On May 11, 2008, Minnesota will reach its 150th anniversary as the 32nd state in the United States of America. The Sesquicentennial is a yearlong, statewide commemoration and a catalyst, to learn from our past and connect all of us as Minnesotans in creating a thriving, innovative future.

The following is excerpted from The Minnesota Book Of Days: Minnesota Anniversaries For Every Day Of The Year. by Roy Swanson, 1949.

This Week In Minnesota History

July 23, 1851 – A treaty with the Wahpeton and Sisseton Sioux of the Minnesota Valley was signed this day at Traverse Des Sioux, near the present city of St Peter. Its terms gave to the United States, for white settlement, what a contemporary editor described as "twenty-one million acres of the finest land in the world." The area stretched from the Mississippi, the Minnesota, and the Blue Earth rivers to the Bois des Sioux and the Big Sioux rivers.

July 24, 1786 – Joseph Nicolas Nicollet was born. Minnesota, among other western states, is indebted to this French geographer and explorer for early surveys and descriptions of primitive conditions. Under the direction of the War Department he made a canoe journey in 1836 up the Mississippi River to Lake Itasca, and in 1838 a trip up the Minnesota to the pipestone quarry. Minnesota has several place names in his honor, including Nicollet County, Nicollet Island, and Nicollet Avenue. He died in 1843, shortly after the publication of his admirable map of the upper Mississippi River basin.

July 16, 1858 – This is the birthday of the state seal. The design depicts a white man plowing eastward and looking over his shoulder at an Indian on horseback riding toward the setting sun. On a ribbon above are the words L'Etoile du Nord, which means "The Star of the North," and around the edge "The Great Seal of the State of Minnesota" with "1858" below. The design is a modification of the territorial seal in which the figures of the white man and Indian were reversed and the motto was a misprinted Latin phrase.

July 19, 1847 – Harriet Bishop opened her school in St. Paul in a "mud-walled log hovel" once used as a blacksmith's shop. The Vermont schoolteacher was one of many young New England women who, under the auspices of the Board of National Popular Education, went out West in answer to the pleas of settlements in dire need of teachers. Miss Bishop, by her pioneer work in the settlement in St. Paul, is credited with inaugurating the earliest program of organized education in Minnesota.

July 19, 1850 – The Catholic diocese was established in St. Paul.

July 20, 1934 – One person was killed and over sixty injured by bullets and beatings in the clash between Minneapolis police and striking truck drivers of Union 574. The National Guard then took command of the market district, and a truce over the week-end was arranged. On the twenty-sixth the city was put under martial law by Governor Olson after employers had refused to accept the federal mediator's plan to end the strike.

July 20, 1940 – The first Minneapolis Aquatennial Summer Festival began, ushering in a nine-day celebration extolling the advantages of Minnesota as a summer playground.

July 22, 1868 – The Journeyman Cigar Makers' Protective Union was organized this day in St. Paul. Its motto was "unity amongst men, and fidelity to employers."

July 9, 1823 – The expedition led by Major Stephen H. Long left Fort Snelling on an exploratory trip up the valley of the Minnesota River and down the Red River to Lake Winnipeg. On the return journey the expedition followed the chain of lakes and rivers on the international boundary to Fort William. The record of this expedition, prepared by William H. Keating, was published in 1825.

July 11, 1851 – A picturesque wedding enlivened the negotiations on the treaty ground of Traverse Des Sioux. The bride was Nancy McClure, daughter of an army officer and a Sioux woman. The groom was David Faribault, also a mixed blood.

July 12, 1869 – Paul Hjelm-Hansen, Norwegian newspaperman, left Alexandria this day on a journey by ox-team to the Red River as an agent of the Minnesota State Board of Immigration with the object of preparing a series of letters about western Minnesota for publication in Norwegian newspapers in America and Norway. In these letters he told about the resources of the Red River valley and urged Norwegian immigrants to come to western Minnesota. The letters had a very considerable influence upon Scandinavian settlements in that part of the state.

July 13, 1832 – Henry Rowe Schoolcraft reached the source of the Mississippi River this day in a lake which he named Itasca. Schoolcraft had been a member of the Cass expedition in 1820, but was not satisfied with the decision of the leader that what is now Cass Lake was the true source and welcomed the opportunity that came to him twelve years later to push on through Lake Bemidji, up the east fork of the river, and across a difficult portage to Lake Itasca.

