Flax Day picnic with Cedric Adams (front row, center), George Grams, and Gert Tibodeau (rear row, left to right), Windom, 1947. Photograph by Don Berg.
During the 1940s, Cottonwood County produced so many acres of flax that Windom, the county seat, came to be known as the “Flax Capital of the World.” Between 1948 and 1956, the city celebrated this distinction by hosting an annual event called Flax Day.
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI during Hamm and Bremer kidnappings, in 1940. Hoover guided the FBI’s attempts to rid the US of “public enemies” like the Barker‒Karpis gang.