Minnesotan Dr. Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa) was reservation doctor at Pine Ridge during the Wounded Knee massacre
Eastman later became a published author and popular lecturer.
MNopedia
Each week, MinnPost brings you a highlight of our state’s past from MNopedia, an encyclopedia of Minnesota history written by experts and produced by the Minnesota Historical Society.
This content is shared with MinnPost by MNopedia, the digital encyclopedia created by the Minnesota Historical Society and supported by the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
In operation for nearly 80 years, Stillwater prison’s twine factory produced over a billion pounds of cordage
The plan to manufacture binder twine within the prison arose from many factors: farmers’ demands for cheap twine, political pressure to make the prison profitable, and reformers’ desire to provide skills to incarcerated people.
The many failed businesses of early Minnesotan William Gates LeDuc
From a bookstore to a flour mill to railroads and more.
New Ulm, Minnesota was once known as the ‘Polka Capital of the Nation’
New Ulm is now home to the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame, which honors polka groups and dance orchestras from the state’s past as well as more contemporary musicians.
St. Paul’s Boyd Park commemorates a Black labor leader
Frank Boyd was a celebrated organizer in Minnesota for the country’s most influential African American labor union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, from 1926 to 1951.
Minnesota advocate Anna Arnold Hedgeman worked at the intersection of Black and women’s rights
Hedgeman was the only woman on the planning committee for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
In the 1940s, Edna Larrabee and Beulah Brunelle escaped from the Shakopee Reformatory for Women five times
Their fourth escape, in 1949, led to eight months of freedom and allowed the two women to live together as a couple while traveling around the United States.
167 years ago, the first rail link from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River was completed
To celebrate the feat, the Rock Island Railroad took a company of journalists and dignitaries on a rail and steamboat journey from the East Coast all the way to St. Paul.
St. Paul’s Harry Shepherd opened Minnesota’s first Black-owned photography studio
Shepherd was also a candidate for St. Paul alderman but did not win the endorsement of his local Republican organization, something he attributed partially to the color of his skin.
The Leech Lake and Mille Lacs reservations were created after the 1855 Treaty of Washington
Not all Ojibwe were happy with the treaty, which had been signed far away by a handful of leaders.
The fur trade in Minnesota shaped the region for two centuries
The North American fur trade knocked on the door of Mni Sota Makoce (Dakota homelands, present-day Minnesota) in 1679 when Sieur du Lhut (Daniel Greysolon), an emissary of the French government, visited the Dakota village at Bde Wakan (Mille Lacs) and watched the Ojibwe renew their alliance with their Dakota trading partners.
Minnesota ice … skates: St. Paul’s Strauss ice skates were world famous
The skates were popular with professional and amateur skaters in the United States and other countries because of their consistent high quality, which was achieved through a secret hardening process.
The history of Minneapolis’ Southside African American community
The Southside was a stable neighborhood of working and middle-class African Americans, many of whom owned their homes. Residents formed a tight-knit community with businesses, churches, and social clubs.
The history of Minnesota’s only women’s prison, in Shakopee
Nationwide, the reformatory movement was focused on “reforming” mostly white sex workers and other low-income women. Minnesota’s was considered among the best reformatories in its early years, and visitors came from around the world to see its design and programs.
The history of Minnesota’s Iron Man Memorial
The statue is widely recognized as a Minnesota roadside attraction and serves as an icon of the region, particularly in tourism promotion.
How the family of Pelagie Faribault came to own Pike Island near Fort Snelling
An 1820 treaty between the United States and the Dakota specifically set aside the 320-acres Wita Tanka, also called Pike Island, specifically for Pelagie Faribault.
The fight against a power line helped launch Alice Tripp’s brief political career
As proposed by two partnering utility companies, the CU Powerline would have stood 150 feet tall and cut across 8,000 acres of farmland in North Dakota and Minnesota. The plan sparked outrage in western Minnesota for its indifference toward small family farms.
Cecelia Regina Gonzaga’s brief time in Minnesota ended after she was arrested for impersonating a woman
Gonzaga strenuously defended herself, saying, “I have always earned an honest living, although I have not found life as bright as most people…I have always found it easier making a living doing women’s work than men’s.”
The Stillwater prison was Minnesota’s first
The newly completed stone prison received its first prisoners in 1854.
How Minnesota marketed itself to tourists in the century before World War II
Three key developments fueled the growth of Minnesota’s tourism industry in the early Twentieth Century: increased leisure time for the middle class, the automobile, and a Back to Nature Movement that encouraged city-dwellers to escape into wilderness settings.
