MINNESOTA 



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MINNESOTA 



JL Y JLlNNESOTA, a state in the north- 

 central part of the American Union, eleventh 

 in size among the states. Its name, a Sioux 

 Indian word, is poetic; it means sky-tinted 

 water, or cloudy water. It is nicknamed THE 

 GOPHER STATE from the little burrowing animal 

 found there; but its more popular names are 

 the BREAD AND BUTTER STATE, in reference to its 

 wheat and its dairy products, and the NORTH 

 STAR STATE, from its motto, the "Star of the 

 North." As the state flower the moccasin 

 flower, or lady's slipper, has been selected, a 

 curious orchid which grows in the moist land 

 about the many lakes. 



Location and Size. The state lies just about 

 at the geographical center of North America. 

 To the north are the Canadian provinces of 

 Manitoba and Ontario, to the east Lake Supe- 

 rior and Wisconsin, to the south is Iowa and to 

 the west are North and South Dakota. Its 

 boundary line is very irregular; on the west 

 the Red River of the North makes up a large 

 part of it ; on the north is a chain of lakes and 

 rivers, including Lake of the Woods, Rainy 

 River, Rainy Lake and Pigeon River, and on 

 the east Lake Superior and the Saint Croix and 

 Mississippi rivers separate it from Wisconsin 

 through almost its whole length. Although a 

 great inland state, two-thirds of its boundary is 

 water. 



Minnesota has its greatest length from north 

 to south, almost 400 miles, and an extreme 

 breadth in its northern portion of 380 miles. Its 

 total area is 84,682 square miles, Utah and 

 Idaho being the states nearest in size; but it 

 differs from them in having a water surface of 

 almost 3,500 square miles, consisting of about 

 7,000 small lakes varying from one mile to 

 thirty miles in length. It is about one-third 

 the size of the province of Manitoba, to the 

 north. 



The People. The state had, in 1910, a popula- 

 tion of 2,075,708, slightly less than that of the 

 city of Chicago. In number of inhabitants it 

 ranks nineteenth among the states, but in its 



density of population, 25.7 to the square mile, 

 twenty-eight states surpass it. As it is chiefly 

 a farming state, more than half of the popula- 

 tion live under rural conditions, only about 

 forty per cent living in towns of 2,500 or more. 

 Indeed, large cities are few, for in addition to 

 Minneapolis, the largest city, and Saint Paul, 

 the capital, only seven cities have a population 

 that exceeds 10,000. These, in the order of their 

 size, are Duluth, Winona, Hibbing, Virginia, 

 Saint Cloud, Mankato and Stillwater. Each is 

 treated in a separate article in these volumes. 



OUTLINE MAP OF MINNESOTA 

 Showing boundaries, navigable rivers, principal 

 cities, mineral deposits, largest lakes and the 

 highest point of land in the state. 



According to latest estimates there are a num- 

 ber of other cities approaching the 10,000 mark. 

 Minnesota has been one of the great immi- 

 grant states, and less than one-third of the in- 

 habitants are native-born and of native par- 

 entage. Of the foreign-born whites, over forty 

 per cent are Scandinavians, Swedes predomi- 

 nating slightly over Norwegians, and about 



