Oct 31, 1991

Frozen trick or treaters wore snowsuits as the snow fell, in one of the most historic early season snow storms in Minnesota history. There was up to 36.6 inches of snow. Southern Minnesota saw an ice storm. Extremely cold temperatures that followed the storm hindered highway snow removal. Snow fell occasionally from 1 to 2 inches of snow per hour. Strong northwest winds created a 6 to 10 foot drifts. The storm closed schools, businesses and transpiration for several days. The Halloween Blizzard was a period of heavy snowfall and ice accumulation that affected parts of the Upper Midwest of the United States, from October 31–November 3, 1991.

Over the last week of October, 1991 a large storm system over the Atlantic Ocean blocked most of the weather patterns over the eastern half of the United States, and in turn moisture from the Gulf of Mexico was funneled straight northward over the affected region. By the time the precipitation stopped falling many cities in the eastern half of Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin would witness record early-season snowfall accumulations, while parts of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa were crippled by a large ice storm. Arctic air that was pulled southward behind the storm would combine with the heavy snow pack to produce many record low temperatures. Between the blizzard and the ice storm 22 people were killed and over 100 were injured.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

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October 30

Henry Sibley a delegate from the territories of Wisconsin and Minnesota was born in Detroit Michigan on February 20th 1811. He attended the Detroit Academy and also studied under private tutors and studies law. Then he moved to Mackinac and entered the service of the American Fur company justice of the peace in 1831. He moved to the mouth of the Minnesota River in 1834 and engaged in fur trading. He was elected as a delegate from the Territory of the Wisconsin to the Thirtieth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the disqualification or John H. Tweety and served from October 30th 1848 to March 3rd 1849. Upon the formation or the Territory or Minnesota was elected as a. Delegate to the Thirty first and Thirty second Congresses and served from July7, 1849 to March 3, 1853 declined to be a candidate for re-nomination member or the Territory Legislature of Minnesota in 1855 member of the Constitutional Convention of Minnesota in 1857 and he served as president. Governor of Minnesota1857 to 1860.regent of the State university 1860 to 1869 and President of the Board of Regents 1876 to 1891. He served in the Union Army as a brigadier general of volunteers from 1862 until he was honorable mustered out on April 30th 1866. He then moved to Stipule Minnesota interesting in banking railroads and other public corporations. He became President of the St. Paul company in 1866 and president of the Minnesota Historical Society 1879 to 1891 He was an unsuccessful candidate for election to the forty-seventh Congress. He died in St Paul, Minnesota on February 18th 1891 and had his interment in Oakland Cemetery.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 29, 1896

The Samuel P. Ely made a trip to Duluth in tow of the Hesper, a 250-foot steamer, along with the Negaunee, a similar barge. Both barges were loaded with limestone from Kelley’s Island, Ohio. The steamer had a coal cargo. The three ships passed up through the Sault Locks on October 24 and arrived at Duluth on the 27th. After discharging its coal, the Hesper shifted over to the grain elevators to take on wheat for Buffalo, while the two barges unloaded their limestone and waited for a tow to Two Harbors to load ore. Together, the three left Duluth on the morning of October29th. The wind blew at the rate of 48 to 50 miles an hour, and the rain that had fallen with considerable persistency all that afternoon came down in torrents nearly all night.
It has been over 100 years since a fierce 1896 October storm blew the 200-foot schooner barge Samuel P. Ely from its tow the Hesper and smashed it into the west breakwater of Two Harbors, Minnesota. The crew of the Ely along with two crew from a contractor’s scow caught in its path took refuge in the rigging of the Ely. Like may great shipwreck stories the accident was followed by a heroic rescue by a captain and crew of the railroad tug Ella Stone and a fisherman named Strand. Captain Joe Cox maneuvered the Ella Stone as close to the Ely as he could safely go towing the sailboat manned by Strand. The crew of the Stone then let out the sailboat on lines until it was close enough to the Ely to allow the stranded crew to drop into the sailboat. Three times they repeated the maneuver until all of the crew were rescued. The Ely of course broke up and sank next to the breakwater where it remains today.
Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 28

Record snowfall hits Minnesota! Snowflakes were sighted across central and parts of southern Minnesota on October 28. The effect of the still warm waters of Lake Superior were observed with a drive up Highway 1 in Lake County that morning. Near the lake there was virtually no snow on the ground. The ground was white about .7 miles inland off of Highway 1. At Wolf Ridge, with an elevation of about 1280 feet, 2.3 miles inland, there were 3.4 inches of the white stuff on the ground. Finally, at Lax Lake, with an elevation about 1300 feet, 5 miles from Lake Superior, there was a hefty 5.6 inches on the ground. That changed records all across Minnesota. A special “thank-you” goes out to Peter Harris of the Wolf-Ridge Environmental Learning Center for this information.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 27, 1991

