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00:00It's a place of unrivaled riches, a land of 10,000 lakes, endless forests exploding with color, and astounding wealth buried deep underground.
00:19Minnesota. It's a state that holds a special place in the heart of the nation.
00:27It's here that the journey of one of America's mightiest rivers begins.
00:32A river whose power fueled an epic battle between two flower kings and gave rise to the now famous Twin Cities.
00:45But it was also in Minnesota where a devastating conflict raged across America's frontier.
00:52Before coming to a grisly end, Aerial Minnesota soars across blue Midwestern skies.
01:02Where one young boy's dreams of flight inspired him to become an aviation legend.
01:09And where a second generation daredevil still dazzles farmers today.
01:14In this bread and butter state, hard work and ingenuity have fed a growing nation for more than a century.
01:22And great cities and industry have given birth to artistic genius.
01:28Once this northern state was written off as America's Siberia, but today it explodes with life.
01:37This is Minnesota.
02:14There's no place in Minnesota more famous for its patchwork of cornfields, dairies, and quaint towns than this, Stearns County.
02:27Here, under big prairie skies, Minnesotans have earned a reputation for their friendliness, often referred to as Minnesota Nice.
02:37And like a beacon on the prairie, the water tower of the town of Freeport surely welcomes visitors to stop in.
02:47In the 1970s, one of those visitors was the now beloved American storyteller, Garrison Keillor.
02:55It was here in Freeport that Keillor was inspired to create his own fictional Minnesota town, a place well known by his fans as Lake Wobegon.
03:05Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.
03:14Keillor was a regular at Charlie's Cafe and the smoky dive bar, the Pioneer Inn.
03:21Here, he met the real characters that inspired the colorful, fictional ones on his weekly radio series, A Prairie Home Companion.
03:30The cozy vibe of downtown Freeport can be traced back to the close-knit communities of the state's farming pioneers.
03:38In the mid-19th century, German and Scandinavian immigrants began pouring into Minnesota, chasing the promise of good farmland.
03:47Thousands of years ago, retreating glaciers deposited sediment that makes this some of the most fertile land in the world.
03:54Wheat and corn thrived here, and early pioneers quickly wrote home with word of their success.
04:01Soon, these European enclaves grew, holding tight to their old world traditions.
04:08And they left their stamp on the landscape with distinctive-looking barns.
04:14Today, 81,000 farms cover half of the state of Minnesota, producing $16 billion worth of cash crops each year.
04:27Minnesotan farmers are known for their work ethic.
04:31But sometimes, they get a break.
04:34Long before Garrison Keillor was entertaining the world with stories of the state's farmtown locals, other entertainers were arriving out of the sky.
04:43Daredevil pilots known as barnstormers, who still dazzle Minnesota farmers today.
04:51Pilot John Moore lifts off in his blue and gold Stearman biplane.
04:55Just like the one his grandfather flew back in the 1920s.
05:00After World War I, many pilots got their hands on surplus planes like these, and began flying them from town to town to entertain the locals.
05:10And Minnesota's farmers didn't even have to leave home to catch a show.
05:15The barnstormers were the first to fly their planes to the sky.
05:20And Minnesota's farmers didn't even have to leave home to catch a show.
05:25The barnstormers came to them in the form of full-blown aerobatic spectacles.
05:32Pilots used farmers' fields as makeshift runways, and huge crowds gathered to watch their death-defying stunts.
05:40Moore got hooked on flying at an early age, much like another young Minnesotan, who would go on to become one of the most famous aviators of the 20th century.
05:59Charles Lindbergh's dreams of flight began here, along the Mississippi River.
06:04He spent much of his childhood at a small farmhouse that's now hidden in the trees near the town of Little Falls.
06:11Here, an airplane captured his imagination for the first time.
06:16I heard an unusually loud engine noise. I ran to the window and climbed out onto the roof.
06:23There was an airplane flying upriver, below the treetops on the banks.
06:27Of course, I wanted to fly in it, but my mother said it would be much too expensive and dangerous.
06:34Luckily, the young Lindbergh didn't let his mother's warning deter him.