July 13, 1857 – A convention charged with framing a constitution for the future state of Minnesota met this day in St. Paul. So keen was the rivalry between the Republican and Democrat delegates that they were unable to meet together in one convention. As a result Minnesota had two constitutional conventions, each of which framed a constitution. After two months of wrangling, compromise efforts finally produced an instrument which each could accept. It was ratified by popular vote October 13, 1857.

July 4, 1875 – The first Icelandic settler in Lyon County, Gunnlaugur Petursson, pitched his tent on the banks of the Medicin River near the present town of Minneota after a trek by ox-team from Iowa. Thus was founded the most important permanent Icelandic community in Minnesota.

July 6, 1889 – Duluth police and strikers clashed on West Michigan Street in a pitched battle during a general strike of all laborers in the city. A spectator was killed in the fighting, two men died later from wounds, and the hospitals were crowded with the injured. The arrival of the militia, led by Mayor Sutphin, ended the rioting and cleared the streets.

July 6, 1936 – 114 degrees Fahrenheit was recorded at the weather bureau station in Moorhead this hot day.

June 16, 1838 – Cushman Kellogg Davis was born in Henderson, New York. He was governor of Minnesota, 1874 to 1876, and United States senator from 1887 until his death in 1900.

June 16, 1863 – General Sibley and his troops marched from Camp Pope against the Sioux of North Dakota. Camp Pope was located a mile northwest of the present city of Redwood Falls.

June 17, 1890 – The arrest by a United States deputy marshall from St. Paul ofseven Minneapolis enumerators precipitated the "Twin Cities Census War." St. Paul accused Minneapolis of padding the census rolls in order to take the population lead away from the capital city. Later investigations revealed both twins were guilty. A new count taken in August gave Minneapolis 164,581 instead of 182,967, and St. Paul, 133,156 instead of 142,581.

June 18, 1893 – Virginia was destroyed by fire.

June 20, 1823 – Jesse Lee Reno was born in Wheeling, West Virginia. He is one of Minnesota's "trail blazers" by virtue of the survey he made in 1853 for a military road from the mouth of the Big Sioux, near the present site of Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Mendota, a distance of 279 miles. The result was one of the most important of Minnesota's pioneer highways. General Reno was killed in the Civil War.

June 22, 1861 – The First Regiment Minnesota Volunteer Infantry left Fort Snelling for Washington to take part in the Civil War.

June 8, 1880 – Medals were awarded to Washburn, Crosby and Company of Minneapolis for the best brands of flour shown at the international exhibition in Cincinnati. As a result of this contest the "Gold Medal" flour brand came into being.

June 9, 1837 – In 1937 St. Olaf College at Northfield observed the centennial of Ole Rynning, the noted Norwegian immigrant leader. He arrived in New York June 9, 1837 aboard the Aegir, which had sailed from Bergen with 84 emigrants. The party settled at Beaver Creek, Illinois. The following year Rynning's True Account of America was published in Norway, the first of many such books which influenced Norwegian emigration to America.

June 12, 1873 – Swarms of Rocky Mountain locusts crossed the Dakota border into Minnesota and spread over thirteen southwestern counties. The devastation of crops brought hardship and impoverishment to settlers, many of whom were saved from starvation only by the relief activities of the cities. The devastation was repeated in 1874, and to a lesser degree in '75, '76 and '77. In August of 1877 the grasshoppers mysteriously departed and Minnesota was at last free from the scourge.

June 13, 1871 – Duluth citizens completed digging the canal through Minnesota Point, thus connecting the waters of Lake Superior and St. Louis Bay and securing Duluth a harbor of its own. The rival city of Superior, which had the natural harbor entrance seven miles away, caused an injunction to be served to restrain the city of Duluth from constructing the canal. The reply to the injunction was, "You can stop the water if you can. We can't." This is the cut which is now spanned by the Aerial Bridge.

June 1, 1927 – Giants in the Earth was published by Harper and Brothers. The author of this famous novel of pioneer life was Professor Ole E. Rolvaag, of St. Olaf College, Northfield, who first wrote the book in the Norwegian language. After publication in Norway it was "discovered" by America.

