The council house of the Indian Agency at St. Peters is destroyed by arson. Arsonists strike again on February 24, 1831, burning the agency home. Indian agent Lawrence Taliaferro was unpopular with corrupt traders, who disliked his strict enforcement of federal rules.

The Mall of America opens to a gala ceremony, an unexpected parking crunch, and an estimated 150,000 shoppers, who, as the Star Tribune would comment, "took a vacation from recession and bought." Standing on what was the site of Metropolitan Stadium, the "megamall" is the largest in the United States.

The statue Mississippi, Father of Waters is unveiled in Minneapolis City Hall. An allegorical representation of the Mississippi River, the statue was carved from a single block of marble by Larkin Goldsmith Mead and weighs almost 14,000 pounds.

All thirteen of the cars in Minneapolis race from the Hennepin County courthouse to Wayzata to demonstrate to the county commissioners the need for better roads. Harry Wilcox arrives in Wayzata first, making the twelve-mile run in forty-two minutes.

Mailcarrier John Beargrease dies. Born in 1858, the son of an Ojibwe leader and a white woman, Beargrease grew up in Beaver Bay and delivered mail along the north shore of Lake Superior from 1887 to 1904, his route being Two Harbors to Grand Marais. On open water the trip took him three days by rowboat, and in the winter he used a dogsled.

The first edition of the Prison Mirror, the newspaper of the state penitentiary, is published. It inspired the creation of similar publications at other state institutions.

The Chicago Landverein, or land society, which eventually established the town of New Ulm, is formed by a group of German immigrants. At first, lawyers and preachers are banned from membership.

The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, which set the boundary between Canada and the United States, is signed by the United States and Great Britain. The boundary had been in dispute since the end of the American Revolution. Minnesota's curious Northwest Angle is a result of this treaty.

Edward D. Neill is born in Philadelphia. A Presbyterian minister, Neill would arrive in St. Paul in 1849, where he would be a leader in the city's intellectual and religious life until his death in 1893. In addition to founding the First Presbyterian Church, he would help establish public schools in St. Paul, serve as superintendent of instruction in Minnesota Territory, found the Baldwin School and Macalester College, and serve as chancellor of the University of Minnesota.

The Thirteenth Minnesota Volunteers arrive at Paranaque, Luzon, the Philippines, to fight in the Spanish-American War and, later, to combat Filipino patriots led by Emilio Aguinaldo. Upon their return home a year later, the regiment's casualties number forty-four killed and seventy-four wounded.