MN150: Transportation in 19th-century Minnesota

Updated: March 1, 2008 - 9:11 PM

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Examples of transportation in 19th-century Minnesota: the horse-drawn carriage and the river ferry. In this family photo from 1896, both of Paul Peterson's Swedish immigrant maternal great-grandfathers -- Johannes Peterson and Mons Person -- are in the carriage. His ferryman great-uncle Peter Peterson is taking them across the Red River west of Hallock, Minn. Mons Person and his family settled near Cannon Falls when they came over from Sweden, but a blight of cinch bugs destroyed their crops and they lost everything. He purchased farmland near Hallock from James J. Hill, who was developing the areas where his Great Northern Railroad ran. Paul Peterson's grandfather, Mons Person's son, changed the family name to Peterson, a common practice in those years.