Historical Societies Near Me in Foreston
Cokato Finnish American Historical Society
Temperance Corner, 2016 CoRd 3 SW, Cokato, MN
Mill City Museum
704 South Second Street, Minneapolis, MN
Mission Statement
Mill City Museum creates opportunities to discover the people and industries that built Minneapolis, transformed a region and influenced our world.
The Bakken Museum
3537 Zenith Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN
About us:
The Bakken Museum inspires a passion for innovation by exploring the potential for science, technology, and the humanities to make the world a better place. Located on the West shore of Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis, the museum features a world-renowned collection of artifacts, exceptional education programs, exhibits exploring the wonders of invention, plant medicine, technology, and science, and the Florence Bakken Medicinal Garden. For more information, visit thebakken.org.
Minnesota Streetcar Museum
2330 West 42nd Street, Minneapolis, MN
Como-Harriet Streetcar Line History
To read A Brief History of Transit in the Twin Cities, click here.
Construction of the streetcar system in Minneapolis began in 1875 when the Minneapolis Street Railway built 4.37 miles of track beginning at Washington and Hennepin Avenues in downtown Minneapolis. The ten cars that plied these rails had a ten foot long passenger compartment that could hold fourteen passengers, had four wheels, weighed about a thousand pounds, and were drawn by horses.
In 1879, an independent company, the Lyndale Railway Co., later renamed the Minneapolis, Lyndale, & Minnetonka Railway Co., began operation of a three foot gauge line from Minneapolis to Lake Calhoun along Nicollet Avenue and 31st St. Short trains were pulled by two 0-4-2 type steam engines enclosed in streetcar-like wooden bodies. West of Hennepin Avenue, the line ran on a curving private right-of-way. In 1880, the line was extended to Lake Harriet and to Excelsior on Lake Minnetonka in July of 1882. In those early days of horse-drawn carriages and dirt roads, the lakes were popular resort and tourist destinations and the railway saw a golden opportunity to make money providing transportation to lake-goers.
The company, however, was never healthy financially, and a decline in lake tourist traffic brought about sale to James J. Hill's St. Paul, Minneapolis, & Manitoba, a predecessor of the Great Northern Railway, in 1886. The track was widened to standard gauge and extended to Hutchinson, but service from Lake Harriet to Hopkins was discontinued. Further financial pressures related to the unpopularity of steam locomotives on city streets prompted a thirty-year lease to the Minneapolis Street Railway in 1887. Service was further trimmed back to Lake Calhoun and the Lake Harriet- Excelsior trackage was abandoned.
In 1889, the first electrically powered streetcars were introduced to the Twin Cities. Small four-wheeled affairs, they looked very much like the horse-drawn and steam-powered cars they replaced. These new electric cars were superior to both. In 1891 the line was electrified and standard-gauged to Lake Harriet and the old steam trains were sold. A pavilion was constructed on Lake Harriet at W. 42nd St., and the line terminated at a loop there. Forty powerful carbon-arc lamps were attached to the trolley wire poles on the Lake Calhoun to Lake Harriet section as a scenic attraction.
With the lease of the steam line came its shops at 31st Street and Nicollet Avenue. The Twin City Rapid Transit Company, successor to the Minneapolis Street Railway, decided this was a wonderful shop location and made many improvements. Between 1898 and 1907, when the Snelling Shops in St. Paul opened, it was the main shop on the system, and many of the system's streetcars were constructed here.
Effective January 2, 1892, the Minneapolis Street Railway and the St. Paul City Railway began consolidated operations as wholly-owned subsidiaries of a new holding company, the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, generally known at Twin City Lines.
In February 1903, the pavilion on Lake Harriet was destroyed by fire and a new one was built and operated by the Park Board. TCRT constructed the Linden Hills station reproduced by the Museum at the W. 42nd St. crossing in 1900, replacing it in 1914 with the chalet-style structure that lasted until the end of streetcar service.
In 1904, TCRT saw an opportunity to develop the Lake Minnetonka area for the working and middle class public and to provide transportation for local residents. Much of the original steam railway right-of-way was repurchased, resurveyed, and regraded for high-speed operation. By 1906, double track was laid from the end of the Lake Harriet line to Excelsior. Steam railroad branch lines to Deephaven and Tonka Bay were acquired and incorporated into the new line. TCRT also maintained an amusement park on Big Island and a fleet of steamboats that provided service on Lake Minnetonka until 1926. One of these, the Minnehaha, has been raised from the lake bottom and is operated today by the Museum of Lake Minnetonka from the docks in Excelsior and Wayzata.
By the great depression, profits from the Lake Minnetonka line fell off enough that further operation was not warranted. Accordingly, in August 1932 the line was abandoned beyond Hopkins.
