Minnesota

Brightwood Beach Cottage is an historic octagonal building on the southern shore of Lake Ripley in Litchfield, Minnesota that once was a part of the... Brightwood Beach Resort of the late 1800s.
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Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort St. Anthony, is a former military fortification located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi... Rivers in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service. The 2000 census listed Fort Snelling as an unorganized territory with a total population of 442. The Historic Fort Snelling, run by the Minnesota Historical Society, is located on top of the river bluff. The land at the bottom of the bluff is protected as Fort Snelling State Park, run by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. The history of these two areas are intimately connected despite the current split in ownership. Lt. Zebulon Pike purchased 100,000 acres of land in the area in 1805, though it was more than a decade before significant settlement took place. Following the War of 1812 the federal government built a chain of forts and installed Indian agents between Lake Michigan and the Missouri River. Their primary purpose was to protect the territory from Canadian and British encroachment.
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Jay Cooke State Park is a Minnesota state park located about ten miles southwest of Duluth, just outside the small town of Thomson. Jay Cooke is... situated on the St. Louis River, which enters into Lake Superior through the Duluth/Superior Harbor, so it is considered by many to be the southernmost of the Lake Superior State Parks. The first 2,350 acres of land on which the park is situated were donated to the state by the St. Louis Power Company in 1915. The park is named for Pennsylvania financier Jay Cooke, who had developed a nearby power plant, which is still in use. The park remained generally undeveloped until 1933, when a Civilian Conservation Corps camp was established on the site. The CCC camp built a rustic swinging bridge over the St. Louis River just slightly downstream from some torrential rapids and waterfalls. This camp also built a picnic shelter. The camp was disbanded in 1935, but a second camp was set up in 1939. This camp rebuilt the swinging bridge and built the River Inn, which now houses the visitor center. This camp was disbanded in 1942, shortly before the federal government ended the CCC entirely.
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The Fargo and Southern railroad company built a loading platform in 1883 two miles south of Clinton, Minnesota. It was called Rupert. Two years later... they moved their station to Clinton and it was called Batavia as late as 1899. The Fargo and Company line built from Ortonville to the South Dakota line near Wheaton, going through Clinton in 1884 and sold to the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad company in 1885. The first through train on the line ran July 2, 1884. From 1885 through the late 1920s four trains stopped at the Clinton depot each day including morning freight and passenger trains northbound for Fargo, an afternoon southbound train, and an evening southbound passenger train. Posted at the depot was a sign which read, “Western Union Telegraph Office”. Railroads not only carried the mail and newspapers, they also meant another means of communication. Depot agents were necessarily telegraphers. In addition to handling railroad communications, they also relayed messages to the general public. Telegraphy was the fastest means of news, business, and personal transmission at that time. Telegrams were use extensively until the late 1940s. J.P.
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Nathalie Kay "Tippi" Hedren is an American actress and former fashion model with a career spanning six decades. She is primarily known for her roles in two Alfred Hitchcock films, The Birds and Marnie, and her extensive efforts in animal rescue at Shambala Preserve, an 80-acre wildlife habitat... which she founded in 1983. Hedren is the mother of actress Melanie Griffith, and they share credits on several productions, notably Pacific Heights . Hedren was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, the daughter of Dorothea Henrietta and Bernard Carl Hedren. Her paternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden, and her maternal ancestry was German and Norwegian. Her father ran a small general store in the small town of Lafayette, Minnesota and gave her the nickname "Tippi." "My father thought Nathalie was a little bit much for a brand new baby," Hedren explained at a 2004 screening of The Birds. As a teenager, Hedren took part in department store fashion shows. Her parents relocated to California while she was still a high school student.
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Aaron Brown is an American broadcast journalist most recognized for his coverage of the September 11, 2001 attacks, his first day on air at CNN. He was a longtime reporter for ABC, the founding host of ABC's World News Now, weekend anchor of World News Tonight and the host of CNN's flagship... evening program NewsNight with Aaron Brown. He is currently the anchor of the PBS documentary series Wide Angle, the host of public radio program The Aaron Brown Show and an instructor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. In the late 1960s, Brown dropped out of the University of Minnesota as a political science major and signed up for active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard. He began his broadcasting career as a radio talk show host in Minneapolis and later in Los Angeles. Before his time at the national news networks, Brown was a Seattle broadcasting staple. He worked as a reporter and anchor for ten years at KING-TV and later moved to KIRO-TV where he anchored the evening newscast. Brown was brought to New York to be the founding anchor of the late-night news program World News Now.
