To find Excelsior’s segment of the Yellowstone Trail, head west on Highway 7, turn right on Eureka Road, right on Mann Lane, right on Seamans Drive. You’ll practically be back on Highway 7 as the road curves into the Yellowstone Trail. [...]
Local artist Paul F. Johnson completed this watercolor titled Heffelfinger Fountain in 1952. The Heffelfinger Fountain resides in Lake Harriet’s Rose Garden. It is around ten feet tall and made of bronze with a marble basin. Decorated with fauns and satyrs, the [...]
Basset Creek Watershed, image credit Bassett Creek Watershed Management Commission The Forgotten History of Bassett Creek by John Davenport, HHM Volunteer To many residents of Minneapolis, Bassett Creek, or Bassett’s Creek, is either unknown or unfamiliar, but has quite an [...]
Before Marian Anderson was denied Constitution Hall, Minneapolis’ Dyckman Hotel refused the famous contralto lodging by Jokeda “JoJo” Bell Marian Anderson’s most famous challenge to American Jim Crow occurred during her April 9, 1939, performance at the Lincoln Memorial. After the Daughters [...]
Mr. James (Mike) Andrews, Field Elementary School social scienceteacher and woodshop teacher. MOST PEOPLE CAN RECALL a teacher who made a difference in their lives, someone who treated them with respect and believed in them. For me and many others [...]
Photo courtesy Irac Nathanson. By Iric Nathason When Minneapolis skyways first appeared in the early 1960s, local skeptics questioned the long-term viability of these new pedestrian walkways that spanned downtown streets. But skeptics were won over as skyways began to [...]
“I get such a bang out of things the way that they are that I’ve always tried to paint them that way.” - Josephine Lutz Rollins, 1964. Josephine Lutz Rollins (1896-1989) was a local artist renowned for her talent in watercolors. She [...]
Image from HHM Collections This Leeann Chin duffel bag from Hennepin History Museum’s collection is a memento of restaurateur Leeann Chin’s legacy. Leeann Chin was a seamstress, the founder of a successful restaurant chain, and an active member of our [...]
In the Hennepin History Museum there is one of three small 1917 reproductions of Jacob Fjelde’s famous statue Hiawatha and Minnehaha. Some of you may have visited the much larger bronze version of this statue during visits to Minnehaha Park along the creek, near the falls. While its current [...]
Hennepin History Museum’s archive collection of Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) materials offers a glimpse into the world of highway construction planning. The materials in the collection are mainly impartial data collected for right of way surveys done in the 1950s through the 1970s. This small snapshot into the workings [...]