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Shawn Rounds, Government Records Specialist, describes plans, photographs and records from the Interstate 35W bridge across the Mississippi River that collapsed on August 1, 2007. (3 min. 33 sec. / 17.3 MB)

Find more on the bridge at the Minnesota Historical Society Library's I-35W Bridge Resources page.

This collage depicts selected records of the King School, which was located in Belfast Township in Murray County. The items pictured are souvenir booklets (1930s) presented by the teacher to her students, teachers' contracts from the school board clerk's book (1890s), and a page from a school attendance register. Seventy years ago, in the 1930s, more than 8,000 school districts existed in Minnesota, many of which were one-room schoolhouses. In the 1950s and 1960s the "country schools" consolidated or merged with larger independent school districts, and state-wide all school districts were renumbered. Now there are just over 400 school districts in Minnesota. School records are a valuable resource not only for family history research, but also for local history. Often the schoolhouse was a community center, and several generations in a family would attend the same school.

While not all school district records in the State Archives collection are as colorful as these, the information a researcher can find about students, teachers, and school buildings is rich. The State Archives currently preserves records of about 3,000 rural and independent school districts. Many of the records are the official records (meeting minutes, school board election results, summaries of receipts and expenditures) of the school district clerk and treasurer, but there are also teachers' class record books and attendance registers, school censuses, photographs, and much more. There is lots of information listing the kids who attended individual schools, who their teachers were, what subject the pupils were taught, and the books they read.

Learn More:

Search the Library Catalog by:

1. the county name and school district number,
2. the name of the school, or
3. the township or city name and the term "school," plus the county name if the township or city is a common name.

Search the Visual Resources Database to find individual photographs of schools by:

1. the county name and school district number,
2. the name of the school, or
3. the township or city name and the term "school," plus the county name if the township or city is a common name.

Schoolhouses of Minnesota By: Photography by Doug Ohman

Family History Resources: School Records

Linda McShannock, Costume and Textile Curator, provided a behind-the-scenes view to the Minnesota Needlework Guild in October 2005. Participants from their needlepoint study group toured the History Center's storage area for costume and textiles and viewed 19th and 20th century examples of needlework in the Society's permanent collections.

Specialized group tours with curators are available for a fee. Arrangements are made through individual curators. Contact Lori Williamson at 651-296-9984 for further information.

Learn More

• "Women's Work: Needlework and Books Inspired by It"

On the morning of December 7, 1941, this 1,247-ton destroyer was patrolling the Hawaiian waters near Pearl Harbor. On board were 85 reserve officers and enlisted men from the 47th Division stationed at the Naval Training Center in St. Paul. That morning the Ward encountered a Japanese midget submarine near the harbor entrance, attacked and sank it, thus firing the first shots of the Pacific War a few hours before the Japanese air attack.

On the morning of December 7, 1944, three years to the day after her Number Three Gun fired the opening shots of the war, Japanese aircraft attacked the Ward. Severely damaged, the crew abandoned ship and the vessel was sunk by gunfire from an adjacent U.S. destroyer.

Learn More:

• Books about the U.S.S. Ward


• Oil painting of U.S.S. Ward by A.B. Chesley, 1976


• Minnesota Goes to War by Dave Kenney


• Minnesota's Greatest Generation Project