William A. Dietrichson (b. 1922 – d. 2014) dramatically evolved in his artistic style throughout a lifelong career. Hennepin History Museum has several of his works in its collection, most of which are from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Our [...]
Looking down Washington Avenue across Nicollet and Hennepin in 1886, with the Nicollet House on the left. Image from HHM archives. Though it has long since been demolished, the Nicollet Hotel was once the pride of Minneapolis. The original Nicollet [...]
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 [...]
“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 [...]
Street Car Scene by Paul Johnson Public transportation is a vital part of many people’s lives. It creates less pollution, and the average cost for a year of public transport is cheaper than the cost of a car’s gas [...]
These six brass stanchions with their velvet ropes tell a fascinating history of architectural styles and a Minnesota-based bank. They originally stood in the Northwestern National Bank building, which opened in 1930 in downtown Minneapolis. While the building has long since disappeared, [...]
Susan Treice Naysmith donated this wool coat to Hennepin History Museum in 1964. Naysmith wore it during her time as a military nurse in World War I and it serves as an artifact of a short period of her rather full life. Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania in 1876, Naysmith was both married and widowed at age 23. She never remarried and the next documented information [...]
This handkerchief, now in the collection of Hennepin History Museum, is one of many commemorative items made to celebrate the centennial of Minnesota’s statehood in 1958. It bears the Minnesota Centennial logo, with one face looking toward the past and one looking [...]
Today, it seems too bizarre to have happened, but it did. What’s more, it happened twice. The John H. Stevens House was transported by schoolchildren. This piece of rope, held in the collection at Hennepin History Museum, is a fragment of one [...]
This marching music stand in the collection at Hennepin History Museum was used by a clarinetist in the Minneapolis Journal Newsboys’ Band. It would have screwed into a bracket on the front of the clarinet and held sheet music so that he could see it while [...]
