This week in history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this week.

Sept. 11

1971 The first Minnesota Renaissance Festival opens at Lake Grace in Jonathan. One of the largest of its kind, the festival now operates from a permanent encampment near Shakopee. The 2020 run was canceled as the Covid-19 pandemic continues.

Sept. 13

1930 Duluth’s municipal airport is dedicated, and a crowd of 15,000 attends the ceremony and air show.

Sept. 14

1996 The first NorthShore Inline Marathon is held in Duluth. The Rollerblades brand of inline skates is a Minnesota creation: Scott and Brennan Olson designed them so hockey players could practice off the ice.

Sept. 16

1996 Henry Charles Boucha is inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. An Ojibwe man born in Warroad on June 1, 1951, Boucha was a star player on the U.S. Olympic team and played professional hockey for the Detroit Red Wings and the Minnesota North Stars. An eye injury forced him to retire early.

Sept. 17

1885 Civil War veterans of Company B of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment form the Last Man’s Club, meeting yearly at the Sawyer House in Stillwater. They preserve a bottle of wine to be opened by the last survivor, who would be Charles M. Lockwood, the sole attendee of the 1930 banquet.

1887 A near-riot occurs in the grandstand of the Minnesota State Fair during a Civil War reenactment. The mock battle breaks all previous attendance records for a grandstand event, with 80,000 people in the stands (and 20,000 more watching from Machinery Hill). The event is fraught with fears of the grandstand collapsing, fights for seats, and injuries from the mock battle itself.

1961 The Minnesota Vikings football team plays its first game, beating the Chicago Bears 37-13 at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington.

This column is derived from MNopedia.org and developed by the Minnesota Historical Society.