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Brock Edward Lesnar is an American mixed martial artist and a former professional and amateur wrestler. He is currently the UFC Heavyweight Champion. He is ranked the #1 Heavyweight in the world by Sherdog and MMA Weekly. Lesnar is an accomplished amateur wrestler, winning the 2000 NCAA... heavyweight wrestling championship and placing second in 1999, losing in the finals to future New England Patriots offensive lineman Stephen Neal. He then gained prominence in World Wrestling Entertainment , where he was a three-time WWE Champion, becoming the youngest WWE Champion at age 25 with his first reign. Lesnar was also the 2002 King of the Ring, and the winner of the 2003 Royal Rumble. After leaving WWE in 2004, Lesnar pursued a career in the NFL. He played during the preseason for the Minnesota Vikings, but ended up being a late cut. Lesnar returned to professional wrestling at the end of 2005, and joined New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his first wrestling match since leaving the WWE. He was stripped of the title in July 2006, although he held the physical belt until June 2007.
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Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films including Time Bandits , Brazil , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys . He is the only "Python" not... born in Britain, but gained British citizenship in 1968. Gilliam was born in Medicine Lake, Minnesota, the son of Beatrice and James Hall Gilliam, who was a traveling salesman for Folgers before becoming a carpenter. Gilliam has two siblings: a sister two years younger, and a brother ten years younger. The family moved to Panorama City, California, in 1952 because of his sister's bout of pneumonia. Gilliam attended Birmingham High School where he was class president and senior prom King, was voted "Most Likely to Succeed", and achieved straight As. During high school, he discovered Mad magazine, which was then edited by Harvey Kurtzman; this later influenced his work. Following high school, he attended Occidental College, studying physics and fine arts before finally majoring in political science.
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North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border, about halfway between the... Pacific Ocean and the Great Lakes. North Dakota is the 19th largest state by area in the U.S. It is also the third least populous, with only about 646,850 residents as of 2009. North Dakota was carved out of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with South Dakota. The state capital is Bismarck and the largest city is Fargo. The primary public universities are located in Grand Forks and Fargo. The U.S. Air Force operates Air Force Bases at Minot AFB and Grand Forks AFB. North Dakota is considered to be in the U.S. regions known as the Upper Midwest and the Great Plains, and is sometimes referred to as being the "High Plains". The state shares the Red River of the North with Minnesota on the east; South Dakota is to the south, Montana is to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are north.
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Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland." It derives its name from the Ioway... people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New France. After the Louisiana Purchase, settlers laid the foundation for an agriculture-based economy in the heart of the Corn Belt. Iowa is often known as the "Food Capital of the World", however Iowa's economy, culture, and landscape are diverse. In the mid and late 20th century, Iowa's agricultural economy transitioned to a diversified economy of advanced manufacturing, processing, financial services, biotechnology, and green energy production. Iowa has been listed as one of the safest states in which to live. Des Moines is Iowa's capital and largest city. Iowa is bordered by the Mississippi River on the east; the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west; the northern boundary is a line along 43 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. The southern border is the Des Moines River and a line along approximately 40 degrees 35 minutes north, as decided by the U.S.
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Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is considered part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west,... Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Upper Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is Madison, and its largest city is Milwaukee. As of 2008 the state has an estimated 5.6 million residents. Wisconsin contains 72 counties. The word Wisconsin has its origins in the name given to the Wisconsin River by one of the Algonquian speaking American Indian groups living in the region at the time of European contact. French explorer Jacques Marquette was the first European to reach the Wisconsin River and record its name, arriving in 1673 and calling the river Meskousing in his journal. This spelling was later corrupted to Ouisconsin by other French explorers, and over time this version became the French name for both the Wisconsin River and the surrounding lands. English speakers anglicized the spelling to its modern form when they began to arrive in greater numbers during the early 19th Century.
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