This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events that took place July 26-Aug. 1.

July 27

1972 Kidnappers abduct Virginia Piper, wife of investment banker Harry C. Piper, Jr., from her home. The Minneapolis woman is released near Duluth after a ransom of one million dollars is paid, at the time the highest such payment ever made.

July 29

1927 Beardsley sets a state record for high temperature: 114 degrees. Moorhead would equal it on July 6, 1936.

July 30

1805 Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike receives orders to seek the headwaters of the Mississippi River and to find a location for a fort somewhere on the upper reaches of the river. Pike would not locate the source of the river, but he did choose a site for what would become Fort Snelling.

July 31

1884 The state’s first rail shipment of iron ore, from the Soudan Mine, reaches Two Harbors.

1910 Split Rock Lighthouse opens. Built in response to a 1905 storm that sank twenty-six ships on Lake Superior, at first it can be reached only by boat.

Aug. 1

1870 The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad inaugurates rail travel between St. Paul and Duluth.

1989 Duluth holds its first Bayfront Blues Festival. 2007 The Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapses during the evening rush hour. Thirteen people are killed and 145 are injured.

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.