June 12, 2018 County fairs have been part of the Minnesota experience for generations, and Hennepin County is no exception. This ribbon comes from the 1930 Hennepin County Fair, and is one of many ribbons in Hennepin History Museum's County Fair [...]
May 15, 2018 The Museum's archives are filled with a treasure trove of interesting items from Hennepin County's past, including this student card for the Lake Minnetonka Summer School. Students at the school enjoyed the opportunity to indulge in four weeks [...]
April 5, 2018 While Hennepin History Museum doesn't have the space to collect tractors, that doesn't stop us from collecting tractor history. And even the briefest survey of tractor history will unearth the name Minneapolis-Moline. The 1918 tractor shown here was [...]
February 14, 2018 To celebrate, here's a selection of Valentine's Day cards from our collection:
December 4, 2017 On December 30, 1920, members of the Filipino Students' Association of Minnesota, gathered at the Hotel Radisson to celebrate the life and to mourn the death of of Dr. Jose Rizal, a national hero in the Philippines . [...]
November 20, 2017 Did you know that Hennepin History Museum is home to an extensive historic cookbook collection? The collection includes dozens of community cookbooks created by local churches, hospitals, schools, businesses, and other organizations, as well as cookbooks by local [...]
October 9, 2017 On September 23, 1891, Minneapolis celebrated the plentiful harvest and the industrial might of the Northwest with the Harvest Festival Parade. The celebration was planned after a bumper crop that followed several years of economic hardships for farmers. [...]
September 6, 2017 The Mu-So Choral Club, a Minneapolis-based choir of approximately 40 African American singers, depending on the year, was formed in 1917 and remained active through the 1920s. Members were drawn primarily from local church choirs, and the group was [...]
August 22, 2017 In 1932 twenty-nine counties from across Minnesota gathered at the Minnesota State Fair grounds to compete for fame and glory. Well, at least glory. The entrants in the "lively" county booth competition were judged on "general scope and [...]
July 7, 2017 Hennepin County's famous Aquatennial has been part of the Minneapolis summer since 1940. So, too, have been its royalty, including the festival's Queen of the Lakes. Young single women representing cities and companies across the state gather in [...]