June 6, 1849 – A detachment of dragoons commanded by Major Samuel Woods left Fort Snelling to make an examination of the Red River Valley and select a site for a military post. With the expedition was Captain John Pope of the United States topographical engineers. Both men prepared valuable reports on their findings and Pope produced a detailed map of the area.

June 6, 1910 – The manufacture of paper began at International Falls. About 18 tons of newsprint were produced on the opening day of the mills.

June 7, 1892 – The Republican National Convention opened in Minneapolis at the Exposition Building. President Benjamin Harrison was renominated.

June 7, 1904 – This was Minnesota Day at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, the day the state building was dedicated in ceremonies attended by Governor Van Sant. Minnesota partook in the exposition as one of the states carved from the original Louisiana Territory.

June 7, 1921 – The Minnesota Co-operative Creameries Association was incorporated. It is now known as Land O' Lakes Creameries, Inc.

May 29, 1935 – The Streamliner "Hiawatha" went into service between the Twin Cities and Chicago, thereby inaugurating a new era in rail travel in the United States.

May 30, 1871 – The first shipment of grain was made from Duluth on the steamer St. Paul.

May 30, 1889 – Memorial Day became a legal holiday in Minnesota this year. It is the second day designated a legal holiday by a specific laws. Washington's birthday was the first named in 1860.

May 31, 1819 – Dr. William Worrall Mayo was born in Manchester, England. He is Minnesota's "pioneer of medicine." He came to the territory in 1855, and in 1863 was appointed provost surgeon for southern Minnesota, with headquarters at Rochester. He became the leading physician of that region. When a tornado struck that city in 1883, Mayo was placed in charge of an emergency hospital for the injured and was assisted by the Sisters of St. Francis. A few years later the sisters opened a permanent hospital with Mayo as medical superintendent. This still stands as the nucleus of the large St. Mary's Hospital. Mayo was one of the earliest physicians to use the microscope for diagnostic work. He was the father of Drs. William and Charles Mayo. The elder Mayo died in 1911.

May 31, 1853 – The first detachment of an expedition headed by Isaac I. Stevens left Minneapolis this day to explore a route for a Pacific railroad "from St. Paul… to Puget Sound." In its progress through Minnesota the expedition followed the east bank of the Mississippi River to Sauk Rapids, where a crossing was made, and from there pushed westward over the Red River trail. The task assigned to Stevens was so well done that when the actual construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad began in 1870 there was little need for further preliminary surveys.

drawings by John Mix Stanley were made to illustrate Isaac Stevens report to Congress.,

May 20, 1857 – "An emigrant wagon passed our office yesterday and with the usual plunder inside; on the rear of the wagon was tied a chicken coop, on the top of which, too big to go inside, sat a shanghai rooster looking with surprise at the busy city around him; a man with a gun, and a boy driving three cows brought up the rear." Daily Minnesotan

May 23, 1908 – The Minnesota National Forest, later called the Chippewa National Forest, was created by Congress. The forest is the result of a movement which was started in 1898 to preserve the magnificent stands of pine in the area ceded by the Chippewa. The Federated Women's Clubs were the prime movers.

May 24, 1858 – Henry H. Sibley was inaugurated as the first state governor of Minnesota.

May 25, 1850 – The steamboat Governor Ramsey made its trial trip this day, thereby opening Mississippi River navigation above the Falls of St. Anthony. Under Captain John Rollins it plied between St. Anthony and Sauk Rapids, leaving St. Anthony every Monday and Thursday at 1pm. The Governor Ramsey was a stern-wheeler, 118 feet in length, built and launched at St. Anthony.

May 13, 1858 – A survey was started at St. Cloud for a road to the site of Breckenridge on the Red River. The route followed approximately the course of the "East Plains" trail used by the Red River carts. This road became, and still remains, the main highway between St Cloud and the Red River, passing through Melrose, Sauk Centre, Alexandria, and Fergus Falls. It paralleled the Great Northern Railroad.

May 17, 1837 – Rev. Alfred Brunson, a Methodist missionary, arrived at Fort Snelling aboard the Ariel to establish a mission among the Indians at Kaposia, the site of South St. Paul. It was the first Methodist mission in Minnesota.

