Dredging up Minnesota’s past
Posted on August 8th, 2005 – 7:02 PMBy Ben Welter
Welcome, history lovers!
The Star Tribune newspaper archives, which date back more than a hundred years, are just about a hundred feet away from my perch on the copy desk. On slow nights, I head to the library, load up a roll of microfilm and take a look back in time. How much did it cost to block and clean a bowler hat in 1898? How did the Minneapolis Tribune play the sinking of the Lusitania? What were the hot nightspots during Roaring ’20s? What movies were showing in Hennepin Avenue theaters in the ’50s? Did St. Paul’s “super mayor” of the early ’70s, Charlie McCarty, really use an electronic device to turn traffic lights in his favor?
If you’ve lived in Minnesota, you probably have similar questions about the region’s history. (Well, some of you might!) If you do, send ‘em to welter@startribune.com and I’ll see what I can dig up. I post a couple of fresh items each week, usually on Sunday and Wednesday nights.
I hope that most of the articles (and occasionally photos and ads) will prompt readers to share observations, memories and links to additional resources. I’m striving to build a collection of enduring interest, snapshots that will, over time, paint an engaging portrait of Minnesota’s past.
A note on the format: I write an introduction for nearly every entry. These editor’s notes are indented and centered (like this paragraph and the next). Some entries also include follow-up interviews, which are also indented.
A note on title dates: For the sake of consistency, the title of each post shows the newspaper publication date, not the date or range of dates of the event covered. Apollo 11, for example, landed on the moon at 3:17 p.m. CDT July 20, 1969 (Earth time!). The Yesterday’s News title, however, is the date of publication of the Minneapolis Tribune story about the landing, July 21, 1969. You can derive the date of the event — if any; some posts contain only advertising, or are editorials about an ongoing event — from that publication date.
A note on photos: Most of the photos posted here are from the overstuffed filing cabinets in the newsroom library or from the Minnesota Historical Society’s awesome online archive of digital images. Unless otherwise noted, the captions are mine.
A note on research: Are you looking for your great-great-aunt’s paid obituary? I don’t have time, unfortunately, to track down items of narrow interest. But you probably have easy access to the same resources I use. In Minnesota, most larger libraries carry the Minneapolis Tribune, Minneapolis Star and Star Journal on microfilm, dating back more than 100 years. Check with your friendly neighborhood librarian to locate the microfilm trove nearest you. If you live outside Minnesota, check the nearest university libraries, especially those associated with journalism schools.
Hard-copy indexes of these papers are sometimes available, covering content from the mid-1950s to the mid-1980s, when newspapers began archiving content in digital, searchable form. If you’re looking for content published prior to the mid-1950s, no indexes are available. You’ll have to do what I do: Pop in a roll of microfilm and start browsing.
November 2009 update: Yesterday’s News joined the parade of Star Tribune blogs migrating to a new platform. Entries posted prior to Nov. 5, 2009, remain available at their old locations. You can find them by using the “search posts” box at the top right of this page, or by browsing the links at right.
Ben Welter
News copy chief
Star Tribune
Minneapolis, Minn.
20 Responses to "Dredging up Minnesota’s past"
I love to hear the history of the old days. The old Indian was very enlightening. I would love to see a lot more of this.
I really like this feature. Didn’t know it was here until I saw something about the Edmund Fitzgerald and got into this section. Keep it up. I’d love more.
Like Kathy said, I came here from the EF story. Great stuff, keep it coming, please!
Any chance you’ll do a recap of the Vikings’ Super Bowl losses? I wasn’t a big reader of newspapers at that time, and would love to read the Strib’s accounts of the games.
Do you do stories about places that are no longer around? I have a memory of a fast food restaurant that was located somewhere around 66th and Penn Ave. in Richfield, probably in the late 1960’s. The building was distinctive because it had a football sticking out of the top of it. The name may have had something to do with football: The Touchdown, or something like that. Do you have any history/photos about this place?
I am interested in the advertised offerings and publicity about homesteading in eastern Montana, circa 1914
I am trying to find information about the historical old “crime bosses” and prohibition in Minneapolis for a research project. Specifically a man named “Big Ed Morgan” who allegedly kept Al Capone out of Minneapolis. There was supposed to have been an article by Cedric Adams from many years ago in your paper. Any thing you can find would be most appreciative.
