This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this coming week.

Jan. 3

1905 The Minnesota legislature meets for the first time in the state capitol building designed by Cass Gilbert.

1916 Maxene Andrews is born in Minneapolis. With her sisters LaVerne (born July 6, 1911) and Patty (Feb. 26, 1918), she would form the Andrews Sisters singing group, known as “America’s wartime sweethearts” and remembered for their 1941 hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

1940 The Marlborough Apartment Hotel burns in Minneapolis, leaving at least four people missing, 25 in hospitals, and 19 dead. Apparently caused by a burning cigarette thrown down a garbage chute, the fire is described by the Minneapolis Journal as the worst catastrophe in the city since the explosion of the Washburn “A” Mill on May 2, 1878. It is the deadliest fire in the city’s history.

Jan. 4

1854 The Territorial Agricultural Society holds its first meeting. This group evolves into the State Agricultural Society, governing body of the Minnesota State Fair.

Jan. 5

1892 Mining classes begin at the University of Minnesota, as professor William R. Appleby instructs a class of four.

Jan. 6

1976 After presiding over the Reserve Mining lawsuit for two and a half years, judge Miles Lord is removed from the appeals case because he was thought to have a bias against the company. He had ruled earlier that Reserve Mining should be barred from dumping taconite tailings into Lake Superior at the plant in Silver Bay because of health risks.

1996 Maude Kegg, elder of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and author of books on her childhood and Ojibwe stories, dies. Born on August 26, 1904, she was raised in the traditional Ojibwe culture. Kegg worked for the Minnesota Historical Society at the Mille Lacs Indian Museum and Trading Post for many years. She acted as a docent and tour guide, and helped create a large diorama of Ojibwe seasonal life, making every artifact in the exhibit.

Jan. 7

1873 The Blizzard of 1873 strikes, with temperatures of 49 degrees below zero and winds of 75 miles per hour. Over the next two days, at least 70 people die in the western and southern parts of the state. Conditions are so blinding that in New Ulm, a boy who had to cross the street from a barn to his home is found frozen eight miles away, and a rural man and his ox team freeze to death just 10 feet from his house.

Jan. 8

1851 Bagone-giizhig (Hole-in-the-Day), an Ojibwe leader, sends a letter to the Minnesota territorial legislature inviting its members to come to a St. Paul church and hear him speak about the sufferings and needs of his people and their desire for peace. “They are like some poor animal driven into a hole, and condemned to die,” he will say, inspiring some of the most influential whites in the territory to form a committee to solicit contributions for the Ojibwe.

1934 During the Great Depression, the U.S. Supreme Court upholds a Minnesota mortgage moratorium law, a decision that state Attorney General Harry H. Peterson applauds as a “victory for the people of Minnesota that will enable many farmers and city dwellers to hold onto their homes until good times return.” The law extended the time period in which borrowers could pay back their debts on property to lenders.

Jan. 9

1977 In its fourth Super Bowl appearance in eight years, the Minnesota Vikings football team loses for the fourth time, to the Oakland Raiders, 32‒14. The team hasn’t been in a Super Bowl since.

This column is derived from MNopedia, an online project at mnopedia.org. and developed by the Minnesota Historical Society and its partners.