May 18, 1857 – Duluth was incorporated as a town. It was first settled about 1850, and was platted and named in 1856.

May 4, 1846 – Theophilus L. Haecker was born in Liverpool, Ohio. "Haecker may be hailed as an apostle of agricultural co-operation, not only in Minnesota, but in all America," says Folwell. He was professor of dairy husbandry at the University Farm (1893-1918) and took every opportunity to preach co-operation to dairymen of the state. He died in 1938.

May 4, 1863 – The Sioux Indian removal began. On this day the steamboat Davenport reached Fort Snelling and 770 Indians, mostly women and children, were herded on board for the long journey from Minnesota to new reservations in Dakota Territory. A second lot, numbering 540, was loaded on the Northerner. Thus the Indian Department and military officials began to carry out the law of March 3, 1863, providing for the removal of the Minnesota Sioux. It was the punishment meted out to the Sioux for their outbreak of the previous summer when they attacked the white settlements in the western part of the state.

May 4, 1925 – The first car assembled at the Ford Motor Company plant in St. Paul was run off the assembly line this day.

May 11, 1858 - This is statehood day in Minnesota, the anniversary of Minnesota's admission to the Union.

Minnesota's transition from territorial status to statehood was protracted and complicated. The enabling act had been passed by Congress over a year before, February 26, 1857. During the summer the people of Minnesota drew up a state constitution, which was ratified in October, and elected state officers and congressmen. Also in accordance with the newly adopted constitution, the new state legislature met in December and proceeded to enact laws and elect two United States senators. Meanwhile in Washington, the bill for Minnesota's admission was being delayed because southern senators refused to allow the entrance of another northern state until Kansas as admitted under the pro-slavery constitution drawn up at Lecompton. Minnesota's two new senators cooled their heels in the Capitol corridors waiting to be seated. Finally the Minnesota bill was passed by the Senate on April 8 and went up from the house for President Buchanan's signature on May 11, 1858, and Minnesota took her place as the thirty-second state of the Union.

April 29, 1858 – "Daniel Emmett, on behalf of the Ethiopean Minstrels, asked a license, which was granted on the payment of $50.00 for the season."

The author of "Dixie" was a frequent visitor to St. Paul where his brother, Lafayette, was chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Daniel is said to have written an early version of his famous song while in St. Paul and to have had it tried out by local musicians in the store of Russell C. Munger, pioneer music dealer. Eventually "Dixie" became the war song of the Confederacy in the Civil War.

April 30, 1803 – The treaty with Napoleon for the cession of Louisiana bears this date. That part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi was included in the vast territory which became American domain.

May 2, 1876 – An early Arbor Day note appeared in the Pioneer Press and Tribune for May 3, 1876 "Tree planting was carried on upon an immense scale yesterday, and will be continued for several days longer… If this mania keeps on a few years longer, Minnesota will in time be an immense forest.

May 2, 1876 – The great flour mill explosion in Minneapolis occurred this day. At 7:20 p.m., the city was shaken by a terrific blast. Washburn A Mill blew up, two adjoining mills collapsed, and three burned to the ground. Eighteen workmen were killed and the financial loss was estimated at over a million dollars. The novel disaster led to a better understanding of dust explosions. Demonstrations before the coroner's jury by Stephen F. Peckham, professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota, showed that mill dust suspended in the air would explode like gunpowder when ignited. One result of the catastrophe was the supplanting of millstones by rolls, a device which not only reduced the fire hazard but also revolutionized the milling industry.

May 2, 1903 – Automobile license No. 1 was issued to R.C. Wright of St. Paul for a "Packard automobile." It was issued by the state "Inspector of Steam Vessels and Steam Boilers."

April 21, 1899 – The law creating a state public library commission was passed. One of its provisions was for a system of traveling libraries to make books available to rural communities without library services. In 1919 the Library Commission was made a division of the State Department of Education.

April 22, 1818 – Cadwallader Colden Washburn was born in Livermore, Maine. He is Minnesota's pioneer of flour milling. Washburn became interested in the development of the Falls of St. Anthony in the 1850s when he was one of the incorporators of the Minneapolis Water Power Company. His first flour mill at this place, known as the B Mill, was erected in 1866. The A Mill, erected in 1873, was destroyed in an explosion and fire in May, 1878. Following this catastrophe, Washburn employed William de la Barre, an Austrian milling engineer, to install in the Minneapolis mills devices which revolutionized the milling industry. This was the well-known "patent process" which created a demand for the spring wheat of the Northwest.