06:38In college, he quickly learned to fly, and the rest is aviation history.
06:46Perhaps it was the endless horizons of the Minnesota plains that lured Lindbergh into the air.
06:52He later wrote of the thrill of his first flight, seeing cows become the size of rabbits, and barns that soon looked like toys.
07:01But even from high above, some Minnesotan landmarks remain larger than life.
07:08This German chieftain, who once battled the Roman army, stands watch over the town of New Ulm in the Minnesota River Valley.
07:15Standing 32 feet tall, Hermann the German peers down on a town that looks like it could be in southern Germany.
07:22That's because, back in the 1850s, the German founders of New Ulm set out to create a haven for their own culture and traditions.
07:31Even these days, polka music often fills the streets, and glockenspiel bells ring on the hour.
07:38Many of the town's most famous artists are still alive today.
07:42But New Ulm may be best known for this brick factory, built in 1860 by a young machinist named August Schell, who wanted to bring good German beer to his growing town.
07:55He built his brewery next to Cottonwood River, where he sold his first beer.
08:00As Schell's brewery grew, so too did New Ulm.
08:04It was not long before there were 38 saloons in town, one for every 200 citizens.
08:10In the early 1900s, Schell's brewery became the largest brewery in the world.
08:15In the early 1900s, Schell's brewery became the largest brewery in the world.
08:20In the early 1900s, Schell's brewery became the largest brewery in the world.
08:24It was not long before there were 38 saloons in town, one for every 200 citizens.
08:30Today, Schell's brews are still considered some of the best in the country.
08:37At the time, the brewery and New Ulm sat smack in the middle of Dakota Sioux land, the easternmost territory of the Sioux people.
08:46When the Dakota Sioux came to town to trade, Mrs. Schell often gave them food.
08:51That's because times were tough for members of the tribe,
08:55and only getting tougher as settlers and the U.S. government started pushing them off their land.
09:01Tensions that would soon explode in one of the bloodiest conflicts in Minnesota history.
09:10On the far western edge of the state, a mile-long fissure cuts through the landscape.
09:16This ribbon of red rock marks one of the last Native American territories in Minnesota to be settled by Europeans.
09:25These are the sacred pipestone quarries of the Dakota Sioux, now part of the Pipestone National Monument.
09:34For at least 3,000 years, members of the tribe extracted soft rock here to carve their ceremonial pipes,
09:41believing the blood of their ancestors lay within it.
09:46Like pipestone, much of Minnesota itself was once Dakota Sioux territory.
09:52But in the first half of the 19th century, the U.S. government started pressuring the tribe to sell their land.
10:02In a treaty signed in 1851, the Dakota Sioux traded half of Minnesota for the promise of supplies, education, and gold.
10:12But the U.S. soon broke that treaty when it defaulted on its payments.
10:19After a series of bad harvests, the Dakota Sioux were pushed to their breaking point.
10:27In August 1862, small bands of Dakota warriors began launching raids on the northern fringe of their reservation, which bordered the Minnesota River.
10:37They attacked farms and villages, killing hundreds of settlers and taking women and children hostage.
10:44One of the fiercest battles was fought at New Ulm.
10:49650 Dakota lit fires to houses on the edges of town, corralling settlers into a four-block square downtown.
10:58Outnumbered, New Ulm's 300 defenders began burning down much of their own town.
11:03In an effort to fend off the attack.
11:07When the battle ended, New Ulm lay in ruins.
11:13Except for Shell's brewery, high above the Cottonwood River.
11:18Many believe it was spared during the battle because of the Shell's kindness to the Dakota.
11:22The U.S.-Dakota conflict of 1862 was one of the largest attacks on settlers in U.S. history.
11:28After six weeks of bitter fighting, 400 civilians and U.S. soldiers, as well as countless Dakota Sioux, were dead.
11:36In late September, the Dakota Sioux finally surrendered, and U.S. soldiers took more than 1,000 members of the tribe captive.
11:44But the battle was not over.
11:46They surrendered, and U.S. soldiers took more than 1,000 members of the tribe captive.
