Caterer, inventor and philanthropist Oscar C. Howard developed Minnesota’s Meals-on-Wheels program
The trained chef moved from managing large industrial cafeterias to owning successful catering businesses.
MNopedia
In 1894, fire destroyed Hinckley, killing hundreds
A fire survivor described Hinckley as occupying “a hole cut in the brush lands and for miles in all directions young trees, huge stumps, and fallen logs covered the land.”
‘Leisure class’ theorist Thorstein Veblen got his academic start in Minnesota
Veblen’s highly acclaimed treatise The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions (1899) introduced the term “conspicuous consumption.”
A goodie idea: The history of Pearson’s Nut Goodie
The Nut Goodie’s annual revenues in the mid-1960s totaled nearly $3 million.
From trading to mines to resorts, the Gunflint Trail has long played a big role in northeastern Minnesota’s economy
An advertisement from 1938 describes the Gunflint Trail as “a wilderness drive unsurpassed for its wild and enchanting beauty” and boasts, “Now you enter the greatest canoe country in the world.”
Conservation concerns led to creation of Minnesota’s Nerstrand Big Woods State Park
Between 1934 and 1945, many local advocacy and state legislative efforts were introduced to preserve the Nerstrand Woods as the last sizable remnant of Minnesota’s “Big Woods.”
How 3M went from a failed mining operation on the North Shore to an international manufacturing powerhouse
3M’s developments had far-reaching impacts on various industries, including office supplies and entertainment.
In the 1970s, some Minnesota farmers were very upset about a plan to route power lines across their fields
Even after the towers for the power line were installed, they were targets for vandalism.
How barber S. Edward Hall became an important advocate for St. Paul’s black community
Hall used connections fostered in his barber shop to circulate job openings to blacks in the community.
Considered state of the art at its opening, the Anoka State Hospital eventually fell behind ideas about mental health care
The hospital was the first in Minnesota to be built according to the cottage plan to reduce the institutional feel for its chronic patients.
How Near North came to be one of Minneapolis’ largest black communities
By 1960, one third of Minneapolis’ African Americans lived in Near North.
The rise and fall of the Minnesota North Stars
The team’s twenty-nine-year residency in the state produced two trips to the Stanley Cup finals.
How Minnesota got to be a top turkey-producing state
In 1959, Minnesota received its first top ranking in turkey production in the U.S. with more than 13 million raised, a position it consistently holds. By 2016, annual production totaled 45 million birds raised by 450 growers on 600 farms.
The early-twentieth-century battle over the county seat of Red Lake County was surprisingly cutthroat
By the end, the Red Lake County courthouse would be burned to the ground.
Minnesota governors didn’t have an official residence until 1965
The Minnesota governor’s residence at 1006 Summit Avenue in St. Paul began as the home of the Horace Irvine family.
How turn-of-the-century lumber speculation destroyed the Bois Forte Ojibwe homeland
By the 1920s, dams and deforestation had so damaged the landscape that it could no longer support the tribe’s subsistence economy, and its members were forced onto their reservation at Nett Lake.
Barberry war: Why the USDA spent more than 50 years trying to eradicate this thorny bush in Minnesota
The common barberry is an introduced plant species that was once grown as a popular ornamental bush throughout the northern half of the US.
From the land of sky-blue waters, a history of Hamm’s beer
Hamm’s was brewed in Minnesota for well over a century.
Minnesota conservationist Ernest Oberholtzer worked to protect the Boundary Waters
In the summer of 1909, Oberholtzer had his so-called “3,000-mile summer.” His goal was to travel the major canoe routes of the Rainy Lake watershed.
In 1953, a major inter-state prostitution case centered on northeast Minneapolis’ John’s Bar
By mid-1956, John’s Bar had lost its license, and 110 men and women had been convicted of violating the Mann Act.