Operationally, the private right-of-way between the lakes hosted a number of different streetcar routes:
Starting in 1892, the "Lake Harriet" line from the Lake Harriet loop to the High Street loop (downtown) via Hennepin Avenue.
With the construction of the second Minneapolis-St. Paul link in 1898, the "Como-Interurban-Harriet" line from the Lake Harriet loop to Lake Como following Hennepin Avenue, 4th Street, 15th Avenue, Como Avenue, past the fairgrounds and through Como Park on private right-of-way, to downtown St. Paul. In 1909, service was extended west to a new loop at 44th Street and France Avenue, though it was still called the "Como-Harriet" line.
From 1902 to 1905, a Sundays and holidays-only special "Lake Harriet and Minnehaha Falls" line. Route unknown.
With the extension to Lake Minnetonka, the "Lake Minnetonka," "Tonka Bay," and "Deephaven" services were started from downtown Minneapolis to Excelsior, Tonka Bay, and Deephaven, respectively. The "Como-Harriet" line also ran supplemental service to Hopkins as the "Como-Hopkins" line.
Starting in 1910, service on the "Oak-Hennepin" line was extended to the Lake Harriet loop and renamed the "Oak-Harriet" line. In 1913 this was further extended to Xerxes Ave. and 50th St and renamed the "Oak-Xerxes" line.
Late in 1949, New York City investor Charles Green gained control of TCRT. Determined to squeeze dividends from a company that traditionally reinvested its profits in system improvements, Green discontinued the rebuilding program, trimmed maintenance to a minimum, laid off hundreds of employees, relentlessly cut schedules, and announced a goal of complete conversion to buses by 1958. His heavy-handed policies so alienated the public that in 1951 he was ousted and control passed to his local partner Fred Ossanna. Mr. Ossanna introduced further economy measures and continued to reduce service as patronage dropped. A Los Angeles expert on conversion to buses, Barney Larrick, was hired and the system was completely converted by 1954. Several years later it became known that Ossanna and associates had pillaged TCRT for illegal personal profit. They were tried and sentenced to prison terms.
The remaining private right-of-way between the lakes lasted until the very end of streetcar service. The 3.3 miles from Brookside Avenue in Edina to Hopkins were removed in 1951. The rest resisted abandonment until the end of streetcar operations in 1954. The right-of-way sat idle until 1970 when the Minnesota Transportation Museum leased it from the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and began rebuilding the line.
Service resumed in 1971 with TCRT Streetcar No. 1300 operating on one block of track connecting W. 42nd St. to the car barn at Linden Hills Parkway. With no trolley wire, a gas-powered trailer provided electricity until the overhead wire was installed in 1973. The line was extended, to the William Berry Parkway bridge in 1972, beyond the bridge to the end of the old right-of-way in 1973, and to the current northern terminal on the southeast shore of Lake Calhoun by 1977. Additional streetcars soon joined No. 1300: Duluth No. 265 in 1982 after a nine-year restoration, Duluth single-trucker No. 78 in 1991 after a six and a half year restoration, and former TCRT streamlined PCC No. 322 in 2000 after a ten-year restoration. Other improvements have been made as well. The Linden Hills station opened in 1991, a reproduction of the 1900 station, and the Linden Hills Carbarn and Shops were expanded in 1980, 1984, and 1996 to house the growing fleet.
The Minnesota Streetcar Museum was created in December 2004 as part of the restructuring of the Minnesota Transportation Museum, which "spun off" its streetcar and steamboat operations to MSM and the Museum of Lake Minnetonka respectively during the winter of 2004-2005. Â MTM now focuses on railroading. Â It was founded in 1962 to preserve Twin City Lines streetcar No. 1300 and, over the years, expanded into a multi-modal transportation museum preserving buses, a steamboat, streetcars, trains, and several railroad-related buildings.
The Museum was awarded a $440,000 federal grant under the Transportation Efficiency Act for the 21st Century ("TEA-21") that allowed for a complete reconstruction of the track and other improvements to the property during the summer of 2005
The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line and streetcar No. 1300 are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The line operates through the cooperation of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
Information from The Electric Railways of Minnesota, by Russell L. Olson. Published by the Minnesota Transportation Museum.
Bell Museum Of Natural History
2088 Larpenteur Avenue West, Saint Paul, MN
Mission:
Inspire, explore, create
We are Minnesota’s official natural history museum, established by the legislature in 1872 and held in trust by the University of Minnesota. For over a century, the museum has preserved and interpreted our state’s rich natural history and served learners of all ages through hands-on experiences at the intersection of the sciences, arts, and humanities. Additionally, our scientific collections contain over one million specimens, representing every county in Minnesota and various locales around the globe.
