This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this week.

Feb. 21

2005 Three Minnesota National Guardsmen—David Day of St. Louis Park, Jesse Lhotka of Appleton, and Jason Timmerman of Tracy—are killed in Iraq, marking the deadliest day for Minnesota soldiers since Vietnam. Lhotka is credited with saving a fellow guardsman’s life and helping evacuate another soldier before being killed by the roadside blast.

Feb. 22

1855 The Mississippi, Pillager, and Lake Winnibigoshish bands of Ojibwe sign a treaty ceding to the U.S. government a major portion of heavily wooded north-central Minnesota, in which lumbering companies had expressed a keen interest. The treaty establishes reservations at Leech Lake and Mille Lacs.

1980 The United States Olympic hockey team defeats the Soviet Union team in a game that becomes known as the Miracle on Ice. The U.S. team went on to win gold in the tournament.

Feb. 23

1892 Watson’s Colored Chorus, an African American musical group with 250 singers from Minneapolis and St. Paul, gives a concert featuring “Choruses, Glees, Banjo, Guitar and Vocal Solos, Jubilees and Plantation Songs” at Minneapolis’s Lyceum Theater. Reserved seats cost 50 cents.

Feb. 24

1858 Minnesota is nicknamed the “Gopher State.” The first state legislature had guaranteed a $5 million loan to railroad interests, and a cartoon showing a railroad car of corrupt men being pulled by nine striped rodents with human heads, representing the people of the territory, is printed on this date. It has been said that the term “Gopher State” gained traction because of the cartoon, though the term had been in use in newspapers in the territorial days due to the abundance of gophers in the region.

1925 Minnesota loses two and a half acres of water area from the Northwest Angle (the northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods) when the United States and Canada sign an agreement that more accurately defines the international boundary between the two countries established by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.

Feb. 26

1857 Territorial delegate Henry M. Rice succeeds in lobbying Congress to pass the enabling act for the state of Minnesota. This act defines the state’s boundaries and authorizes the establishment of a state government.

1985 Minneapolis native Prince is celebrated at the Grammy Awards as the album “Purple Rain” earns awards for best soundtrack, best rock performance, and best R&B song.

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