11:52But the grisly end of the war was still to come.
11:57It happened here, in the town of Mankato, on the banks of the Minnesota River.
12:02At Reconciliation Park, on Mankato's waterfront, stands a white buffalo.
12:08Sculpted from a 67-ton block of Minnesota limestone, it marks an execution site.
12:16On the morning of December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota prisoners were marched to a makeshift scaffolding here on the edge of town.
12:25A crowd of nearly 4,000 citizens had gathered to see justice served.
12:31303 Dakota had originally been sentenced to die, but President Lincoln spared 265 of them,
12:39reserving execution for the 38 men accused of killing and assaulting civilians.
12:44To keep order among the crowd, more than 1,000 soldiers were at the ready.
12:49As the prisoners filed towards their death, and as the nooses were tied around their necks, they sang a Dakota song.
12:57Then, with a swift blow of a soldier's axe, the floor below them fell away,
13:03and 38 members of the Dakota Sioux were executed all at once.
13:09It would be the single largest mass execution in U.S. history.
13:16Surviving members of the tribe were interned at nearby Fort Snelling, where many died from disease, malnutrition, and exposure.
13:25The following year, in 1863, 6,000 Dakota people were forced to relocate to South Dakota and Nebraska.
13:34With the Dakota gone, settlers moved in, paving the way for rapid growth, booming industries, and big cities that followed.
13:46But the legacy of the state's native tribe lives on.
13:50The name Minnesota itself is a Dakota Sioux word that means sky-tinted water.
13:56In this state, water can often appear to be everywhere.
14:00And without its most famous waterway, Minnesota's twin cities would never have existed.
14:10In late October, thousands of Canadian geese traveling south for the winter cross Minnesota.
14:16Their flocks can be up to 100,000 strong.
14:19Many stop to rest and refuel at a place called Lac Qui Parle Lake, a French translation of the original Dakota name that means lake that speaks.
14:31Spend five minutes here, and it's not hard to see and hear why.
14:37Their cacophony of honks and quacks will soon follow many of them south to Mexico.
14:41Minnesota may be known as the land of 10,000 lakes, but in typical Minnesotan fashion, that's a polite understatement.
14:4915,000 is probably more like it.
14:53From the air, it looks like one could puddle jump right across the state.
14:59Thousands of years ago, a massive glacial ice sheet slid across the state.
15:03One of these unassuming bodies of water has played an important role in the history of the nation.
15:09In 1832, an explorer named Henry Rowe Schoolcraft arrived here on a search for the mysterious source of one of America's greatest rivers.
15:18He discovered that it was a river that had been flowing for thousands of years.
15:23He discovered that it was a river that had been flowing for thousands of years.
15:27Henry Rowe Schoolcraft arrived here on a search for the mysterious source of one of America's greatest rivers, the Mississippi.
15:35With the help of a local Ojibwe guide, Schoolcraft finally found what he was looking for.
15:42He named this lake Itasca, a mashup of two Latin words meaning true head.
15:50Every year, half a million people flock here to witness the humble beginnings of the mighty Mississippi.
15:57It's the only place where it's possible to wade across North America's biggest river on foot.
16:03From here, the river quickly grows in size and strength as it winds its way south, over 2,500 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.
16:14In Minnesota, one spot on this historic waterway holds particular significance, the place where the Mississippi River meets the Minnesota.
16:24Today, this confluence is home to the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
16:32Back in the 1800s, it was the intersection of two main highways on the beaver fur trade which made it a popular camp for the traders.
16:41One named Pierre Perrant, or Pig's Eye, thanks to his one squinty eye, became particularly well known, not for his hunting skills, but for his whiskey.
16:53In a cave a short paddle away from where the rivers meet, Pig's Eye set up a ramshackle saloon, which quickly became a popular hangout.
17:02When squatters around Fort Snelling were kicked out in 1838, many settled down around Pig's Eye's bar.
17:11It was great for business until a zealous Catholic father came to town in 1841.
17:18He built a simple log chapel of St. Paul to minister to the Pig's Eye settlers.
