Minnesota became a state on May 11, 1858 and was the 32nd state of the 50 states in the USA. Minnesota’s capital city is found in St. Paul. Minnesota ranks as the 12th largest state with 84,400 square miles (218,601 square km).
The name “Minnesota” originates from the Dakota, or Sioux, Indian word minisota, meaning “white water” or “sky-tinted water.” One of Minnesota’s nicknames is the Land of 10,000 lakes. Within the borders of Minnesota are more than 10,000 lakes and hundreds of rivers and streams. These lakes and rivers were carved out by glaciers which covered much of Canada and the northern part of the USA millions of years ago.
There are three major river systems in Minnesota. The Red River of the North and the Rainy River flow north toward Hudson Bay. The St. Louis and other rivers in the east drain eastward through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence system. The Mississippi River has its beginning Lake Itasca near Itasca State Park, and flows south for hundreds of miles into the Gulf of Mexico. Other main rivers flowing into the Mississippi are the Minnesota, and the St. Croix.
The first residents of Minnesota were Sioux (Dakota) and Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indian peoples. In the 1600’s French Canadians called voyageurs,or travelers came to barter their goods for the fur pelts of the Indians. Other fur traders followed. More white skinned people began to settle the land between 1830 and 1850. Workers were needed for farming , lumbering, and building towns and railroads, so Minnesotans advertised their rich land. Pamphlets describing the state as a land of opportunity were distributed all over northern Europe to attract Europeans to move to Minnesota. The strategy worked as the Germans and Irish were among the first to arrive. Large numbers of Scandinavians, Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes, also resettled in the new land of opportunity. At first most of the Norwegians were attracted to lumbering but later many shifted into farming. The Swedes cultivated the land and the Danes developed dairying, a specialty of their homeland. During the 1880’s and 1890’s many Finns and Slavic people were attracted to emigrate to Minnesota through stories they heard of the iron mines and boundless timber tracts.
Farming was the major source of Minnesota’s income until about 1950 when manufacturing became number one. Agribusiness, that is farm employment, food processing and marketing, and farm supply industries, is one of the major industries in Minnesota today. Minnesota is the home of a large number of major industries that employ about one fifth of the state’s labor force.
Minnesota’s leading mineral is iron. However, most of the best pockets of ore in all three iron ranges (Vermilion, Mesabi, and Cuyuna) have been exhausted. The iron-bearing taconite rock of the Mesabi Range is still a leading source of iron in the United States.
Minnesota is located near the center of North America and is about 1600 kilometers or 1,000 miles from the nearest body of ocean water. For this reason Minnesota is subjected to great extremes of weather. Summers are often hot and the winters are long and cold. During the winter the northwest wind often brings very cold air from the Canadian Arctic. Snowfall is heavy and the lakes and rivers are frozen. Minnesota receives a moderate amount of precipitation, but summer thunderstorms may bring large amounts of rain in a short time. It is not uncommon for winter blizzards to dump up to 3 or four feet of snow. But the temperature extremes have a silver lining as well because Minnesotans are a healthy hearty people who participate in numerous outdoor activities to coincide with the four distinct seasons. Activities such as camping, boating, kayaking, canoeing, water skiing, downhill winter skiing, snowmobiling, ice fishing, and numerous other outdoor activities take up the leisure time of many Minnesotans.
Minnesota’s population in the 1990 census was 4,387,029. The largest city is Minneapolis with 368,383 people. St. Paul has a population of 272,235. The next largest city is Bloomington, a suburb of Minneapolis, which has 86,335 people. Duluth is the fourth largest city with 85,493 residents. Rochester, the city with the famous Mayo Clinic and Hospital, is the fifth largest city with 70,745 people.
Minnesota is proud of the high quality of education it provides its citizens through both public and private elementary and high schools, colleges, vocational colleges, and universities. Minnesota’s first school was established at Fort Snelling in 1820. This school, however, was only for the children of the officers. Organized education for the children of white settlers began in 1847. In that year, a teacher from the East was brought to St. Paul to teach in a converted blacksmith shop. In 1849 the public school system had its start when Minnesota became a territory. Congress granted land in each township for school aid. The land was sold or leased and the money was used to support schools. Today, however, public schools are funded through property taxes levied against business and home owners.
Farming, which at one time was a way of life in Minnesota, no longer dominates the lifestyle of Minnesotans. Out of economic necessity, more and more people have left the farms to settle in cities and towns. By 1950 more people were living in urban areas than in rural areas in Minnesota. Manufacturing replaced farming as the main source of livelihood for Minnesotans. By the 1980’s, two thirds of Minnesota’s labor force was employed in transportation, wholesale and retail trade, tourism, and government. The number of farms and farmers has steadily declined. However, Minnesota still enjoys a high quality of life, which is a source of pride for Minnesotans.
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Some Interesting Places in Minnesota
