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    MNopedia

    MNopedia — A resource for reliable information about significant people, places, events and things in Minnesota history.

    Deformed Frogs in Le Sueur County, 1995

    An environmental mystery discovered by Minnesota middle-school students

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    Three people carrying fishing nets walk through ankle-deep water (waist-deep in the middleground). There is shoreline at the front-right corner and in the background.

    Minneapolis-Moline Company

    The "whole line" farm-equipment firm that dominated its industry in the mid-twentieth century

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    Three-wheeled tractor with a yellow body sitting on green grass in front of a blue sky in the background.

    Walleye

    The state fish of Minnesota and a perennial fan favorite

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    Newly_Refurbished_Garrison_Walleye_-_panoramio_resized-1

    Vietnamese Community of Minnesota

    A nonprofit organization active since 1981

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    Vietnamese Community of Minnesota

    Paul Bunyan Canoe Derby

    A 450-mile race that took place on the Mississippi River between 1940 and 1960

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    17 Benny and Frank Tonce 10724787-1

    Minnesota Lynx

    The women's basketball team that won four WNBA championship titles in six years.

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    Two basketball players stand side by side, clasping two of their hands together.

    Virginia and Rainy Lake Company

    The Minnesota firm that became the world's largest white pine lumber company overnight

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    A four-story sawmill with a green roof, red walls, and pairs of windows across the horizontal access. People are in the foreground.

    Fort Ridgely

    A US military base in Nicollet County that operated between 1853 and 1867

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    View of Fort Ridgey with stone foundation ruins in the foreground, a one-story building with two doors and six windows in the middleground next to a stone pillar, and a grey sky in the background.

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    Scene of a shoreline and encampment, with canoes on the water, people standing on shore, and buildings, trees, and a cloudy sky in the background.

    Origins of Commercial Logging, 1821–1839

    Creator: Hayden Nelson
    First Published: July 01, 2026
    Even before the formation of Minnesota Territory in 1849, the vast pine forests and navigable rivers west of the St. Croix River influenced the interactions of US politicians with the ...
    Thing
    1792–1861 (Expansion and Reform)
    Business and Industry
    Environment
    Native Americans
    Six figures act out the steps of making maple sugar.

    DesJarlait, Patrick (1921–1972)

    Creator: Laura Laptsevitch
    First Published: June 24, 2026
    Patrick DesJarlait (Red Lake Nation), a recognized Native modernist painter, is best known for depicting Red Lake Ojibwe people between the 1940s and 1970s. He lived a short but full life, ...
    Person
    1945–1989 (Post-World War II United States)
    Arts
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    This Day in Minnesota History (July 17)

    1817

    Cree and Ojibwe leaders in the Red River valley make a treaty with Lord Thomas Douglas Selkirk, who hopes to re-establish his colony of Scottish immigrants.

    1854

    Congress passes an act to settle disputes about the so-called "Half-Breed" Tract, a reservation for mixed-race Indigenous-European people in Wabasha and Goodhue counties. Land titles had been confused; with many white settler-colonists migrating to the area, unaware that it was a legal reservation, some of the recipients of scrip sold the deeds to their parcels of land, although there was no individual ownership of reservation land. After further complications arose with land speculators, the settler-colonists formed vigilante groups to watch the land office and prevent speculators from claiming existing farms. The matter was settled in 1858, with the squatters receiving full rights, as was standard practice on public domain land.

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