Minnesota

Name: Forest Lake
Brand: Justin Brink
SKU: 9781467160254
Price: 18.74 USD
Availability: InStock

Minnesota history teems with more stories than its geography gushes with lakes. Pass the interminable winter with the unsolved mystery of the Kensington Runestone or the forgotten legacy of Long Prairie battlegrounds. Spend a short summer coasting through the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness and the Excelsior Amusement Park. From downtown Minneapolis to dockside Duluth, Minnesota’s history is an all-weather companion and our Minnesota history book catalogue is an all-purpose guide. [View all Minnesota books]

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Forest Lake

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Downtown St. Paul

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Minneapolis Murder & Mayhem

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Plymouth

$23.99 $17.99 Save 25%

Minneapolis's Lake Street

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Murder in Chisago County

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Rochester Memories

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Growing Up On A Minnesota Farm

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Milwaukee Avenue

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

The William Marvy Company of St. Paul

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Historic Tales of the Hiawatha Valley

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Wise Animal Handbook Minnesota, The

$16.99 $12.74 Save 25%

Forest Lake

9781467160254

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Like so many of the places that lined the route from St. Paul to Duluth, Forest Lake came of age as a railroad town and was first incorporated as a township in 1874. Situated on a lake by the same name, it soon became known as a resort town where many residents from the Twin Cities could leave their cares behind for some fishing and sunbathing. Because of its secluded nature, it also attracted well-known gangsters of the era. Minnesota native George "Bugs" Moran had a hideout near the lake, as did the Ma Barker gang. As the resort traffic dried up, progress soon took over, and with it came residential development and downtown revitalization. Today, Forest Lake's population has increased nearly twentyfold and continues to attract visitors to its pristine lakes.

Downtown St. Paul

9781467102469

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

Minnesota's capital city was given a lofty identity when young Catholic priest Lucien Gaultier built a modest log chapel in a wilderness clearing and named it for his patron saint. St. Paul's modern downtown would later take shape at this very site. In the mid-19th century, St. Paul's strategic location at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River was naturally suited as a way station for goods and a hub for settlers pouring into the Upper Midwest. While St. Paul had to relinquish its ranking as Minnesota's largest city to its twin, Minneapolis, the city remains at the center of state politics as Minnesota's state capital. Following World War II, a suburban boom weakened the business district, and downtown St. Paul fell into decline. Over the last 40 years, however, St. Paul's downtown has been reinvented as a major sports, entertainment, and cultural center.

Minneapolis Murder & Mayhem

9781467146999

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Minneapolis has a bloody, unacknowledged heritage. On the shore of Lake Harriet, Ojibwe warriors killed a Dakota man, triggering two retaliatory massacres. Ten years later, pioneer settlers roved the land of Minneapolis in gangs for protection from other pioneer gangs. When a lynch mob hanged a violent criminal across the street from Central High School, they left his corpse dangling for hours. Rioting Riversiders toppled a streetcar and attacked the driver. A man murdered a kind stranger because he misunderstood his intentions. Separate industrial disasters shattered the St. Anthony Falls, causing one fatality, and nearly razed the Mill District, killing eighteen more and injuring countless others. Author Ron de Beaulieu uncovers the dark, sinister history beneath the city.

Plymouth

9781467104234

$23.99 $17.99 Save 25%

Years before Minnesota became a state in 1858, hopeful land speculators designed a plan for a town named Plymouth, built on the northwest shore of Parkers Lake.

A gristmill and other structures were raised, but a flood in 1857 destroyed the fledgling pioneer town.Settlers continued to arrive, though, setting up homesteads in the 36 square miles of Township 118. By the time Hennepin County commissioners christened the township Plymouth, over 400 citizens resided within its borders. Over the next century, this close-knit farming community, located just 12 miles from downtown Minneapolis, maintained its rural roots. Urbanization finally took hold in 1972 when Plymouth installed its first traffic light. Now the seventh-largest city in Minnesota, Plymouth reflects a newly diverse and dynamic American suburb where industrial, residential, and recreational areas converge. This book aims to bridge Plymouth’s past with its present, connecting the city’s newest pioneers with those who founded it so many years ago.

Sarah Winans is a resident of Plymouth and a volunteer with the Plymouth Historical Society. She is an award-winning educator with experience making history accessible to people of all ages. Natasha Thoreson is the historic site manager for the City of Plymouth. She directs operations at the Plymouth Historical Society, helping to discover, preserve, and share the history of Plymouth, Minnesota.

