1856: The territorial legislature incorporates the St. Peter Company, which is authorized to engage in milling and waterpower work and to develop real estate. The company’s stockholders hope to move the state capital to St. Peter, but their efforts are thwarted.

1856: Minneapolis is approved for a town government by the territorial legislature. It became a city 10 years later. The legislature also forms three counties: Lake County, named for Lake Superior; McLeod County, named for Martin McLeod, a fur trader and member of the territorial legislature; and Pine County, named for the extensive pine forests of the region or perhaps for the Pine River and Pine Lakes.

1881: The first state capitol building burns. A second capitol is built on the same site, a square block bounded by Wabasha, Cedar, Exchange, and Tenth Streets, but is later replaced by the structure designed by Cass Gilbert.

1899: The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, authored by Thorstein Veblen, is published. A graduate of Carleton College, Veblen earns recognition as a dynamic economist and social theorist, and his book remains influential in the twenty first century.

1994: “Runaway Train” by the Minneapolis group Soul Asylum wins a Grammy for best rock song.

1859: The Turnverein, a German organization that sponsored social, educational, and physical events, gives its first dramatic presentation in St. Anthony’s Turnverein Hall. Turner clubs provided a strong German presence throughout the country until World War I.

1949: Melrose native Captain James Gallagher of the U.S. Air Force completes the first nonstop flight around the world. With a crew of 13 he flew Lucky Lady II, a B-50 bomber assigned to the 43rd Bomb Group, refueling four times while in the air and completing the 23,452-mile trip in 94 hours and one minute.

1974: Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore, now the oldest of its kind in the United States, opens in South Minneapolis.

1849: Minnesota Territory is signed into existence by President James K. Polk. The territory has a population of about 10,000 Indians and 5,000 white settlers and includes present-day North and South Dakota east of the Missouri River. The U.S. Postal Service released a three-cent centennial stamp on this date in 1949.

1855: St. Louis County, the state’s largest (6,611 square miles), is established, named for the St. Louis River.

1990: A team led by Will Steger of Ely completes the 3,800-mile International Trans-Antarctica Expedition, the first dogsled traverse of the continent by its widest distance.

1892: In Tower, Father Joseph F. Buh publishes issue 11 of Amerikanski Slovenec (American Slovene), the first national newspaper for Slovenes in the United States. The paper had started in Chicago but had ceased publication after 10 issues. Buh, who served St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Tower and St. Anthony parish at Ely, supervised the paper’s publication until 1899.

1941: Elcor native Sam LoPresti, goaltender for the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, makes an astounding 80 saves in a game against the Boston Bruins. Despite this valiant effort, three pucks get by him, and Chicago loses 3-2.

1942: Tammy Faye LeValley (Bakker) is born in International Falls. With her husband, Jim Bakker, she helped found three of the largest Christian television networks in the world, including the Praise the Lord ministry. After Jim was jailed for fraud and conspiracy (a charge for which she escaped conviction), she divorced him and married Roe Messner.

1852: Farmers in Benton County form the state’s first county agricultural society. Oliver H. Kelley, who later founded the National Grange, is one of 10 charter members. County agricultural society members share information about stock, seeds, fruit, and farming practices.

1853: Seven counties are formed by Minnesota’s territorial legislature: Blue Earth, named for the Blue Earth River, along which blue clay was once found; Goodhue, named for newspaper editor James M. Goodhue; Le Sueur, for French explorer Pierre Charles Le Sueur; Nicollet, for French geographer Joseph N. Nicollet; Rice, for territorial delegate to Congress Henry M. Rice; Scott, for General Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War; and Sibley, for Henry H. Sibley, trader and politician.

1852: Hennepin County is formed, named for Louis Hennepin, the Franciscan missionary who saw and named the Falls of St. Anthony in 1680.

1857: The U.S. Supreme Court renders the Dred Scott decision, in which the justices declare that enslaved Missouri man Dred Scott, not being a citizen, has no right to bring suit. Scott had lived at Fort Snelling and in other “free” areas with his owner, Dr. John Emerson, and he claimed that residence in free states and territories made him a free man. While living at Fort Snelling from 1836 to 1838, Scott married Harriet Robinson, an enslaved woman owned by Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro.

