Albert Henry Woolson, described as the last surviving Union veteran of the Civil War, dies in Duluth at age 106. Woolson had enlisted in the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery when he was sixteen, serving as a drummer boy. He was the model for a bronze figure on the Memorial to the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) at Gettysburg, although he did not fight there. Woolson moved to Duluth in 1905 and remained active in the GAR for decades.

George W. Nims, a student at the Seabury Divinity School in Faribault, attempts to assassinate Bishop Henry B. Whipple. During a church service, Nims rises from the congregation, walks into the chancel, and points his pistol at Whipple. Luckily, he had forgotten to cock the hammer, giving bystanders enough time to tackle and subdue him. Whipple had turned him down for ordainment with his class as he had shown signs of being mentally unbalanced. Judged insane, he is sent to the asylum in St. Peter.

The US government and several bands of Ojibwe sign a treaty establishing the Long Prairie Reservation (between the Watab and Crow Wing Rivers) for the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago). Originally from Wisconsin, the Ho-Chunk had been pushed to a reservation in Iowa and then were moved again to Long Prairie.

Split Rock Lighthouse opens. Built in response to a 1905 storm that sank twenty-six ships on Lake Superior, at first it can be reached only by boat.

A mob threatens State Attorney General Charles Berry and frees Aymer Moore from the Rockford jail. Moore had led the mob that lynched suspected murderer Oscar Jackson earlier that year (see April 3). Learning that Moore had been freed and Berry threatened, Governor Henry H. Sibley declares Wright County to be in a state of insurrection and calls out three companies of militia to establish order and begin an investigation. He recalls the troops only when three members of the mob, including Moore, are turned over.

Five young Dakota men murder the Baker family on a farm near Acton in Meeker County. Upon hearing this news, some Dakota leaders decide to launch a general attack on settler-colonists near the Lower Sioux Agency, beginning the US–Dakota War of 1862.

A tornado kills eleven and injures sixty individuals in Mankato and North Mankato, and a second tornado injures 200 people in Wells an hour later.

The Arrowhead Bridge across the St. Louis River opens, linking West Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin.

The last guest checks out of Stillwater's historic Sawyer House, which had operated as a hotel for sixty-seven years. The Lowell Inn was later built on the same site.

Max Shulman is born in St. Paul. An author and Hollywood screenwriter, he is best remembered for creating the character Dobie Gillis, who appeared in short stories, novels, and a television show, all based on the family that owned Gillis's Grocery in Minneapolis.