Alternate color version of the Minnesota state seal, before 1971 and ca. 1960s.

The Minnesota State Seal on display in a Hennepin County District Court courtroom at the Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis. Photograph by Wikimedia Commons user Tony Webster, October 25, 2018. CC BY 2.0

Four-color version of the Great Seal of Minnesota, 2018. From the Minnesota State Brand Style Guide, 2018.

Color version of the Minnesota state seal, 1983. Public domain.

Variation of the Great Seal of Minnesota that replaces the Native American horseman with a settler on horseback. This version of the seal was authorized by the Secretary of State in 1971 but never used on official documents. It nevertheless appeared in some official settings.

The central image of the Great Seal of Minnesota on the battle flag of the Fifth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment, as it would have appeared in about 1865, before damage to the center image.

Great Seal of Minnesota (alternate design) by lithographer Louis Buechner, 1858. This seal contains familiar settler-colonial images of progress offset by a Native American man pointing to a setting sun. From Robert M. Brown's “The Great Seal of the State of Minnesota,” Minnesota History 33, no. 3 (Autumn 1952), 127.

Alternate design of the Great Seal of Minnesota by Charles F. Lowe, 1858. Some sources identify Robert O. Sweeny as the designer instead of Lowe. From William H. C. Folsom's Fifty Years in the Northwest (St. Paul: Pioneer Press, 1888), 658. Officially adopted by the Minnesota legislature but never used, the Lowe/Sweeny design echoed themes in the territorial seal. The central waterfall represents Minnehaha Falls. A Native American warrior pointing towards the setting sun provides a counterpoint to images of farming, shipping, and other signs of “progress.”

“The Seal of Minnesota,” a poem by Mary Henderson Eastman. Originally printed in the Minnesota Pioneer, February 20, 1850, 2.

The Great Seal of Minnesota Territory, ca. 1849. From William Watts Folwell's A History of Minnesota, Vol. 1 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1921), 461.