Need a reminder that winter in Minnesota isn’t so bad? We’d like to think that this postcard might help a bit. Sure, it gets cold, but with cold can come tremendous beauty.

This postcard, captioned “the Milling District by moonlight, over the ice bound Mississippi, Minneapolis, Minnesota” evokes some of this beauty, as well as the contrasts still sometimes found in our city and county by the river. In the distance the mills work away, smokestakes blowing, lights on. Out on the river there’s not a soul in sight, and while the ice formations are visually stunning, they are also dangerous; a reminder that while people may have tamed portions of the river to build a milling empire on the Mississippi River, Mother Nature was still present.

Printed by the V.O. Hammon Publishing Company of Minneapolis, this postcard dates to the 1910s.