This Day in Minnesota History

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Today's Date: May 10

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1823

The Virginia is the first steamboat to reach Fort St. Anthony (later Fort Snelling), having made the 729-mile-trip from St. Louis in twenty days. Among the Virginia's passengers is Italian adventurer Giacomo C. Beltrami.
1827

William Windom is born in Belmont City, Ohio. After settling in Winona in 1855, Windom represented Minnesota in the US Congress as both a congressman and a senator. He later served as secretary of the treasury under Presidents James A. Garfield and Benjamin Harrison. His likeness appears on the 1891 two-dollar bill, and Windom in Cottonwood County is named for him. He died in 1891.
1902

The St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team beats a team from Indianapolis 4-0 in the first American Association game at Lexington Park.
1941

Charles A. Lindbergh is the featured speaker at a large America First rally in Minneapolis. The America First Committee promoted US isolationism during the years leading up to World War II. Lindbergh's anti-war activity reduced his stature in many people's eyes, but after war was declared he would dedicate himself to the battle for victory, flying fifty missions in the Pacific.
1993

Kiowa elder Ralph Ware, Jr., who played an instrumental role in creating the Heart of the Earth Survival School, dies in Oklahoma. Founded in 1972, the school at the Center for American Indian Education in Minneapolis was one of the nation's first alternative schools for Native Americans.
2000

St. Augusta Township in rural Stearns County becomes the city of Ventura as five new city officials take the oath of office to serve this community, which was named for Governor Jesse Ventura as part of a political strategy to prevent annexation attempts by St. Cloud, the county seat. The former township clerk comments, "We are about to form the newest city in the state of Minnesota." In November voters overwhelmingly choose to change the city's name from Ventura to St. Augusta.
From The Minnesota Book of Days (Minnesota Historical Society Press).

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