Minnesota Trivia & Tidbits - Page 3

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

—The first circular concrete grain elevator in the United States was the Peavey-Haglin experimental concrete grain elevator, built in 1899 and 1900 in St. Louis Park (pop. 44,126). Earlier grain elevators were wooden.

first appeared: 1/13/2008

—One of the state’s nicknames is the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” but the state actually has 11,842 lakes that are 10 acres or more in size.

first appeared: 12/30/2007

—Fairmont (pop. 10,889) first was named Fair Mount for the rolling hills surrounding the adjacent lakes. The town was platted in 1857.

first appeared: 12/2/2007

—Savage (pop. 21,115), formerly Hamilton, was named in 1904 after Marion W. Savage, a businessman who in 1902 bought famous racehorse Dan Patch for $60,000. The beloved horse drew huge crowds whenever he raced or toured the country, and even inspired a movie. When Dan Patch died in 1916, Savage died within hours, some say of a broken heart.

first appeared: 11/18/2007

—On the state’s coldest day, the temperature dropped to minus-60 degrees on Feb. 2, 1996, near Tower (pop. 479).

first appeared: 11/4/2007

—At the end of the year, the state will prohibit the sale of U.S. flags that are made outside of the United States. Violations are punishable with a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail.

first appeared: 10/21/2007

—Built on a hilltop near Hampton (pop. 986) is one of the nation’s largest Cambodian Buddhist temples. The 50-foot-high ornate temple took five years to build and replicates the traditional holy structures of Southeast Asia.

first appeared: 10/7/2007

—“America’s Greatest Thinker” is Joe Kaiser, a Minneapolis musician and arts administrator, who won the 2007 Great American Think-Off in New York Mills (pop. 1,158). The national philosophy contest gives ordinary people a chance to voice their opinions on life’s perplexing questions. Kaiser argued that a person should trust the heart, more than the head, in making decisions.

first appeared: 9/30/2007

—The Steamboat Minnehaha gliding on Lake Minnetonka between Excelsior (pop. 2,393) and Wayzata (pop. 4,113) is an early 1900s “streetcar boat,” built by the Twin City Rapid Transit Co. The steamboat resembles a streetcar, right down to its split-cane seats.

first appeared: 9/9/2007

—The oldest human remains found in the state belonged to the Browns Valley Man, who lived about 9,000 years ago. His remains were discovered in 1933 in a gravel pit near Browns Valley (pop. 690).

first appeared: 8/26/2007

—Completed in 1929 and modeled on the Washington Monument, the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis was the first skyscraper built west of the Mississippi River.

first appeared: 8/19/2007

—The state’s oldest library, the Minnesota State Law Library in St. Paul, was created in 1849 in a small tavern room. Today, the library occupies more than 33,000 square feet in the Minnesota Judicial Center.

first appeared: 8/12/2007

—The state is the first to adopt an official state mushroom. In 1984, the morel mushroom, also known as the sponge mushroom or honeycomb mushroom, became the official state fungus.

first appeared: 7/15/2007

—Underwater Adventures Aquarium, located beneath the Mall of America in Bloomington, teems with 4,500 sea creatures, including sharks, stingrays and sea turtles, in 1.2 million gallons of water.

first appeared: 7/1/2007

—In Aitkin (pop. 1,984), fishermen decorate their ice fishing shacks and parade them down Main Street during the wacky World Famous Fish House Parade on the day after Thanksgiving.

first appeared: 6/17/2007

—In 1903, civic leaders were inspired by the brilliant northern lights above their new town and named it Aurora (pop. 1,850).

first appeared: 6/3/2007

—Pioneers and Civil War soldiers aren’t forgotten by Korean War veteran Charles Rieland of Delano (pop. 3,837), who scours old cemeteries and overgrown burial sites in Wright County and nearby counties for unmarked graves. His research has led to marking the graves of more than 85 veterans and 200 pioneers with headstones and crosses.

first appeared: 5/28/2007

—Music legend Bob Dylan, 65, made history as the oldest person to launch an album in the No. 1 spot with Modern Times, which sold 192,000 copies in its first week last September. Dylan was born Robert Zimmerman in 1941 in Duluth.

first appeared: 5/6/2007

—Jim Kramer, 48, a proofreader from Roseville (pop. 33,690), put his letter-perfect skills to use and won the 2006 U.S. Scrabble Open and $25,000.

first appeared: 4/22/2007

—The original Lois Lane in The Adventures of Superman movie in 1948 was Noel Neill, born in 1920 in Minneapolis. Thirty years later, she played Lois Lane’s mother in Superman: The Movie, and last year, Neill played dying heiress Gertrude Vanderworth in Superman Returns.

first appeared: 4/8/2007

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