Dec 11, 2007 11:21 pm US/Central
Unveiling Minnesota History Some Might Never See
ST. PAUL (WCCO) ―
Over the past 150 years or so the Minnesota Historical Society has collected thousands of objects, many of them people might never see, until now.
Deep underground at the Minnesota History Center lays a lot of the state's heritage. Aisles, cabinets and shelves filled with items from eras gone and each has a story to tell. Unless it's on exhibit upstairs at any given time, all the items are down in a huge storage area.
The Minnesota Historical Society began collecting items before Minnesota was even a state.
Since 1849, it's amassed around a quarter million objects; things like clothing, furniture and smaller items like a Smith and Wesson 38-Special that a famous bank robber used.
"It was used by Detective Henry Cummings in March of 1934 in a shootout with John Dillinger," said Matt Anderson, a curator of the collection.
This historical society has bigger items too, like a cabin that is stored off site. Only special tour groups are allowed to view what's in storage, so WCCO-TV asked the curators to pull some of their favorites. Anderson opened a closet of old dusters.
"This duster has a particularly significant story attached to it. It was worn by one of the James Younger gang during the Northfield raids of September 1876," said Anderson, referring to the Younger brothers who robbed banks around the Midwest with the likes of Jesse James.
Their run came to a halt when they chose the wrong bank and the wrong community.
"The citizens of Northfield stood up, took a stand against the James Younger gang, fired back at them, actually killed a couple members of the gang," said Anderson.
Left behind was the duster, said to be worn by one of the fallen gang members.
"Is that blood on there?" asked WCCO-TV's Jeanette Trompeter.
"Certainly there could be a little blood on here. Certainly some mud, some dust as well, a few holes, could be bullet holes," surmises Anderson.
Other members were caught and imprisoned, as shown in the original Stillwater prison records from back in the day.
"This is real life John Wayne stuff," said Trompeter, as she shakes her head.
While the duster is famous for who wore it, other clothing is famous for being made in Minnesota.
Ever hear of a union suit? It's a union of an undershirt and underwear into one piece. The Munsingwear factory, built in 1886, used to be located where the International Design Center is today.
Not only did the factory put out thousands of union suits, it made some things a bit racier. The collection of unmentionables at the Minnesota History Center is huge. There are 3,500 pieces of underwear, collected over 100 years until the plant closed in 1986.
There are also things like the breakfront, or cabinet, donated to the Minnesota Historical Society by the heirs of Birdie Craft. She was the only girl in an all-boy shop class at North High in the early 1900's.
"After she graduated, the shop teacher decided that no more girls could be admitted to shop class because she outshone the boys," said one of the curators of the collection.
Curators get calls from the public daily; taking items like these off their hands is called passive collecting.
Downstairs of the historical society, there is a mile marker from the northbound lanes of the Interstate 35W bridge which collapsed on Aug. 1.
Another item about to enter the collection is the door of the school bus from which 43 children escaped when the bridge went down in front of them.
"It's very rare for us to collect things contemporarily, I mean things of the here and now, but obviously we realize that this is an important event that will continue to be significant throughout history," said Anderson.
While the Minnesota Historical Society has over a quarter million items, there are things they want that they haven't been able to find.
Right now, they're looking for a collection of men's polo-style shirts with a little penguin insignia popular in the 1960s. They were made by Munsingwear, the same company that made the union suit.
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