minnesota Turkey Growers Association, the National Turkey Improvement Plan, and advances in disease prevention helped Minnesota rise to become the top turkey-producing state in the country.

Joseph Israel Lobdell, also known as La-Roi and Lucy Ann Lobdell, spent two years in Minnesota in the late 1850s. In 1858, a Meeker County attorney charged him with "impersonating a man," claiming that such an action was a crime. The judge trying the case disagreed, ruling that Lobdell (who had been assigned a female sex at birth) had committed no offense by dressing in men’s clothes.

In 1854, the United States took the mineral-rich lands of northeastern Minnesota Territory from the Ojibwe Nation after the signing of the Treaty of La Pointe. Four years later, it granted to the new state of Minnesota sections 16 and 36 of every one of its townships, either to be held in trust or leased to support state schools. Close to three million acres were dedicated to a public school trust fund, and the iron ore and forest lands of the Ojibwe generated over 85 percent of its value. In 2017, it is worth over a billion dollars.

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.

The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, or St. P & P, was one of Minnesota’s first major railroads. It was created in 1862 from the remnants of another bankrupt line and strengthened by valuable land grants. It survived financial hardships to become a cornerstone of the Great Northern Railway system, a legendary transcontinental route and an integral part of Minnesota railroad history.

The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is located in the northern third of Superior National Forest. It is the most heavily used wilderness in the country, with about 250,000 visitors annually.

Seth Eastman was a painter and soldier best known for his depictions of the everyday life of Dakota and Ojibwe people around Fort Snelling in the 1840s. He stands out among other nineteenth-century American artists—particularly those who also painted American Indian people—because of his commitment to realism. Unlike his peers, Eastman mostly avoided romanticizing the Native people with whom he lived.