Minnesota Trivia & Tidbits

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

—A popular treat in Tyler (pop. 1,218) are aebleskivers, Danish pancakes shaped like tennis balls, often filled with fruit, and cooked in special aebleskiver pans. The town holds an Aebleskiver Days festival in July.

first appeared: 9/21/2008

—The official state fruit is the honeycrisp apple, developed by University of Minnesota plant breeders, and popular for its crispy and juicy texture.

first appeared: 9/7/2008

—Karlstad (pop. 794) proclaims itself the “Moose Capital of the North.” Swedish settlers named the town after Karlstad, Sweden.

first appeared: 8/24/2008

—The 14,000-acre Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Bloomington is near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport and the Mall of America, and is one of a handful of urban wildlife refuges in the United States.

first appeared: 8/10/2008

—Immigrants from Luxembourg founded Rollingstone (pop. 697), and the town’s former city hall, built in 1900, now houses the Rollingstone Luxembourg Heritage Museum.

first appeared: 7/27/2008

—Married in 1925, Clarence and Mayme Vail of White Bear Lake (pop. 24,325) celebrated their 83rd wedding anniversary in February, making them among the longest married couples in the nation.

first appeared: 7/13/2008

—Since 1897, the 102-foot Hermann Monument of a German folk hero with upraised sword has adorned a hilltop in the German settlement of New Ulm (pop. 13,594). In 2000, Congress designated the Hermann Monument to be an official symbol for the contributions of Americans of German heritage.

first appeared: 6/29/2008

—For 50 years, Ed Krueger of Wykoff (pop. 460) saved everything—magazines, matchbooks, junk mail, his gallstones and a dead cat—and upon his death in 1989 willed his entire collection to the town. Ed’s Museum is an autobiography of one man’s life.

first appeared: 6/15/2008

—In 1878, Swedish immigrant Alfred Josephson opened Josephson’s Clothing Store in Red Wing (pop. 16,116). The store, with its original cabinets and old pine floor, is believed to be the oldest men’s clothing store in the state.

first appeared: 6/1/2008

—Founded in 1910, Olsen Fish Co. in Minneapolis is the world’s largest lutefisk processor. The company processes about 650,000 pounds of the Norwegian dried cod each year, then ships it mostly to Scandinavian communities across the nation for lutefisk suppers held during the Christmas season.

first appeared: 5/18/2008

—Minneapolis ranks No. 1 in a study of “America’s Most Literate Cities” of 2007. The annual ranking of reading habits in major U.S. cities examines newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment and Internet resources.

first appeared: 5/4/2008

—The fabric roof on the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis is 10 acres of Teflon-coated fiberglass and requires 20 electric fans, blowing 250,000 cubic feet of air pressure per minute, to remain inflated. Spectators enter through revolving doors that prevent release of the air that keeps the dome upright.

first appeared: 3/9/2008

—The state’s coldest day on record was set on Feb. 2, 1996, when the thermometer dropped to minus 60 degrees in Tower.

first appeared: 2/24/2008

—The total area of Orono (pop. 7,538) is about 24 square miles. Land area is 16 square miles and lake area is about 8 square miles.

first appeared: 2/10/2008

—Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing has been brightening white laundry since 1883 and is manufactured in Bloomington. A traveling salesman, Al Stewart, began mixing the liquid bluing in his home in the 1870s and sold the rights to the formula to Luther Ford in 1883.

first appeared: 1/27/2008

—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

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