Welcome to Minnesota Historical Marker – rural Worthington, MN - Minnesota Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

This double sided plaque offers two welcoming messages. One side is entitled “Welcome to Minnesota” and includes this text:

“Known to her citizens as the North Star State or the Gopher State, Minnesota has never claimed to be the Land of the Giants. But two famous American giants do hail from Minnesota. The giant lumberjack Paul Bunyan cut the pine forests of the north that helped built America’s towns and cities, and the Jolly Green Giant towers over the south’s lush corn, vegetable, and soybean fields, a part of the midwest’s fertile farm belt.

Like its neighbors, the thirty-second state grew as a collection of small farm communities, many settled by immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany. Two of the nation’s favorite fictional small towns—Sinclair Lewis’ Gopher Prairie and Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon—reflect that heritage. But the vast forests, the huge open pit iron mines, and the busy shipping lanes of Lake Superior attracted different settlers with different skills and made Minnesota a state of surprising diversity.

Best known for its 15,000 lakes, Minnesota has some 65 towns with the word “lake” in their names not counting those whose names mean “lake” or “water” in the Chippewa or Dakota Indian languages. There are also 13 “falls,” 10 “rivers,” 5 “rapids,” and a smattering of “isles,” “bays,” and “beaches.” Even the state name itself means “sky colored water” in Dakota. The mighty Mississippi River starts as a small stream flowing out of Minnesota’s Lake Itasca, and the Minneapolis waterfall called Minnehaha inspired the “Song of Hiawatha,” even though Longfellow never actually visited the falls his poem made known to every schoolchild.

Minnesotans are proud of their state’s natural beauty and are leaders in resource conservation and concern for the quality of life.”

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The reverse side of the plaque is entitled: “The Minnesota – Iowa Boundary.” It has a simple map at the top showing the original boundary plan; beneath it is the following text:

“Today the borders between the states in the American union seem firmly fixed, but in the 19th century setting boundaries was an important part of the statehood process. Most of Minnesota’s boundaries were eventually defined by rivers and lakes, but its southern border is a straight line determined entirely for political reasons in the United States Congress.

After 1838 the area now known as Minnesota was part of two territories—Wisconsin Territory east of the Mississippi River and Iowa Territory between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. When Iowa prepared to join the union in 1844, its constitutional convention voted to set the new state’s northern boundary along the line shown above including the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

But Congress had other ideas. The admission of the new states into the Union in pairs, one free and one slave, had by this time become an unwritten rule. In order to keep the balance, Congress favored a smaller state of Iowa to allow for the formation of at least two more free states from the northern territory. Iowa’s northern border was thus fixed at the latitude of 43.30, and when Iowa became a state on August 4, 1846, the future state of Minnesota’s boundary was set even before the Minnesota Territory was organized. The important river confluence area, which would later be settled as St. Paul and Minneapolis, remained well north of the boundary line.”

Erected by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1992.

Marker Type:: Roadside

Visit Instructions:
A photo of the 'Marker' or 'Plaque' is required to identify the location, plus a picture of the 'Historic Site'.

Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   07/20/2011 InGodsHands visited it