1862: Henry B. Whipple, the Episcopal bishop of Minnesota, writes a letter to President Abraham Lincoln on behalf of the Dakota of the state, describing corruption among agents of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and asking for “justice for a wronged and neglected race.” The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 begins in Minnesota later this year.

2000: Duluth becomes the first city in the nation to ban the sale of mercury thermometers (to prevent the element from polluting the environment). Minnesota had prohibited use of mercury thermometers in hospitals in 1992.

1882: The Minnesota State Butter and Cheese Association is organized in Rochester. The group promotes dairy farming in the state and counts among its successes the “grand sweepstakes” award for the best butter at the 1885 World Industrial and Centennial Exposition in New Orleans.

1913: Early this morning, a plainclothes policeman is beaten and thrown out of a room at the St. Paul Hotel, where members of the state legislature and their friends are said to be playing cards. The officer returns with six more plainclothes men and “exciting scenes” follow, including the flight through a window into another room by a man who had hit the first policeman with his fist. Although at least one man is told to appear later in court, the entire matter is dropped while the legislators complain of a “frame-up” by the police to make trouble for members in disfavor with the city administration.

1892: A snowstorm covers Duluth on this day and the next. Many people must exit their houses through second-story windows.

1920: The U.S. Supreme Court settles a boundary squabble between Minnesota and Wisconsin over control of the Duluth harbor, finding in Minnesota’s favor.

1848: Schoolteacher Harriet E. Bishop forms Minnesota’s first temperance society. Temperance societies opposed drunkenness.

1874: Cook County is formed, commemorating Civil War hero Major Michael Cook from Faribault.

1804: The Upper Louisiana Territory, including present-day Minnesota west of the Mississippi River, is formally transferred from France to the United States in a ceremony in St. Louis.

1983: Mickey’s Diner in St. Paul, built in 1939, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and becomes a protected landmark.

1862: The troops of the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment occupy the town of Berryville, Virginia, where they find the print run of the local paper half completed. Members of the company print their own four-page edition, which contains humorous news about the army and the war. Copies of this paper are rare and valued Civil War memorabilia.

1863: The Mississippi, Pillager, and Lake Winnibigoshish bands of Ojibwe sign a treaty with the U.S. government that consolidates and expands the Cass Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Leech Lake Reservations into the Leech Lake Indian Reservation in north-central Minnesota. The treaty, which was renegotiated in 1864, requires numerous Ojibwe living elsewhere in the state to move to Leech Lake.

1872: Rutherford B. Hayes, between terms as governor of Ohio, spends the morning in St. Paul visiting the state capitol and “other places of note in the city.” He would serve as U.S. president from 1877 to 1881.

1877: Duluth, having suffered a loss of population, reverts from a city back into a town.

1858: Kanabec County is formed out of Pine County. Kanabec is an Ojibwe word for “snake,” and the Snake River flows through the county.

1841: William Dunwoody is born in Pennsylvania. After moving to Minneapolis in 1869, he would find his fortune in the grain and flour business. By the time of his death in 1914, he contributed millions of dollars to a number of civic organizations, including the Dunwoody Industrial Institute, the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, and the YMCA.

1924: The last guest checks out of Stillwater’s historic Sawyer House, which had operated as a hotel for 67 years. The Lowell Inn was later built on the same site.

1927: The Arrowhead Bridge across the St. Louis River opens, linking West Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin.

1941: Thirty-one people, mostly unsuspecting motorists caught on the roads, die in a blizzard, the second killer snowstorm of the season.

2002: The Minnesota State Legislature passes a law requiring that diesel fuel sold in Minnesota must contain at least two percent bio-diesel from animal or vegetable fats. The law also projects future increases in this percentage, up to 20 percent.

1876: The St. Paul Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor (later the Society for the Relief of the Poor) is organized to give aid to people who need food, fuel, and work. Early officers include Henry M. Rice, Alexander Ramsey, Henry H. Sibley, and William R. Marshall.

1912: Clyde Elmer Anderson is born in Brainerd. A champion of social and humanitarian causes, he served a record 11 years as the state’s lieutenant governor beginning in 1939 and then as the state’s 28th governor from 1951 to 1955. He died in 1998.