As Minnesota’s state natural history museum, our mission is to ignite curiosity and wonder, explore our connections to nature and the universe, and create a better future for our evolving world.
The Bell Museum is part of the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. Below is a collection of guiding goals, to help steer both long and short-term decision making:
- Educate and connect people to our natural world and universe
- Provide a world class facility for learning
- Improve facility access, and expand and diversify the museum’s audience
- Diversify revenue sources by increasing earned revenue and strengthening fundraising
- Combine the use of technology with excellent educators to create dynamic experiences
- Engage diverse audiences with innovative programming
- Develop new partnerships and expand our horizons through collaboration
- Create enhanced diorama experiences
Diversity and Inclusion:
We believe it is essential to create an inclusive environment that welcomes and empowers people from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities to have equitable access the museum’s resources as well as opportunities to transform our work. We are committed to upholding the diversity, equity, and inclusion definitions and values set forth by the CFANS and the University of Minnesota.
These values will be integrated in all aspects of the museum, including:
- Hiring, recruitment, retention, and advancement of staff and volunteers
- Selection and evaluation of program and exhibition content
- Providing meaningful opportunities to participate in planning and leadership
Minnesota Children's Museum
10 West Seventh Street, Saint Paul, MN
Mission: Sparking children’s learning through play.
Minnesota Children's Museum is dedicated to providing children with a fun, hands-on and stimulating environment to explore and discover. The Museum helps to instill a life-long love of learning by nurturing the real-world skills children need to become engaged citizens in the future.
The Museum, in operation since 1981, embraces these core concepts:
- Early learning is the foundation for lifelong learning.
- Families are our children’s first teachers.
- All children deserve a time and place to be children.
- Diverse perspectives enrich children’s lives.
- Play is learning.
Science Museum Of Minnesota
120 West Kellogg Boulevard, Saint Paul, MN
Mission:
To invite learners of all ages to experience their changing world through science.
About The Museum:
The Science Museum of Minnesota, founded in 1907, is a large regional science museum located on the banks of the Mississippi River in downtown St. Paul. The Science Museum's programs combine research and collection facilities, a public science education center, extensive teacher education and school outreach programs, and an Imax Convertible Dome Omnitheater to provide science education to our audience of more than a million people per year.
On December 11, 1999, the Science Museum opened its new 370,000-square-foot facility built into the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River. The new museum's 70,000 square feet of exhibition space includes a 10,000 square foot temporary exhibit gallery and five permanent exhibition halls covering the topics of paleontology, physical sciences and technology, the human body, peoples and cultures, and the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River flows just outside the windows of the new Museum and past the museum's ten acres of outdoor exhibits and programming space. The Science Museum of Minnesota employs over 600 full and part time staff and is supported by more than 1,000 dedicated volunteers.
The Science Museum of Minnesota is known worldwide for its interactive exhibits, dynamic traveling exhibitions, and internationally distributed large format films. The Museum was an early innovator in the use of live theater as a humanizing interpretive tool and continues to be a training ground for other museums wishing to include live programming in their exhibit halls. The museum provides innovative staff development programs for teachers throughout the region, science education outreach programs for K-12 classrooms, and partners with the St. Paul Public School district to operate a K-6 Museum Magnet School. The Science Museum constantly explores and implements new technologies to educate our audience about science. The Science Museum's research and collections division and St. Croix Watershed Research Station provide significant ongoing scientific research in the areas of anthropology, paleontology, biology, and environmental sciences.
A Brief History:
The beginning of the Science Museum of Minnesota can be traced to a luncheon at the Minnesota Club in 1906 when a small group of St. Paul businessmen, headed by Charles W. Ames, met to discuss "the intellectual and scientific growth of St. Paul." Ames proposed a series of free lectures on hygiene and sanitation, and Thomas Irvine pledged financial support. Thus the St. Paul Institute of Science and Letters was born, later to become the Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM).
The institute's first home was in the St. Paul Auditorium on Fourth Street. Thousands of scientific specimens and valuable collections were offered as gifts, including a mummy shipped from Egypt by a vacationing St. Paul couple. Upon incorporation in 1907, the institute received its first collections of scientific interest from the St. Paul Academy of Natural Sciences. These became the nucleus of SMM's extensive collections.
In 1927 the museum moved to the Merriam Mansion on Capitol hill, the former home of Col. John Merriam. In less than a decade this became overcrowded and an auditorium and exhibition hall were added and opened in 1936.
