Minnesota's first German-language newspaper, the Minnesota Deutsche Zeitung, is published in St. Paul by editors Friedrich Orthwein and Albert Wolff. It is the second non-English newspaper in Minnesota, the first being Dakota Tawaxitu Kin (Dakota Friend), published in English and Dakota by missionary Gideon H. Pond from 1850 to 1852.

The Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum at the University of Minnesota opens. Sculptor and architect Frank O. Gehry won an award from Progressive Architecture magazine in 1991 for his design of the building.

The Liberian freighter Socrates runs aground on Minnesota Point in Duluth. Excursion buses carry tourists to view the stranded ship, which is later freed by tugs.

The University of Minnesota's Green Hall, named in honor of forester Samuel B. Green, is dedicated.

Clarence "Cap" Wigington is born in Kansas. Minnesota's first African American registered architect and the nation's first African American municipal architect, he designed civic and residential buildings in St. Paul and created six designs for St. Paul Winter Carnival ice palaces during his lengthy career. He died on July 7, 1967.

The steamer Manistee sinks in Lake Superior. It had left Duluth on November 10, but a gale had driven it into port at Bayfield. Captain John McKay tries to force passage on this night, and twenty-three of the sailors aboard are never seen again. A lifeboat carrying three survivors washes ashore a few days later.

Faribault hangs its first street signs.

The preparatory (or high school) department of what is now Hamline University opens for business in Red Wing. Named for Leonidas L. Hamline, a Methodist bishop, the school suspends operations in 1869 and reopens in St. Paul in 1880, but its original founding date makes it the oldest college in the state.

A fire at St. Peter State Hospital (later renamed the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center), a mental asylum, kills between ten and fifteen inmates. The first mental institution in the state, the asylum had opened on December 6, 1866.

Montezuma is founded by Orrin Smith, a steamboat captain. The town is more recognizable by its present name, Winona.