The first recorded mention of farming by white Minnesotans is made in a letter written by George H. Monk, who notes crops of potatoes, oats, cabbages, beets, beans, pumpkins, and Indian corn being cultivated at the North West Company's fur trading posts on Sandy and Leech Lakes.

The Minnesota State Lottery begins selling instant tickets. Within four months, sales reach $100 million.

Marge Anderson becomes chief executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Emphasizing traditional government, education, and cultural preservation, Anderson would be a leader in the successful nine-year battle to preserve rights granted by an 1837 treaty to hunt and fish in and around Mille Lacs (see March 24).

While in Seattle on business, St. Paul rail tycoon James J. Hill learns that Edward H. Harriman, in New York, is buying up shares of the Northern Pacific Railroad, trying to wrest control of the company from Hill. Hill orders all trains to give right of way to his express train and heads east for New York, making the 1,800-mile trip from Seattle to St. Paul in 45 hours and 50 minutes, 21 hours under the average time. From there Hill continues to New York and thwarts the deal.

Hastings' spiral bridge opens. It would carry horse and automobile traffic into the heart of the city for over fifty years and be replaced by a straight bridge in 1951.

The Minnesota Pioneer Guard, the state's first volunteer military company, is organized in St. Paul. This group would become Company A of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

The Mesaba Railway Coach Company stops providing streetcar service between the towns of Hibbing and Gilbert.

The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety is formed by the legislature to "protect life and property and to aid in the prosecution of the war." Seeking to achieve one hundred percent patriotism, the commission uses its sweeping powers to harass non-English-speaking immigrants and members of the Nonpartisan League.

A poker game in Granite Falls ends in violence. After playing for several hours, local dentist S. Wintner notices that his two kings have lost to two aces held by St. Paul card sharp William Lenard, the "Irish Lord," eight times in succession. Wintner produces a revolver and, when Lenard proclaims his innocence, fatally shoots him. At the trial later that year Frank Nye, for the defense, makes the creative assertion that, gambling being a felony, Dr. Wintner had the right to stop such an act, with violence if necessary.

Organizer Eugene Debs calls a strike by the workers of the Great Northern Railway. The railroad had imposed three wage cuts despite profits of over five million dollars the previous year. As the strike progresses, other railroads—following the lead of the Great Northern in other strike situations—refuse to help company president James J. Hill move his stalled trains.