SMM continued to outgrow its facilities. In 1964 a new building was opened at 30 East Tenth Street, which housed SMM and other member agencies of the St. Paul-Ramsey Arts and Science Council. In 1978 SMM completed a major expansion program and opened a new building in an adjacent block, which included three new exhibit halls and the William L. McKnight-3M Omnitheater.
In the early 1990s, the board of trustees and museum staff began plans for a new facility. Located on St. Paul's riverfront, the new museum and its expanding programs are designed to fulfill SMM's mission and values well into the new century.
North Shore Scenic Railroad
506 West Michigan Street, Duluth, MN
History:
The North Shore Scenic Railroad operates excursions along the historic Lakefront Line, a 26-mile section of rail between Duluth and Two Harbors. This rail corridor served a vital link in the transportation system for over 100 years. Known originally as the Lake Division, it connected the isolated Duluth and Iron Range Railway with America's expanding rail network. In 1886, when the Lakefront Line was first built, it was joined by a one-mile extension of the St. Paul and Duluth Railway at Fifth Avenue East in Duluth, providing the D&IR with access to downtown Duluth as well as to other railroad carriers at the Head of the Lakes.
As the iron ore industry developed in Minnesota, this new connection provided an all-rail route for the timely delivery of supplies, materials, and personnel to the rapidly growing settlements of the Vermilion Range. It also played a critical role in the development of the Mesabi Range. Before the Lake Division was constructed, prospectors, explorers, and entrepreneurs interested in the exciting prospects of the Mesabi Range had to travel over long and dangerous routes, either by canoe on the St. Louis-Embarrass River chain or on foot or horseback over the Vermilion Trail. From 1886 until 1892, when construction of the Duluth, Mesabi and Northern Railway was finally completed, all transportation moved over the Duluth and Iron Range Railway and its Lake Division to the boom town, Mesabi, where travelers and their supplies were transferred to horse and wagon for a bumpy journey over the Mesabi Trail to the far reaches of the Mesabi Range.
Over the years the Lake Division became known as the Lakefront Line. During its long history, a general merchandise train, the Ely Local, transported freight from Endion Yard to Two Harbors and to communities on the Vermilion Range. Cars destined for Mesabi Range cities were set out at Two Harbors to be carried to their destinations by the Virginia Local. During the heyday of logging, thousands of trains carried pine logs to the sawmills in Duluth. One of the principal log suppliers was the Duluth and Northern Minnesota Railroad, which interchanged trains with the D&IR Railway on the Lakefront Line at Knife River. Pulpwood shipments continued over the line until the late 1970s, when highly-competitive over-the-road trucks became the chosen mode of transportation.
Lake Superior Maritime Museum
600 South Lake Avenue, Duluth, MN
The LSMMA seeks:
To preserve the maritime heritage of Lake Superior and the Port of Duluth-Superior
To cooperate with the Corps of Engineers so as to acquire, preserve and exhibit maritime artifacts, documents, publications, and photographs
To fund development and presentation of educational and promotional programs, events, and publications pertaining to Lake Superior, the Great Lakes, and St. Lawrence Seaway System
To support the Lake Superior Maritime Collection at the University of Wisconsin-Superior
To assist other organizations in promoting and protecting our maritime heritage
To achieve the above with a growing membership of involved citizens who will provide financial resources through their membership and activities
Karpeles Manuscript Library And Museum
902 East First Street, Duluth, MN
Vision & Mission
The Karpeles Manuscript Library collection preserves more than a million historical documents in the categories of literature, science, religion, political history, exploration, music, and art.
David and Marsha Karpeles founded Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum in 1983 with the mission to share their love of history and learning, to inspire curiosity in others, and to promote education and literacy.
By sharing the writings of authors, scientists, composers, philosophers, artists, sovereigns, leaders, and pioneers from all periods in history with the world, David and Marsha envisioned exposing future generations to the achievements of those who came before them so as to instill a sense of purpose and the courage to pursue their own dreams and goals without fear of failure, but rather with hope, pride, and fulfillment.
Spam Museum
1101 North Main Street, Austin, MN
When the first blue and yellow cans came off the production line in 1937, the world was forever changed. No one would have guessed back then, but the revolutionary new product became a war hero, a pop culture icon and an American institution.
Over the years, the SPAM® Family of Products has made itself known around the world, winning over the hearts of soldiers, world leaders, chefs, kids and parents alike. In fact, Gracie Allen, Dwight Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher and Monty Python all have sung praises of the SPAM® Brand.
From the first can to the seven billionth, SPAM® products have remained a versatile, high-quality and great-tasting meal-time favorite. They have also changed to meet the needs of an ever-changing marketplace. The SPAM® Family of Products appeals to the varied tastes and lifestyles of people around the world.