This week in history

Historic Minnesota events with anniversaries this week.

Sept. 18

1902 Aurelia Wheeldin, one of the earliest female African American boxers, is born in Minnesota. She would study music at Macalester College, earn recognition as a world female champion bantamweight, and eventually move to New York City and perform in musicals at the Apollo Theater.

Sept. 19

1865 Gov. Stephen Miller announces that gold has been found near Vermilion Lake, based on a rock collected by state geologist Henry H. Eames. A gold rush begins but comes to nothing, as no sizeable amount of gold is ever found in the area.

1926 The Duluth Eskimos professional football team defeats the Kansas City Cowboys 7-0 in their only home game of the season. The Eskimos had been designated a "road team," but they still compiled a 19-7-3 record in two years of play. Players Ernie Nevers (born in nearby Willow River), Johnny McNally, and Walt Kiesling are now in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Before taking the name "Eskimos," the team was known as the Kelly-Duluths after their sponsor, Kelly Duluth Hardware Store.

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.

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