This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events that took place Sept. 20-26:

Sept. 20

1891 August Schell, founder of August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, dies of a heart attack in St. Paul. Born in Durbach, Germany, in 1828, Schell moved to Minnesota in 1856 and four years later, with Jacob Bernhardt, founded a small brewery on the banks of the Cottonwood River. The brewery is still run by the Schell family, producing award-winning beers in the German tradition.

Sept. 21

1805 Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike, reaching the mouth of the Mni Sota Wakpa (Minnesota River), stops at Wita Tanka (later called Pike Island after him) and raises the Stars and Stripes inside present-day Minnesota for what is believed to be the first time.

Sept. 23

1805 A group of Mdewakanton Dakota, led by Little Crow (grandfather of the warrior of 1862) and Way Aga Enagee, sells two pieces of land, a total of 100,000 acres, to Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike for $2,000 and 60 gallons of whiskey. This agreement marks the first land cession by the Dakota and the first land purchase in what would become the state of Minnesota.

1862 Soldiers under General Henry H. Sibley defeat Dakota warriors in the Battle of Wood Lake in Yellow Medicine County. Although this battle traditionally marks the end of the U.S.-Dakota War, Sibley and General Alfred Sully would undertake punitive expeditions against the Dakota the following year.

Sept. 24

1963 President John F. Kennedy speaks at the University of Minnesota at Duluth on the subject of high unemployment in the northern Great Lakes area, where joblessness was about twice the national average.

Sept. 25

1937 Ironton thug John Henry Seadlund and accomplice James Atwood Gray kidnap Charles Sherman Ross in Chicago. Ross was a 72-year-old retired president of the George S. Carrington Greeting Card Manufacturing Company. The kidnappers demand a $50,000 ransom from their hideout near Emily, Minnesota. In the end, Seadlund murders Ross and Gray at a location north of Spooner, Wisconsin. Seadlund would be captured at a racetrack in California and executed by order of the state of Illinois in 1938.

Sept. 26

1862 Dakota who had opposed the 1862 war gain control of 269 white captives and release them to General Henry H. Sibley at a location marked by Camp Release Monument in Lac qui Parle County.

This column is derived from MNopedia,an online project that has a “This Day in Minnesota History” feature on its website, mnopedia.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.