This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events that took place July 19-25.

July 19

1982 Relatives and friends of Robert Asp sail his replica Viking ship Hjemkomst into the harbor of Bergen, Norway, completing a journey from the Great Lakes. The ship is later installed in the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center in Moorhead.

July 20

1837 Bagone-giizhig (Hole-in-the-Day the Younger), Flat Mouth, Lawrence Taliaferro, Henry H. Sibley, Wisconsin governor Henry Dodge, and others meet at Fort Snelling to negotiate the sale of Ojibwe lands east of the Mississippi River. About 1,400 Ojibwe camp near the fort during negotiations. In the treaty, signed on July 29, the Ojibwe agree to sell the land to the federal government for $215,000. This treaty is notable for two reasons: it marked the first opening of Minnesota land to white settler-colonists, and it allowed the Ojibwe to retain their rights to hunt, fish, and gather foods in the ceded lands. The fishing clause would lead to a lengthy legal dispute in the 1990s.

1907 The Western Federation of Miners calls a strike on the Mesabi Iron Range. Two hundred union men had been laid off from Mountain Iron Mine, owned by the Oliver Mining Company, a subsidiary of US Steel. Although layoffs on the range were common, at issue was recognition of the union, which was threatened by the discharge of only union workers. Within two months a large number of imported scabs undermine the union’s efforts and the strike is broken.

July 21

1856 James J. Hill arrives in St. Paul to work as a shipping clerk for J. W. Bass and Company. He would eventually make his fortune as a railroad baron and business tycoon.

July 24

1997 Pitcher Ila Borders of the Duluth Dukes is the first woman to win a men’s regular season professional baseball game. The Dukes beat the Sioux Falls Canaries 3-1, in Duluth.

This column comes courtesy of MNopedia, an online encyclopedia project that has a “This Day in Minnesota History” feature on its website, mn opedia.org. Developed by the Minnesota Historical Society and its partners, it is a free, curated, and authoritative resource about state history. The information here is culled from “The Minnesota Book of Days,” published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.