August Ruther, who served in the German army in the 1890s, was charged with poisoning his brother-in-law in Rice County in 1917. Despite any direct evidence, a jury convicted him in eighty minutes, in large part due to anti-German nativism during World War I. His sentence was commuted to time served (eighteen years) in 1936.
Sample of baling twine produced by the twine factory at the Minnesota State Prison, Stillwater, between 1891 and 1925. Prisoners bundled the twine by coiling it, flattening the coil, and binding the coil in a tight cylindrical spiral.