In 1981, AIDS was a mystery illness—a so-called “gay plague” because of its initial appearance among men who had sex with other men in large coastal cities like New York and San Francisco. Minnesotans breathed a sigh of relief, thinking they were far enough from the epidemic to be safe. But they were wrong.
The 1918 influenza epidemic had a devastating effect on communities across Minnesota, including those in Cottonwood County. Over the course of five months (October 1918–February 1919), seventy-two residents of the county died from the virus or from pneumonia-related complications.
North Superior Coast Guard Station, Grand Marais, Minnesota, 1994. Photograph by Wendy Epstein. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v. 3.0.
Coast Guard Crew members, 1935. Pictured are (back row) Dave McGivern, Rusty Rospecka, Roger Tormondson, Alton Berg, Ralph Hanson, and Roger Tormondson; and (front row) Harry Flaherty, Ole Bloomberg, Chief Daniel Magnusson, M. E. Rhea, and Gibson.