Minneapolis's Lake Street

9781467104678

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

As it cuts across South Minneapolis, Lake Street reflects the city’s diversity and its rich history. Initially a narrow dirt road out beyond Minneapolis’s early city limits, Lake Street evolved into a major transportation route after the turn of the last century. Spurred by the city’s population boom during those early years, the Lake Street corridor soon filled in with retail shops, restaurants, movie theaters, and auto dealers. But Lake Street’s role as a major commercial corridor did not last. Buffeted by the forces of suburbanization after World War II, businesses along the corridor began to close, leaving Lake Street pockmarked with vacant, blighted buildings. Then, starting in the 1990s, the seeds of the corridor’s renewal were planted when an energetic group of new arrivals to the United States began renovating Lake Street’s deteriorating storefronts for their family-owned businesses. Lake Street’s rejuvenation has continued into the current century as business and community leaders build on the work begun by those 20th-century urban pioneers.

Murder in Chisago County

9781467142335

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

At 3:30 a.m. on April 11, 1933, neighbors and firefighters arrived at the farmhouse of Albin and Alvira Johnson to find a smoldering heap where a seemingly happy home once stood. Beneath the ruins, investigators found the bodies of Alvira and her seven children, but Albin’s remains were nowhere to be seen. The authorities determined that Alvira and the children were dead before the fire, and fingers immediately pointed to Albin. Hundreds of searchers, including the illustrious Pinkerton Agency, combed the area and even crossed into Canada in pursuit of Johnson, who was indicted in absentia for murder. But he was never found, dead or alive. What happened to the Johnson family and what part, if any, Albin played in the tragedy remain a mystery. Twin Cities journalist Brian Johnson tells the story that has beguiled the community for generations.

Rochester Memories

9781467154352

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

In addition to its well-known associations with doctors and diagnoses, the city of Rochester offers a string of curiosities to those willing to look closely.

How did a secret bomber mission to Moscow during World War II lead to thousands of fighter planes flying through Rochester and the subsequent construction of a giant IBM manufacturing plant here? What was Rochester's contribution to the 1980 Olympic Hockey "Miracle on Ice"? Who was dubbed the “Greatest Doctor in the World”, and why? Who were the regular folks without whom the great Mayo Clinic might never have become a medical mecca?

Rochester Stories: A Med City History Paul Scanlon answers these and other questions in this enlightening and sometimes humorous study of Rochester’s past.

Growing Up On A Minnesota Farm

9780738518619

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

The years 1930 to 1970 were a time of rapid change in the American farming industry. Following World War II, the wave of mechanization demanded a major shift in attitude and skills. The small family farm started expanding. There was more competition for land, fence lines disappeared, the threshing ritual was replaced by combines, corn cribs gave way to corn dryers, hydraulic power replaced muscles, and chemicals began replacing cultivators. The family farm was changing more drastically that anyone ever dreamed. With nearly 100 vintage images and personal stories, Growing Up On A Minnesota Farm relives the era of this major agricultural revolution and takes the reader on a journey that will define a time of momentous change. From the introduction of the steel-wheeled D John Deere, to the conservation and frugality necessary during the Great Depression, a period lost to technology is relived through the pages of this book. We learn what it means to "take good care of the land, and it will take care of you."

Milwaukee Avenue

9781626194342

$24.99 $18.74 Save 25%

In the 1970s, a politically savvy and hardworking neighborhood organization, the Seward West Project Area Committee (PAC), outmaneuvered a public agency's renewal plan to demolish approximately 70 percent of a historic neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Demolition would have included all the houses on Milwaukee Avenue, a half-hidden, very narrow two-block-long street flanked by small brick houses. Built in the 1880s, many of these houses were the very first homes in Minneapolis. Milwaukee Avenue offers a unique presentation of determined citizens saving their neighborhood in a decade that changed history.

The William Marvy Company of St. Paul

9781626195691

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

The William Marvy Company's barber poles, encased swirls of red and blue above a rounded stainless-steel base, hang on street corners around the country. The company began creating the vibrant signposts in St. Paul three generations ago. Modern versions of the bloody rags used by surgeon-barbers in the Middle Ages, barber poles are well-known icons, but the Marvy family story is largely unknown. From his humble beginnings as the son of a Latvian émigré carpenter through the growing pains of his namesake company, Marvy showed business acumen and innovation that culminated with his invention of a shatterproof barber pole, ensuring the company's continued success. From crew cuts and the Beatles up through today, barber poles have remained an easily recognized social constant.

Historic Tales of the Hiawatha Valley

9781467143097

$21.99 $16.49 Save 25%

Adored for its tremendous beauty, the Hiawatha Valley also harbors a rich and varied history. Native Americans settled on the sandy shores of the Mississippi River and gave rise to the legend of Wee-no-nah. Later settlers arrived by steamboat and horse cart to tame the rugged hills and valleys and raise the finest of America’s crops, industries and children. The “gandy dancer” of early railroading drove his spikes, and pickle makers fed the troops in early war efforts. All the while, the Mighty Mississippi beckoned to hardy explorers, Mark Twain among them. Join local author Kent Otto Stever as he blends historic events, places and people with personal reflections on everyday life in the valley.