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    MNopedia

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

    Red Wing pottery

    A stoneware-making tradition that grew out of Red Wing's clay soil

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    Orange salt-and-pepper shakers, a yellow pitcher, and a taupe oil pourer in fluid, round shapes sit against an indigo background.

    Mataafa Storm, 1905

    One of the costliest disasters in the history of Lake Superior

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    In a sepia-tinted photograph, a steamship with a central smoke funnel sits in water beside a harbor broken in half.

    Butler, Pierce (1866–1939)

    The first Minnesotan to serve as a justice of the US Supreme Court

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    A man wearing a suit jacket and tie sits in a study with a book open on the desk in front of him.

    Forest Fires

    Some of the state's deadliest natural (and not-so-natural) disasters 

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    A destroyed structure sits in the foreground next to a standing wooden pole, with charred buildings and fire survivors in the background.

    Commercial Logging, 1838–1949

    An industry that reshaped Minnesota's land, water, and people

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    A railroad car sits on a track next to a stack of logs that extends into an obscured vanishing point at the lower left.

    DesJarlait, Patrick (1921–1972)

    A modernist painter who depicted his Red Lake Ojibwe kin in a contemporary style

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    Five figures act out the steps of making maple sugar

    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.

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    A baking dish shaped like the state of Minnesota filled with browned tater tots, with filling visible below them, against a cutting-board background.

    Hotdish

    Creator: Arielle Fields
    First Published: October 15, 2026
    Hotdish is a Minnesota culinary institution. A traditional recipe typically consists of ground meat, a creamed soup, and a vegetable (usually canned), topped with tater tots and baked in an ...
    Thing
    1920–1945 (Great Depression and World War II)
    1945–1989 (Post-World War II United States)
    1980–Present (US in a New Global Age)
    Arts
    A man wearing a red-and-white-striped tie, a blue suit jacket, and a white dress shirt stands in front of a microphone with his hands lifted. An American flag is behind him.

    Samatar, Hussein (1964–2013)

    Creator: Ibrahim Hirsi
    First Published: September 25, 2026
    Hussein Samatar was an entrepreneur, banker, and public servant who advocated for greater access to education for immigrant families. He founded and led the African Development Center, a ...
    Person
    1980–Present (US in a New Global Age)
    Business and Industry
    Immigration
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    This Day in Minnesota History (October 16)

    1898

    Future Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas is born in Maine, Minnesota. Briefly a resident of the state, Douglas would move further west while he was an infant as his family sought a climate more accommodating to his nearly crippling polio.

    1921

    The Marx Brothers play the Hennepin Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis.

    1924

    Minnesota's first pheasant season begins in Hennepin and Carver Counties. The ring-necked pheasant had been introduced to the state from China in 1905, and it would eventually become Minnesota's most important upland game bird.

    1930

    A bookstore owned by the Communist Party and located on Third Avenue in South Minneapolis is bombed. A mob then loots the store, burning its books in a bonfire on the street.

    1987

    The state celebrates Henry H. Wade Day in honor of the inventor of enriched taconite, a product that has kept the iron range and its ports operating for years.

    1989

    David Brom is sentenced to fifty-two years in prison for murdering his Olmsted County family with an ax. Judge Ancy Morse orders the eighteen-year-old Brom to serve three consecutive life sentences to ensure that he is never released.

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    History Near You

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