Minnesota Trivia & Tidbits - Page 17

Looking for Minnesota trivia? Try our list Minnesota little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

Walter F. Mondale, vice president under Jimmy Carter and 1984 Democratic presidential nominee, was born in Ceylon (pop. 425) on Jan. 5, 1928, the son of a Methodist minister.

first appeared: 12/17/2000

The coldest temperature ever recorded in Minnesota was 59 degrees below zero on Feb. 9, 1899, at Leech Lake Dam (now Federal Dam).

first appeared: 12/10/2000

Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota is named after the French term voyageurs, meaning travelers—the French-Canadians who guided explorers and fur traders during the 1700s and early 1800s.

first appeared: 12/3/2000

The Minneota Mascot, the weekly newspaper in Minneota (pop. 1,375), was first published in September 1891, a decade after the town was incorporated.

first appeared: 11/26/2000

Some of the oldest rocks in the world—3.8 billion years old—are found in the Minnesota River Valley.

first appeared: 11/19/2000

Sinclair Lewis—novelist, playwright, and social critic—was born in Sauk Centre (pop. 3,704) on Feb. 7, 1885. Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to an American.

first appeared: 11/12/2000

Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in Duluth on May 24, 1941. Six years later, the Zimmerman family moved to Hibbing. When Zimmerman graduated in 1959, the high school yearbook suggested his goal was “to join Little Richard,” the singer.

first appeared: 11/5/2000

Actress Winona Ryder is named after her hometown of Winona (pop. 24,788). She was born Oct. 29, 1971.

first appeared: 10/22/2000

An estimated 2,500 gray wolves inhabit northern Minnesota, the largest concentration in the contiguous United States. The International Wolf Center in Ely (pop. 3,803) opened in 1985 to provide information about the threatened species.

first appeared: 10/8/2000

Judy Garland, best known for her legendary performance in the film classic The Wizard of Oz, was born Frances Ethel Gumm on June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids. She gave her first public performance at age 2 in her father’s theater in Grand Rapids.

first appeared: 9/24/2000

The common loon, Minnesota’s state bird, is one of the world’s oldest living bird species. Scientists say it dates back at least 20 million years. Loons are large black and white birds with long, black bills.

first appeared: 9/10/2000

Mystery Cave, near Preston (pop. 1,541), is the longest cave in the state. It has more than 12 miles of natural passages. The cave is open to the public and overseen by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

first appeared: 8/27/2000

Minnesota is home to the largest federal wilderness east of the Rocky Mountains—the rugged 1.1 million-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area, located in the state’s northeast corner.

first appeared: 8/13/2000

The Mall of America in Bloomington is the largest in the country. It is the size of 78 football fields—9.5 million square feet.

first appeared: 7/30/2000

The mythical town of Lake Wobegon is the creation of storyteller Garrison Keillor. Keillor was born in Anoka (pop. 17,780) in 1942 and hosted the first broadcast of his popular radio show A Prairie Home Companion in 1974.

first appeared: 7/16/2000

Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., who made the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic in 1927, grew up on a farm near Little Falls, Minn. (pop. 7,521). His boyhood home is a historical site open from May 1 through Labor Day, and is adjacent to Charles A. Lindbergh State Park. Lindbergh was born in Detroit in 1902, the son of a lawyer who served as a U.S. congressman from Minnesota from 1907 to 1917.

first appeared: 7/2/2000

The so-called Northwest Angle, or arrowhead, which juts into Ontario, Canada, is the northernmost point in Minnesota and the 48 contiguous United States. The angle consists of Lake of the Woods Reservoir, Northwest Angle State Forest, and Red Lake Indian Reservation.

first appeared: 6/18/2000

Ralph W. Samuelson was only 18 when he invented the sport of water skiing on Lake Pepin, part of the Mississippi River near Lake City, Minn., in 1922. Samuelson strapped two 8-foot pine planks onto his feet with leather bindings and was towed on them behind an outboard motor-powered boat.

first appeared: 6/4/2000

The 81-foot Iron Man Statue in Chisholm, Minn., is the third tallest free-standing statue in the nation, following the Statue of Liberty and St. Louis’ "Gateway to the West" arch. The statue is a tribute to the iron ore miners of northeastern Minnesota.

first appeared: 5/21/2000

A group of third-grade students from Carlton, Minn. convinced the 1988 State Legislature that Minnesota needed a state muffin, the blueberry, because wild blueberries are so plentiful. Massachusetts and Connecticut also have state muffins (corn and apple, respectively).

first appeared: 5/7/2000

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