MN90: Rochester History in 90-Seconds

Series produced by KRPR

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a series of short, fun and engaging stories exploring the history of Rochester and the surrounding area.

a series of short, fun and engaging stories exploring the history of Rochester and the surrounding area.


80 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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1941 – Emil Liers of Homer got a splashy double spread in the Saturday Evening Post. But the real stars of the feature were his otters.

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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September 1939 – The Germans had invaded Poland. World War II had started in Europe. And here, Harry Hopkins, FDR’s most trusted presidential aide,...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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June 1939 – Lou Gehrig, the New York Yankees first baseman, had come to Mayo because his body was failing. But in between a batter of tests, the Ir...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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November 16, 1936, was the day Eyota’s Farmers State Bank celebrated its 23rd anniversary. And the day its assistant casher Elizabeth Steichen foun...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1934 – Loggers wanted to clear cut one of the last vestiges of the Big Woods that once covered a swath of Southern Minnesota. Opponents would organ...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1992 – Harvey Ronglien had spent his childhood at the State Public School in Owatonna. Now he was creating a museum to remember the 20,000 orphans ...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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January 17, 1925 – Frank B. Kellogg’s former colleagues in the US Senate called him a nervous Nellie. But now the man who’d grown up on a farm in V...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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January 17, 1925 – Frank B. Kellogg’s former colleagues in the US Senate called him a nervous Nellie. But now the man who’d grown up on a farm in V...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 03:00
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July 6, 1922 – Dr. Will Mayo loved boats. But now he was launching a true pleasure craft, the North Star, with mahogany, brass fitting and a French...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1919 –Mazeppa raised a flagpole. It was to remember the first hometown boy lost to the Great War, Yale H. Squire.

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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August 1917 – There were two Augusts—Ruther and Fisk—living on the farm outside Dundas. But one of them would be dead by the end of that long hot w...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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August 29, 1914 – The Rochester Hustlers had lost game one. They had hopes to run away with game two. But then the visiting Providence Grays put in...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1911 – The superintendent of the School for the Feeble Minded in Faribault wanted to find out what had caused his charges to get so “defective.” In...

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1868 – J. R. Watkins was headed to Ohio to marry his bride. But a stopover along the way gave him a new career as a muscle rub salesman.

  • Added: Jun 30, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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Zumbrota wanted to return its covered bridge to the Zumbro River. But it would take more money and many more years than anyone thought.

  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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An Illinois researcher wanted to track down the son of an indentured servant freed with the help of lawyer Abraham Lincoln in 1941. Could the son b...

  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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1980 – Nobel laureate and Rochester High School graduate Luis Alvarez had done money great things in his career. But now he wanted geologists to sw...

  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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She’s the Stone Lady, the stone cairn that has perched atop Black Hammer hill since the 19th-century. But where did she come from?

  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
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March 28, 1969 – Pat O’Connor, 18, had only gone pro 10 months ago. Now he was meeting the formidable middleweight Duane Horsman for a record crowd...

Bought by KSRQ


  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30
  • Purchases: 1
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Dr. Philip S. Hench was a Nobel laureate with a research job at Mayo, and a passion for collecting anything having to do with the yellow fever expe...

  • Added: Jun 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:30