April 25, 1823 – The War Department on this day authorized Major Stephen H. Long to lead an exploring expedition to Minnesota. He explored the Minnesota and Red rivers and the canoe route from Lake Winnipeg to Lake Superior.

April 26, 1877 – This day was appointed by Governor Pillsbury as a day of prayer for deliverance from the grasshopper scourge which had been afflicting the state since 1873. The area of greatest crop destruction was in the western and southwestern counties. Thousands of families were impoverished each year during the plague, and large sums had to be appropriated by the state to carry them over to another harvest. Although the state was doing all it could to combat the pest, the people of the infested areas felt that the situation had come to such a pass that divine aid should be solicited. Governor Pillsbury, therefore, made his proclamation as a result of the many appeals of the grasshopper-sufferers. The day of prayer was observed with fidelity. In August of that year the grasshoppers suddenly left the state. The religious-minded attributed the exodus to prayer and others to the effect of inclement weather upon the hatching and growth of the insects and to the extensive use of the "tar-pan”, ditching, and parasites.

April 27, 1948 – Radio station KSTP began televising the Minneapolis baseball games from Nicollet Park.

April 8, 1905 – The battleship Minnesota was launched at Newport News, Virginia. Miss Rose Marie Schaller of Hastings was sponsor.

April 9, 1798 – David Thompson, geographer for the Northwest Company, started out from the trading post of Jean Baptiste Cadotte on Red Lake River on the last leg of his 4000-mile survey of the northern wilderness. He had begun his survey at Grand Portage the previous August and made his way to the upper Missouri. His return trip took him through northern Minnesota, after wintering with Cadotte. He passed through Red Lake and Turtle Lake and finally reached Fond du Lac by way of Cass Lake, Sandy Lake and Savanna portage. He was back at his starting point, Grand Portage, after ten months on the trail, a remarkable feat. His was the earliest scientific survey of any portion of the present state of Minnesota. Thompson spent many years mapping the northern parts of the United States and Canada and marking the routes to the Pacific. He is recognized today as one of the greatest land geographers of the English race.

April 9, 1849 – The news that Minnesota Territory had been established a month earlier reached St. Paul.

April 11, 1868 – The St. Germaine Street bridge across the Mississippi River at St. Cloud was formally opened. It was replaced with a new structure opened on July 15, 1894.

April 13, 1849 – Alexander Ramsey took the oath of office as governor of Minnesota Territory before Chief Justice Taney at Taney's house in Baltimore.

April 14, 1861 – The first volunteer corps for the civil War was furnished by Minnesota. Governor Ramsey was in Washington when the news came of the firing upon Fort Sumter and immediately tendered to President Lincoln the services of a regiment from Minnesota. The governor then telegraphed to Lieutenant Governor Ignatius Donnelly to issue a call for volunteers.

April 17, 1856 – The first volunteer military company in Minnesota was organized at St. Paul this day. It was called the Minnesota Pioneer Guard. The uniform was striking, consisting of a blue single-breasted dress coat with three rows of gilt buttons and bindings of orange-colored cord; sky-blue pants with broad orange stripes down the leg; and a hat with an orange pompom for the privates and a plume for the same color for the officers. At military dress balls, white pantaloons were substituted for the blue ones.

Other companies were soon formed bearing such names as the Stillwater Guard, the Red Wing Rifles, and the Garden City Sharpshooters. They sometimes competed in military drill and exercises with arms. No frontier Fourth-of-July celebration was complete without the local volunteer guards to march in the parade and give demonstrations of "evolutions and maneuvers." The guard was also the center of many social activities, such as military dress balls, cotillion parties, and steamboat excursions.

When the Civil War came, most of these companies were received into active service. The old Minnesota Pioneer Guard of St. Paul became Company A of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry.

April 20, 1891 – Itasca State Park was established by an act of the state legislature this day. It is the oldest of our state parks and nationally significant, for within its boundary is found the source of the Mississippi River. In 1949, the park had an area of 32,000 acres and contained 300 lakes.