1851: St. Paul hosts the state’s first St. Patrick’s Day parade. Although Irish immigration to St. Paul would not peak until 1890, many Irish had already settled in town, working both as household servants and as laborers on the docks of the Upper Landing.

1858: Otter Tail, Becker, and Breckenridge Counties are formed. The first is named for the lake and river and is a translation from the Ojibwe name, probably for an otter-tailshaped sandbar in the lake. Becker County honors George L. Becker, one of three representatives the new state of Minnesota had planned to send to Congress. When it was discovered that the state was permitted only two representatives, lots were drawn and Becker lost. Breckenridge County honors Vice President John C. Breckenridge, but when he later became a Confederate in the Civil War the residents of the county would vote to change the name to Clay County, honoring Unionist Henry Clay instead.

1891: Margaret Culkin (Banning) is born in Buffalo. She lived in Duluth for many years, authoring more than 30 books, including Mesabi and Country Club People.

1867: A treaty signed in Washington, D.C., establishes the White Earth Reservation for the Ojibwe, and the transfer of the Mississippi Ojibwe to the site begins June 14. The leader Bagone-giizhig (Hole-in-the-Day the Younger), wanting no “mixed bloods” on the reservation, tries to block their relocation. Bad relations result from this policy, and Bagone-giizhig is assassinated on June 27, 1868, near his home in Crow Wing.

1992: Rebecca Rand, Minnesota’s best-known brothel operator, pleads guilty in Ramsey County District Court to three prostitution-related felonies and agrees to turn her buildings over to authorities, as well as pay $200,000 to settle a civil-forfeiture suit. She observes, “I went through so many years without a pimp or anyone taking my money…Now the government decided to do that.”

1858: Kandiyohi County is established, at first comprising only the southern half of its present area. In 1870, the county would absorb its northern neighbor, Monongalia County. Kandiyohi, a Dakota name for some lakes in the county, means “where the buffalo fish come.”

1992: Surviving crew members of the U.S. Army Air Corps bombing raid led by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Doolittle on Tokyo during World War II gather in Red Wing with Chinese villagers who had rescued some of the airmen after they crash landed or parachuted into the nearby sea or China following the attack. Organized by a Red Wing-area resident who had led an expedition to China in 1990 to try to recover remains of raid bombers, the reunion also honors Doolittle, who is unable to attend.

1913: After a wild chase early this morning in the North Minneapolis rail yards, railroad employees and armed police detectives capture Harry Christianson, who is suspected of attempting to rob boxcars. For a time, Christianson manages to evade his pursuers by rolling under and jumping over and through coupled cars moving around the yards, but he eventually becomes confused and runs directly into the arms of the detectives.

1882: A guilty verdict is rendered in the impeachment trial of Judge Eugene St. Julien Cox, who had been accused of conducting a trial while drunk. His cause probably was not helped when 10 bartenders were called to testify to his ability to hold liquor. Cox was removed from office, but his allies in the Democratic Party later helped reverse the conviction.

2002: Governor Ventura signs a law designating the image known as “Grace” the official state photograph. The photograph was taken by Swedish American photographer Eric Enstrom in 1918. It depicts an elderly man bowing his head and giving thanks.

1860: Convicted of poisoning her husband, Stanislaus, Ann Bilansky is executed in St. Paul. Bilansky was the only woman and the first white person to be legally executed in the state, although serious doubts about her guilt still persist.

1971: Minnesota is among the first states to ratify the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which gives U.S. citizens 18 years of age or older the right to vote in local, state, and national elections. Both Minnesota and Delaware claim to be the initial actor on this important issue, although one Minnesota legislator who voted against ratifying calls his state’s role a “dubious pleasure.” Ratification by the necessary number of states was completed later in the year.

1999: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the rights of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe to fish and hunt in ceded lands without state regulation, as dictated by an 1837 treaty.

2002: The UMD Bulldogs Women’s Ice Hockey team win their second consecutive national championship.

1854: John Lind is born in Kanna, Smaland, Sweden. In 1899 he was the first Swede to be elected governor of Minnesota and the first Democrat to hold the office since Henry H. Sibley. He was also the first Swede elected to Congress, where he served four terms.