The 1991 World Series was played between the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves. Game 7 of this series was a great one. The winning pitcher was Jack Morris. The losing pitcher was Alejandro Pena. It was scoreless through 10 innings. In the bottom of the 10th inning Dan Gladden led off the inning with a double. The next batter was Chuck Knoblauch whose sacrifice bunt of Dan Gladden over to third base proved to be crucial. The Braves then intentionally walked Kirby Puckett and Kent Hrbek to load the bases. The next batter was Jarvis Brown. Twins’ manager Tom Kelly risked an inning-ending double play by pinch-hitting injured Gene Larkin to hit. Larkin hit a first-pitch fastball to left-center field to score Dan Gladden and win the 1991 World Series.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 26, 1960

After years of struggling with attendance, and fighting with baseball, and city officials Calvin Griffith the owner of the original Senators gets approval to move. The approval comes as the American League decides to expand 1 year earlier then planned. Part of the approval comes because one of the two expansion teams will be placed in Washington to replace the charter AL franchise that moved to Minnesota. Although the team will pick up the old name Senators, it will be as an expansion team, since the team that moved to Minnesota was allowed to keep its history.

On October 26, Calvin Griffith, president of the Washington Senators, made the historic decision to move his club to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, thereby giving birth to the “Minnesota Twins,” named after the two Upper Midwest cities. The Griffith organization had operated the team in our nation’s capital ever since the immortal Clark Griffith took over as manager of the club in 1912. The team moved to Minnesota sporting such names as Harmon Killebrew, Bob Allison, Camilo Pascual and Jim Lemon.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 25, 2002

Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash. He was a 58-year-old former professor on his way to Virginia, Minnesota to attend a funeral of Martin Rukavina, father of Minnesota State Senator, Tom Rukavina. He was with his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, his two sons David and Mark who were 37 and 30, and six grandchildren.

Paul Wellstone’s death threw a battle for the Senate into uncharted territory and the crash also was 11 days before the election. Democrats held control by a single seat and Wellstone was up against Norm Coleman, a former mayor in St. Paul.

Wellstone cast his vote earlier this month against the legislation to authorize the use of force in Iraq—the only Democrat facing a tough re-election to go against Bush on this issue. Mr. Bush personally intervened to anoint Wellston’s Challenger, Norm Coleman, and had visited the state three times campaign on his behalf.

Investigators have more clues about the plane crash that killed Paul, his wife, and six other people. But the cause of the crash is still a mystery. Some investigators are already heading back to Washington with information about the crash site, but they say they won’t have answers for a long time.

We all miss Paul Wellstone to this day, we all knew he would of one and stopped Iraq, and we all knew that he was, a great hero, and a great man.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 24th 2001

A powerful blizzard moved through the Upper Midwest on October 24 and 25, 2001. This blizzard, the first of the season, brought strong winds of over 50 mph to places like St. Cloud and Rochester. One of the higher wind gusts reported was 55 mph in Rochester on October 25. This storm also brought the first measurable snow to many places in Minnesota with some areas in northwest Minnesota digging out of a foot of snow. The highest snowfall reported was 14 inches at Argyle, setting a new record there. Hallock in Kittson County reported 10 inches of snowfall as well, tying their record snowiest October recorded back in 1916. Measurable snow was reported as far south as the Twin Cities, with a tenth of an inch reported at Chanhassen.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 23, 1930

Sinclair Lewis publishes Main Street which earns the Nobel Prize

American novelist, playwright, and social critic who gained popularity with satirical novels. Sinclair Lewis won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, the first given to American. His total output includes 22 novels and three plays.

Main Street, published late in 1920, was my first novel to rouse the embattled peasantry and, as I have already hinted, it had really a success of scandal. One of the most treasured American myths had been that all American villages were peculiarly noble and happy, and here an American attacked that myth.

Harry Sinclair Lewis was born in Sauk Centre, a prairie village in the heart of Minnesota, as the third son of a country doctor. His mother, who was the daughter of a Canadian physician, died of tuberculosis when Lewis was six years old. His father remarried a year later, Isabel Warner. Lewis considered her psychically his own mother. Later Lewis characterized Sauk Center “narrow-minded and socially provincial” and books offered him one way of escape: he had access to the three or four hundred volumes, exclusive of medical books, in his father’s library.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.

October 22, 1989

Jacob Erwin Wetterling, an eleven year old from St. Joseph Minnesota, was kidnapped while riding his bike with his brother, and a friend back from the convenience store. When a masked gunman told them all to put their bikes on the ground and lay down by the curb. When Jacob told his brother and his friend to go and run in the other direction and what ever you do to not look back, just keep running in the other direction. They did look back and they saw the masked gunman take Jacob by the arm and dragged Jacob into the car.

The local police were called to the scene of the abduction only minutes later and a search ensued that involved hundreds of volunteers, local law enforcement, FBI agents, and others. Jacob’s case has resulted in over 50,000 leads and has been studied by staff and trainees at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia.

To date, law enforcement and Jacob’s family still do not know what happened to Jacob or his abductor or where they are now.

Thanks to Mr. Gunderson’s 6th grade class at Virginia-Roosevelt Elementary School for the research on October’s Day in History.

Thanks also to Minnesota’s Learn and Serve America Service Learning Program for their help.