Hi, Jacob. Cedric Adams was a columnist for the Tribune for many years. Because papers published prior to 1950 were indexed poorly (if at all), it would probably take hours of browsing microfilm to find that column.
I am looking for a couple of columns that Cedric Adams wrote about our family. I would probably have be after 1950. One was about our ducks chasing after our Dachund our at our cabin on Spring Lake. Another one was about my cousn sending her new baby from Calif. with some friends to spend Christmas with her parents in Mpls. I would sure like to find these articles. Thanks.
Hi, Karen.
Thanks for writing. If you can give me a year or two to focus on, plus your family name, I’ll take a few minutes to poke around next time I’m in the library. The indexes for post-1950 papers were compiled annually and they’re a bit of a bear to decipher.
Unfortunately, though, I generally don’t have time to hunt down a given article unless it’s of wide interest and worth posting here. The good news: You can do the research yourself if you have access to a library that carries the Tribune from that era on microfilm.
Good luck!
Ben
The MGA-PGA Minnesota Golf Hall of Fame records are incomplete on the Minnesota Section PGA “Player of the Year”. There is no record of who was the Player of the Year for 1970-1971; 1980; 1983-1984. Would there be any information in the archives?
Could you find Minneapolis star, November 16, 1936 about the Augustana Children’s Home, also called Mission Colony. At that time they were celebrating their 40th year.
Affiliation with the Augustana Church in Minneapolis.
My daughter is doing a project in school and trying to trace her ancestors. We’ve discovered that her great, great grandmother was killed in the forest fire of 1918 in minnesota. Was there a list of the deceased in the tribune?
Hi, Lori. Thanks for writing. I posted that item nearly two years ago, but I vaguely remember seeing such a list in the Tribune dated Oct. 14 or 15, 1918. See my introductory note above for tips on tracking down newspaper stories on library microfilm.
What is the best way to access and get permission to reprint photos from your photo archives?
Thank you.
Hi, Merle. For photos used courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society, see mnhs.org. For photos credited to the Minneapolis Tribune, Star or Star Tribune, see:
http://www.startribune.com/mcu/projects/s/startribunestore/index.shtml
Back in the late 50’s, early sixty’s we lived at 2413 Cedar ave in Mpls and my father would build a full size hockey rink for the whole neighborhood every winter. The fire dept. would flood it and as a contractor(Reco Construction) my dad would put up the lights and side boards. My mom would have a big pot of hot chocolate and there was always ice skates at the back door. There was an article written about this but I don’t know when as I was very young. If you could find this I would greatly appreciate it as my father is going to be 87 in January and I know he would enjoy seeing the article again.
About ten or fifteen years ago in the Metro/State section of the Star Tribune there was an extensive article about two retired Minnesota engineers who designed a ’smokestack emissions scrubber’ or something along that line. I remember that a few months before the formal testing one of the two had died. One of the men had retired from Honeywell and the other may have been from 3M. What I do recall was that the test was sucessful in reducing emissions to almost zero and that DuPont bought all the rights and the ’scrubber.’ I’ve not seen or found anything on it since. Would you be able to locate the article?
I had an old newspaper article , I think it was in the Star & Trib on how they made lutefisk in the old days, describing the whole process; soaking over 2 weeks etc. Can’t find it any more. Does anyone have it?
Armina, Carol:
Have you tried searching the Star Tribune’s online archive? You can use it to find any staff-written article published since 1986:
http://www.startribune.com/archives
Searching and article abstracts are free; there’s a charge to download complete articles.
Also, regarding lutefisk, here’s a short item about an amusing court case from 1951:
As a Norsk-o-phile, I’d love to know the coverage of Syttende Mai events and other various Norwegian or Swedish related news. Or even maybe coverage of Snoose Boulevard.
I have an old MHS picture of the Dayton’s building completely dressed up in oversized Norwegian and U.S. flags with hordes of people in the streets during Syttende Mai. You don’t see that anymore.
