On August 20, 1904, a large cyclone hit the City of Waconia, changing the face of the city forever.

When Congress enacted the Timber Culture Act of 1873, many hoped that giving settler-colonists deeds to public lands in return for growing trees would reshape the environment of the West. However, legal loopholes meant that most of the tree claims filed under the Timber Culture Act were never planted with trees. Fraudulent claims and wild speculation meant that the act was repealed less than twenty years after it was enacted.

The winter of 1887-1888 was ferocious and unrelenting. But nothing prepared southwestern Minnesota for the January storm that came to be known as the Children's Blizzard.