This week in history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this week.

August 28

1977 Lake City’s Ralph Samuelson, the “father of water-skiing,” dies. In 1922 Samuelson had successfully tested water skis on Lake Pepin, having fashioned the skis by boiling and curving the tips of boards purchased at a local lumberyard.

Aug. 31

1929 The Foshay Tower is dedicated in Minneapolis. Hiring John Sousa to write and perform a march for the occasion, Wilbur Foshay throws a splendid grand-opening party, a final display of extravagance before the 1929 crash and subsequent economic depression that ruins him.

Sept. 1

1894 A forest fire kills 413 people and burns 160,000 acres of timberland around Hinckley, including parts of southern Carlton County. Railroad engineer James Root saves more than 100 people by loading them onto train cars and driving north through the fire. The devastation of the fire convinces many of the importance of forest conservation, but successive deadly fires in northern Minnesota occur in the Hinckley fire wake, including the fire in 1918 that engulfed Carlton County.

1918 Residents of Hibbing begin moving its buildings so that the iron ore deposit located beneath the town can be mined.

1941 Workers begin dismantling the Duluth and Northeastern Railroad north of Duluth. It was the last logging line to operate in Minnesota and 49 miles were dismantled down to Saginaw. The terminal was in Cloquet, and the remaining 10 miles were abandoned by the railway in the 1990s. Sappi Paper now runs the few miles of the track in Cloquet as Cloquet Terminal Railroad, after purchasing the track from the D&NR in 2002. The CTR serves the plants in the city and ties them to the BNSF line.

Sept. 2

1924 Eleven hundred Ku Klux Klan members from all over the Midwest and 13,000 spectators pack the Fairmont fairgrounds in far southern Minnesota in a massive rally to initiate 400 Minnesota candidates as members of the KKK.

Sept. 3

1783 The Treaty of Paris is signed, ending both the Revolutionary War and, in theory, British control of what is now eastern Minnesota. British trading posts remain in the region until after the War of 1812.

1860 The state’s first normal school opens in Winona with two teachers and 20 students. Normal schools were two-year colleges dedicated to training teachers.

This column is derived from MNopedia.org and developed by the Minnesota Historical Society.