17:22By 1860, Pig's Eye was known as St. Paul's Landing and had become the territorial capital.
17:32Few state capitals can claim such bawdy beginnings as St. Paul, Minnesota.
17:37The St. Paul congregation has since moved on from its first rustic gathering spot on the river cliffs.
17:43These days, members of the church gather in this majestic location.
17:47Topped with a massive copper dome.
17:50From its high perch, the silhouette of their Cathedral of St. Paul has defined the city's skyline ever since it was completed in 1915.
18:01By then, another domed beauty just down the road had already opened its doors.
18:07Minnesota's new state capitol building.
18:10Its ornate facility, the St. Paul Cathedral, was the centerpiece of the city's history.
18:16Its ornate facade, completed in 1905, was chiseled out of sparkling white Georgian marble.
18:23To this day, it's considered one of the country's grandest public buildings.
18:28But in spite of its polished appearance, St. Paul has attracted its fair share of colorful characters, in keeping with the spirit of the city's founder.
18:37On this quiet tree-lined street is the childhood home of one of the most celebrated American writers of the 20th century, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
18:47When Fitzgerald moved back to St. Paul as an adult, he earned a reputation for his hard drinking and racy lifestyle, not unlike the Jazz Age characters he created.
18:58And if it weren't for the mighty Mississippi River, Fitzgerald's St. Paul might have only been mere fiction.
19:07In the late 1800s, this was one of the busiest river ports in America.
19:12Each year, boats delivered tens of thousands of German and Irish immigrants here, from the big cities downriver, St. Louis and New Orleans.
19:21But this was the end of the line.
19:23Further upstream lay unnavigable rapids and a turbulent cascade called St. Anthony Falls.
19:30The falls may have cut off steamboat transit, but their power fueled an economic boom that lay the foundation for an entirely new city, St. Paul's bigger, more influential, twin.
19:42The story of how the twin cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis turned into powerhouses on the American prairie begins in the 1820s, when a few enterprising businessmen first molded these falls into a source of hydropower for their new mills.
19:59When railroads came to town in the second half of the 19th century, those mills kicked into high gear.
20:05Trains packed with Minnesota grain steamed into town across the then brand new Stone Arch Bridge.
20:12Today, it's a favorite among the city's pedestrians, but it was once the emblem of the railroad age and part of the Great Northern Railway.
20:21A network of rail lines that stretched from St. Paul to Seattle.
20:27Thanks to the trains, there was no end to the amount of grain that could be turned to flour.
20:32Minneapolis was soon known across the nation as Mill City, the flour-milling capital of the world.
20:39In 1880, the Washburn A Mill was built.
20:44It was the biggest mill in the world at the time, at least for a while.
20:50Soon, others were competing to become flour kings.
20:54After planning in secret for five years, a man named Charles Pillsbury built the most advanced flour mill in the world.
21:01His colossal red-tiled grain elevator remains one of Minneapolis' most distinctive industrial structures.
21:07Behind these brick walls, powerful water wheels allowed the mill to pump out 5,000 barrels a day,
21:14at a time when others were yielding just 500.
21:17The mill was also home to the largest flour mill in the world.
21:21The mill was also home to the largest flour mill in the world.
21:24Powerful water wheels allowed the mill to pump out 5,000 barrels a day,
21:28at a time when others were yielding just 500.
21:31It was a flour arms race.
21:34But in the end, Pillsbury's output was surpassed by that of its biggest rivals.
21:40In 1928, the makers of gold-metal flour merged with five other nearby mills,
21:46and General Mills was born.
21:49Today, this food conglomerate controls over 100 global brands,
21:54including Betty Crocker, Cheerios, Yoplait, and Haagen-Dazs.
21:59One of the five biggest food companies in the world, General Mills still calls Minneapolis home.
22:06Many early edifices of the flour industry are still standing,
22:10like the burnt-out skeleton of the Washburn A Mill, which now houses the Mill City Museum.
22:19Next door, the futuristic cantilevered bridge of the Guthrie Theater juts out over the Mississippi River.
