Captain Billy's Whiz Bang was one of the most popular and notorious humor magazines of the 1920s. It was created by Wilford Hamilton Fawcett, who had been a captain in the U.S. Army during World War I and gained the nickname Captain Billy. Fawcett would later tell reporters that he had started his magazine to give the doughboys—as World War I servicemen were popularly called—something to laugh about.

Frank Higgins, the original lumberjack sky pilot, ministered to the souls of lumberjacks across northern Minnesota and the United States. For decades he traveled among the frozen logging camps of Minnesota with his trademark pack of Bibles, hymnals, and Christian literature strapped to his back.

Crown College, like other biblical colleges in Minnesota, seeks to provide a Bible-based education for Christian leadership. Teaching is focused on training lay people for Christian service. Crown is one of only four colleges in the United States affiliated with the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination.

Working as a lumberjack in northern Minnesota was a difficult job with poor living conditions. Many loggers blew off steam by drinking, gambling, or visiting brothels. "Sky pilots," or visiting ministers, tried to save the men's souls and put them on the road to holiness rather than vice.

When the farmers of Traverse County founded Minnesota's first Farm Bureau, it signaled a new movement in Minnesota agriculture. In the century since its creation, the Farm Bureau has worked on the local, state, and national levels to support farmers and act as the "voice of agriculture" in America.

One of the most colorful characters on the scene in early twentieth century Minnesota was Wilford Hamilton "Captain Billy" Fawcett. He was editor and publisher of a bawdy men's humor magazine called Captain Billy's Whiz Bang. He was also a veteran of two wars, an Olympic athlete, a world traveler, a big-game hunter, and a resort owner.

Emile Julien Amblard, known as the "Duke of Clearwater Lake," became one of Coney Island's leading residents. He bought his first piece of land there in 1893. The western edge of the island and a building in Waconia would become his passion for the next twenty-one years.

Buildings along the main streets of Minnesota's earliest communities were particularly vulnerable to fire. Even small blazes could grow quickly and incinerate wood-frame structures in densely packed business districts. The 1880s fires in Cannon Falls serve as an example.

The Minnesota State Fair is a yearly celebration of agriculture, crafts, food, and community. In the twenty-first century, nearly 1.8 million people attend the twelve-day event every year, making it the second-largest state fair in the nation. The gathering is a Minnesota tradition that has more than earned its nickname, "The Great Minnesota Get-Together."

Early generations of Minnesotans lived with the ever-present danger of fire. Many city histories tell of blazes that destroyed whole sections of their communities, but in most cases arson was not the cause. The Red Wing Mills complex, however, was almost certainly burned deliberately by an unknown arsonist.