The Minnesota State Fair opens on its present grounds. (The area was in St. Paul at the time and later part of Falcon Heights.) The Twin Cities had battled about which one would host the fair, but Ramsey County's donation of two hundred acres for a permanent fairgrounds clinched St. Paul's victory. The site had been the Ramsey County poor farm.

Minnesota celebrates its first Labor Day. The state legislature would declare the first Monday in September a legal holiday in 1893.

The Elizabeth Kenny Institute for the treatment of infantile paralysis is dedicated in Minneapolis. Sister Kenny, an Australian nurse, came to the United States to promote her ideas about treating polio using physical therapy and hot packs rather than the traditional method of complete immobilization. Her work with a patient, Henry Haverstock, Jr., in his Minneapolis home brought her techniques increasing attention.

The Mesaba Transportation Company of Hibbing is incorporated. Owners Andrew G. Anderson and Carl Eric Wickman transport passengers and freight from Hibbing to destinations in Alice and Grand Rapids. A subsidiary company, the Mesaba Motor Company, is incorporated on October 23, 1919, to build, repair, and sell buses. Through various mergers, these companies would eventually become Greyhound Lines, headquartered in Chicago.

Newton H. Winchell is born in New York. As Minnesota's state geologist, Winchell would publish twenty-four reports on the state's geology and paleontology. His research involved describing the movement of St. Anthony Falls (Owamniyomni) from its origins near Fort Snelling to its present location, an event requiring an estimated 8,000 years. He died in 1914.

Red Lake County is established, named for the Red Lake River, which flows through it.

Charles A. Pillsbury is born in New Hampshire. After moving to Minneapolis in 1869, he would learn the flour-milling business and help introduce roller mills that could crush Minnesota's spring wheat into high-grade bread flour. Upon his death in 1899, the Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company would be the largest in the world.

Machinist William H. Fruen of Minneapolis is issued the first US patent for an automatic liquid-dispensing vending machine, which discharges a uniform amount of liquid from a reservoir when a coin is placed in a slot. An enthusiastic fisherman, Fruen had settled earlier in the year at the western edge of the city and begun excavating near his home for the construction of a fishpond in which to keep his catch fresh for eating.

The Hotel Hallock in Kittson County burns. Boasting deluxe accommodations and catering to hunters, the hotel had running water, a barbershop, and kennels for patrons' dogs. Owner Charles Hallock, publisher of Field and Stream, helped publicize Minnesota as a hunter's paradise.

William G. LeDuc is born in Wilkesville, Ohio. After moving to St. Paul in 1850, he opened a law office and bookstore and published three yearbooks publicizing the territory. In 1857 he moved to Hastings, where he built a Gothic Revival home and ran a mill that processed spring wheat flour. He became a general in the Civil War, served as US commissioner of agriculture, and helped develop the Remington typewriter. LeDuc died in 1917.