22:27It's the centerpiece of a vibrant new arts district,
22:31and an example of how the city's industrial past has paved the way for its more artsy future.
22:37Known today as the Mini-Apple,
22:40Minneapolis has more theater seats per capita than anywhere else in the country, outside of New York.
22:48Art is a big deal here, often quite literally.
22:53Take, for example, the oversized Spoon Bridge and Cherry,
22:57sculpted by Klaas Oldenburg and Kosche van Bruggen.
23:01Its 1,200-pound cherry and 5,800-pound spoon are so big,
23:07they had to be built in two different New England shipyards,
23:10and then transported here and assembled on-site.
23:14They now sit in one of the largest urban sculpture gardens in the country.
23:19It's part of the Walker Art Center, a gallery that got its start in 1879,
23:24when lumber baron Thomas B. Walker hung his favorite paintings in a room in his house
23:29and welcomed anyone who wanted to see them.
23:32135 years later, the Walker Art Center is considered one of the most popular modern art museums in the country.
23:40But it's another museum that best captures the split personality of the Twin Cities.
23:46At the University of Minnesota campus,
23:49the Weissman Art Museum's more traditional side is now eclipsed by its more avant-garde.
23:55The ultra-modern brushed steel design by architect Frank Gehry
23:59also symbolizes Minneapolis' new era of innovative industry and business growth.
24:06And when it comes to dominating the skyline,
24:09the city's three tallest skyscrapers have had their fair share of sibling rivalry.
24:15When the sleek, dark IDS Center, designed by Philip Johnson, was completed in 1973,
24:21it quickly dominated the skyline at 775 feet tall.
24:26Fifteen years later, the gleaming Art Deco Wells Fargo building shot up nearby,
24:32but its highest features topped out at 774 feet.
24:37But in 1992, the steely new Capella Tower made a bid for the crown.
24:42Its builder claimed it was taller than the IDS by almost a foot.
24:48But now, counting a storage area for window-washing equipment on its roof,
24:53the IDS is once again the tallest building in the state at 792 feet,
24:5916 feet higher than the Capella.
25:02And it also has another claim to fame.
25:05This downtown office building was featured in the opening credits of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
25:11Long before this recent growth spurt,
25:15Minnesota's tallest building was not in Minneapolis, but 80 miles south, in the town of Rochester.
25:21The 19-story Plummer building was also the headquarters of a radical new method of practice in medicine.
25:29Back in the 1880s, Dr. William Worrell Mayo and his two sons, Dr. Charlie and Dr. Will,
25:35opened up their small family practice to other doctors and local researchers.
25:41Their innovative teamwork approach to patient care became a model for hospitals around the world.
25:48Today, the Mayo Clinic is still considered a pioneer in the research and treatment of hard-to-treat diseases.
25:59From its towering skyscrapers and large-scale art,
26:02to its cutting-edge medical facilities, this Midwestern state sets a high bar.
26:09But far outside of its twin cities lies what may be Minnesota's most treasured asset,
26:16a spectacular show put on every fall by Mother Nature.
26:21In October, the forests of northern Minnesota explode in color.
26:30Maples, oak, aspen, and tamaracks take center stage,
26:35blazing every imaginable shade of yellow, orange, and red.
26:40But this jaw-dropping display is a relatively recent addition to the show.
26:45Over a century ago, much of northern Minnesota was covered primarily with just one species, white pine.
26:54Today, they're hard to find.
26:58This tiny grove, known as the Lost Forty, is one of the only patches of white pine remaining in the state.
27:07Ninety-eight percent of Minnesota's overgrown forests are covered with white pine.
27:12Ninety-eight percent of Minnesota's old-growth pine has been wiped off the map by the logging industry,
27:18clearing ground for a more diverse range of species that now blankets the state with fall colors.
27:26As frontier settlements grew across Minnesota in the early 19th century, the demand for timber skyrocketed.
27:34By the 1830s, these hills were starting to teem with lumberjacks.
