As part of the Minnesota Historical Society's Statehood week, Mimi Holmes, playing a 1857 school teacher, showed a group of visiting students from Levi Dodge Middle School, Farmington, what Minnesota almost looked like, with St. Cloud, St. Paul and St. Peter the largest cities. In character, she told them that all the good Republican farmers and business people were in this part of the state while in the north were too many Democrats, loggers and fur trappers who couldn't be counted or taxed.

As part of a Minnesota Historical Society display for statehood week, photos of Minnesota's first and second Capitols were in the hallway. On the left was the first Capitol which was occupied by the territorial legislature in 1854. Wings were added in the 1870's and it was destroyed by fire in 1881. The second, on the right, was built on the same site, opened in 1883 and used until the present Capitol opened in 1905. It was used as office space until it was torn down in 1938. Minnesota became a state May 11, 1858 and the crystal chandelier in the Capitol Rotunda will be illuminated this Friday.