1886: The inaugural issue of the Progress is published at White Earth. The first English-language paper to be published on an Indian reservation, the Progress is edited by missionaries Gus H. and Theodore H. Beaulieu. The second issue is not published until October 8, 1887, because of interference by an Indian agent who was concerned about the intentions of the paper, in which the Office of Indian Affairs was often criticized.

1963: Karl F. Rolvaag is sworn in as governor, having beaten Elmer L. Andersen by 91 votes in the state’s closest gubernatorial election. The recount of the election had taken four months.

1804: Present-day Minnesota west of the Mississippi River is included in the District of Louisiana, to be governed by Indiana Territory. Nearly a year later, on March 3, 1805, this region became part of Louisiana Territory.

1905: The Aerial Bridge, spanning the Duluth Ship Canal, carries its first passengers across the harbor inside a carriage suspended from the bridge’s framework. The system was replaced with a lift bridge in 1930.

1912: The St. Olaf Choir, directed by F. Melius Christiansen, gives the opening concert of its first tour at the First Baptist Church, Minneapolis.

1992: William Maupins, Duluth’s premier civil rights leader, dies. He served as president of the Duluth NAACP chapter, and, when a black family was prevented from moving into a Duluth neighborhood, he launched the campaign that led to a city fair-housing ordinance. He also organized a food drive for poor blacks in Mississippi; when white truckers in the South tried to block the shipments, he persuaded Duluth teamsters to deliver the food.

1855: In St. Anthony, Minnesota’s Republicans hold their first formal meeting, during which they discuss the group’s strong antislavery stance.

1916: Eugene J. McCarthy is born in Watkins. He served in Congress for over two decades, as a representative from 1949 to 1959, and as a senator from 1959 to 1971. In 1968, McCarthy challenged incumbent president Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic nomination. Running on an anti-Vietnam War platform and making a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary, he helped convince Johnson to drop out of the race. McCarthy, however, ultimately lost the Democratic Party bid to another Minnesotan: Hubert H. Humphrey.

1980: Walter H. Deubener, inventor of the handled grocery bag, dies in St. Paul. Owner of the S. S. Kresge store, St. Paul’s first cash-and-carry (rather than delivery) grocery store, Deubener devised a bag with a string around the bottom that would enable shoppers to carry additional groceries to their destination.

1844: Stillwater’s first sawmill, owned by John McKusick, cuts its first board, the start of over 60 years of milling in the city. Stillwater’s mills cut primarily white pine, a wood prized for ornamental carving.

1924: Prominent Minneapolis industrialist Lewis S. Gillette dies at his winter home near Natchez, Mississippi. An 1876 graduate of the University of Minnesota with bachelor’s degrees in both science and engineering, Gillette farmed for three years and then became involved in numerous businesses, including Gillette-Herzog Manufacturing Company (later absorbed by U.S. Steel) and Minneapolis Steel and Machinery Company, at one time the largest industry in the state.

1992: Former governor Harold LeVander dies at age 82. Born in Swede Home, Nebraska, LeVander served as governor from 1967 to 1971. During that time, he led in the establishment of Minnesota’s first state human rights department, a pollution control agency, and the Metropolitan Council for the Twin Cities area. LeVander also opposed establishing a state sales tax, but his veto was twice overridden.

1918: Roald Amundsen, the famed Norwegian polar explorer who had discovered the South Pole in 1911, addresses a large audience in Duluth about the on-going battle of World War I and appeals to the people of the United States, especially American labor, to “stand behind the President to the last ditch, and to work with 100 percent efficiency to the end of the war.” After remarking that “Norwegians in this country will be pleased to know after the war that they, too, have had a share in the liberation of mankind,” Amundsen continued on a speaking tour of Minnesota and later left for Norway to prepare for a North Pole expedition.

1934: A shoot-out between outlaw John Dillinger and the Federal Bureau of Investigation occurs at the Lincoln Court Apartments in St. Paul. Dillinger escapes but a few months later is shot to death by FBI agents in Chicago.

Source: www.MNopedia.org (except), from The Minnesota Book of Days (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

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