Minnesota History Magazine Summer 2022 (68:2)

Articles

“Last Chance Liquor ’til South Dakota”: County Option in Minnesota, 1915–1965
Mike Worcester

From 1915 to 1965 (excluding the years of federal Prohibition), counties in Minnesota were authorized by state statute to forbid sales of alcoholic beverages within their borders. Enacted with great celebration in March 1915 after a multi-decade effort, the county option law quickly swept across the state. With the end of national Prohibition in 1933, however, county option took on a different look, and counties struggled to chart their own course in the quest to regulate alcohol sales. The statute came to a quiet end in 1965, but its central role in the larger narrative of Minnesota’s complex relationship with alcohol is explored in depth here.

A Stranger in a Strange Land: Charles Joseph Latrobe and a Visit to Fort Snelling, 1833
Robert L. Reid

When English travel writer Charles Joseph Latrobe and his young charge, the Swiss nobleman Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales, visited Fort Snelling late in 1833, they demonstrated two very different approaches to travel. Historian Robert L. Reid, researching in museums and libraries in Switzerland, Australia, and the United States, has located diaries, letters, publications, and artworks related to this trip, as well as objects Pourtales collected from Dakota people living near Bdote. These materials tell the story of early tourism in the area through the eyes of a sophisticated traveler—and they reveal a particularly shameful aspect of colonialist travel.

MNHS Press Book Excerpt: When Minnehaha Flowed with Whiskey: A Spirited History of the Falls
Karen E. Cooper

Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis is one of the most serene and picturesque spots in the Twin Cities. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was a site of much carousing, drinking, and general rowdiness. This excerpt from a new book by historian Karen E. Cooper peels back the curtain to shed light on some of the debauchery.

Departments

Editor’s Note

Curator’s Choice
The Mike Lynch Collection 
Brian Szott

EyeWitness
Farmer in the Barley
Jim Heynen

LandMarks
Grain Warehouse, Houston County
Denis Gardner 

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