- Minnesotan baseball commentator Halsey Hal was the
first to say 'Holy Cow' during a baseball broadcast.
- The Mall of America in Bloomington is the size of 78
football fields --- 9.5 million square feet.
- Minnesota Inventions: Masking and Scotch tape,
Wheaties cereal, Bisquick, HMOs, the bundt pan, Aveda
beauty products, and Green Giant vegetables
- The St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959 allowing
oceangoing ships to reach Duluth.
- Minneapolis is home to the oldest continuously
running theater (Old Log Theater) and the largest dinner
theater (Chanhassan Dinner Theater) in the country.
- The original name of the settlement that became St.
Paul was Pig's Eye. Named for the French-Canadian
whiskey trader, Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, who had led
squatters to the settlement.
- The world's largest pelican stands at the base of
the Mill Pond dam on the Pelican River, right in
downtown Pelican Rapids. The 15 1/2 feet tall concrete
statue was built in 1957.
- The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden is the largest
urban sculpture garden in the country.
- The Guthrie Theater is the largest regional
playhouse in the country.
- Minneapolis’ famed skyway system connecting 52
blocks (nearly five miles) of downtown makes it possible
to live, eat, work and shop without going outside.
- Minneapolis has more golfers per capita than any
other city in the country.
- The climate-controlled Metrodome is the only
facility in the country to host a Super Bowl, a World
Series and a NCAA Final Four Basketball Championship.
- Minnesota has 90,000 miles of shoreline, more than
California, Florida and Hawaii combined.
- The nation’s first Better Business Bureau was
founded in Minneapolis in 1912.
- The first open heart surgery and the first bone
marrow transplant in the United States were done at the
University of Minnesota.
- Bloomington and Minneapolis are the two farthest
north latitude cities to ever host a World Series game.
- Madison is the "Lutefisk capital of the United
States".
- Rochester is home of the world famous Mayo Clinic.
The clinic is a major teaching and working facility. It
is known world wide for its doctor's expertise and the
newest methods of treatments.
- The Bergquist cabin, built in 1870 by John Bergquist,
a Swedish immigrant, is the oldest house in Moorhead
still on its original site.
- For many years, the world's largest twine ball has
sat in Darwin. It weighs 17,400 pounds, is twelve feet
in diameter, and was the creation of Francis A. Johnson.
- The stapler was invented in Spring Valley.
- In 1956, Southdale, in the Minneapolis suburb of
Edina, was the first enclosed climate-controlled
suburban Shop50states.
- Private Milburn Henke of Hutchinson was the first
enlisted man to land with the first American
Expeditionary Force in Europe in WWII on January 26,
1942.
- The first practical water skis were invented in 1922
by Ralph W. Samuelson, who steam-bent 2 eight-foot-long
pine boards into skies. He took his first ride behind a
motorboat on a lake in Lake City.
- In Olivia a single half-husked cob towers over a
roadside gazebo. It is 25 feet tall, made of fiberglass,
and has been up since 1973.
- The first Children's department in a Library is said
to be that of the Minneapolis Public Library, which
separated children's books from the rest of the
collection in Dec. 1889.
- The first Automatic Pop-up toaster was marketed in
June 1926 by McGraw Electric Co. in Minneapolis under
the name Toastmaster. The retail price was $13.50.
- On September 2, 1952, a 5 year old girl was the
first patient to under go a heart operation in which the
deep freezing technique was employed. Her body
temperature, except for her head, was reduced to 79
degrees Fahrenheit. Dr. Floyd Lewis at the Medical
School of the University of Minnesota performed the
operation.
- The first Aerial Ferry was put into Operation on
April 9, 1905, over the ship canal between Duluth to
Minnesota Point. It had room enough to accommodate 6
automobiles. Round trip took 10 min.
- Rollerblades were the first commercially successful
in-line Roller Skates. Minnesota students Scott and
Brennan Olson invented them in 1980, when they were
looking for a way to practice Hockey during the
off-season. Their design was an ice hockey boot with 3
inline wheels instead of a blade.
- The first Intercollegiate Basketball game was played
in Minnesota on February 9,1895.
- In 1919 a Minneapolis factory turned out the nations
first armored cars.
- Tonka Trucks were developed and are continued to be
manufactured in Minnetonka.
- Hormel Company of Austin marketed the first canned
ham in 1926. Hormel introduced Spam in 1937.
- Introduced in August 1963, The Control Data 6600,
designed by Control Data Corp. of Chippewa Falls, was
the first Super Computer. It was used by the military to
simulate nuclear explosions and break Soviet codes.
These computers also were used to model complex
phenomena such as hurricanes and galaxies.
- Candy maker Frank C. Mars of Minnesota introduced
the Milky Way candy bar in 1923. Mars marketed the
Snickers bar in 1930 and introduced the 5 cent Three
Musketeers bar in 1937. The original 3 Musketeers bar
contained 3 bars in one wrapper. Each with different
flavor nougat.
- A Jehovah's Witness was the first patient to receive
a transfusion of artificial blood in 1979 at the
University of Minnesota Hospital. He had refused a
transfusion of real blood because of his religious
beliefs.
- Minnesota has one recreational boat per every six
people, more than any other state.
- There are 201 Mud Lakes, 154 Long Lakes, and 123
Rice Lakes commonly named in Minnesota.
- The Hull-Rust mine in Hibbing became the largest
open-pit mine in the world.
- Minnesota's waters flow outward in three directions:
north to Hudson Bay in Canada, east to the Atlantic
Ocean, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.
- At the confluence of the Big Fork and Rainy Rivers
on the Canadian border near International Falls stands
the largest Indian burial mound in the upper midwest. It
is known as the Grand Mound historic site.
- Author Laura Ingalls Wilder lived on Plum Creek near
Walnut Grove.
- Akeley is birthplace and home of world's largest
Paul Bunyan Statue. The kneeling Paul Bunyan is 20 feet
tall. He might be the claimed 33 feet tall, if he were
standing.
- Hibbing is the birthplace of the American bus
industry. It sprang from the business acumen of Carl
Wickman and Andrew "Bus Andy" Anderson - who opened the
first bus line (with one bus) between the towns of
Hibbing and Alice in 1914. The bus line grew to become
Greyhound Lines, Inc.
- The first official hit in the Metrodome in
Minneapolis was made by Pete Rose playing for the
Cincinnati Reds in a preseason game.
- Polaris Industries of Roseau invented the
snowmobile.
- Twin Cities-based Northwest Airlines was the first
major airline to ban smoking on international flights.
- Alexander Anderson of Red Wing discovered the
processes to puff wheat and rice giving us the
indispensable rice cakes.
- In 1898, the Kensington Rune stone was found on the
farm of Olaf Ohman, near Alexandria. The Kensington Rune
stone carvings allegedly tell of a journey of a band of
Vikings in 1362.
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