27:38One still remains larger than life, especially in the lakeside town of Bemidji,
27:44where residents claim their folk hero, Paul Bunyan, was born.
27:50As legend has it, Paul cut straight across these forests with his trusty ox, Babe,
27:55who hauled off logs as fast as he could chop them.
28:01Here in Bemidji, Paul cast an impressive shadow at 18 feet tall.
28:05There's a lot of love in Minnesota's woods for Mr. Bunyan.
28:09That's because logging runs deep in the veins here.
28:15To the east, the lush St. Croix River Valley was once considered the motherlode of white pine.
28:22And it was the St. Croix River that runs through it which turned the logging industry here into a national sensation.
28:27When U.S. treaties opened up Native American land in 1837,
28:31logging companies raced to stake claim on virgin white pine forests.
28:38The wood was strong, lightweight, and floated well downriver.
28:43During the winter, lumberjacks would drag logs over the frozen ground using horse and oxen,
28:49then float those logs into the river.
28:51During the winter, lumberjacks would drag logs over the frozen ground using horse and oxen,
28:56then float those logs downriver to sawmills in the spring.
29:02It was treacherous work.
29:04Brawny lumbermen, known as river pigs, had to steer and sometimes ride the logs downriver.
29:11Those who fell off could be crushed or drowned.
29:16Logs frequently choked up the St. Croix,
29:18and the river pigs had to muscle or dynamite them out of the jam.
29:24This is the site of one of the most notorious pileups in Minnesota's logging history.
29:30The Dalls is considered the sharpest and most dangerous bend on the river.
29:36When logs crammed into this deep basalt gorge in 1886, the blockage stretched back for two miles.
29:43The logs were so thick that a person could walk right across them.
29:49More than 200 river pigs labored for six weeks using ropes, steam engines,
29:54and finally, 24 pounds of dynamite to blow through the jam.
30:04Once it was cleared, the logs floated downstream to a town aptly named Stillwater,
30:10thanks to the wide, quiet waters that float along its banks.
30:14It was a perfect place to gather the floating timber so it could be sent to Stillwater's mills.
30:22Stillwater started off in the 1840s as a tiny fur trading town on the St. Croix River,
30:28and it's considered the birthplace of the state.
30:31The first convention to establish Minnesota as a territory took place here in 1848.
30:38A decade later, Minnesota became the 32nd state.
30:43When the golden age of lumber arrived, Stillwater's fortunes quickly changed.
30:51By the 1890s, it was the busiest logging depot on the St. Croix,
30:56with as much as 450 million board feet of lumber and logs arriving here each year from upriver.
31:02At its peak, 13,000 people called it home.
31:06But Stillwater's boom didn't last long.
31:10By 1900, most of the trees worth logging were already gone, which caused its mills to close.
31:17Minnesota's white pine forests had vanished, and the great lumber boom came to an end.
31:25But luckily, the state had another treasure buried underground.
31:29One that would end up helping the country win two world wars.
31:37The story begins here in Minnesota's Iron Range,
31:40hills that the local Ojibwe called the Sleeping Giant.
31:47In the early 1880s, an industrialist from Pennsylvania named Charlemagne Tower
31:53woke these hills up from their slumber when he snatched them from the ground.
31:56A few years later, the Sudan Mine was pulling up its first loads of ore.
32:03It's the deepest iron mine in Minnesota, plunging almost 2,500 feet.
32:10Once the ore was heaved up to the surface,
32:13trains lined up at this loading bridge to carry it off for processing.
32:18Those trains stopped running here in 1962,
32:21when the best of the mine's iron ore was finally gone.
32:27But mining still continues in Minnesota on a grand scale.
32:31Meet the man-made Grand Canyon of the North,
32:35otherwise known as Hull Rust Mahoney Mine.
32:41It's the largest open-pit iron mine on the Earth's surface,
32:45but still the largest in the world.
32:47It's the largest open-pit iron mine on the Earth's surface,
32:51but some parts of this three-by-two-mile pit look like another planet.
33:01During both world wars, one quarter of all the iron ore in the U.S.
33:06came out of these red hills to make steel tanks and ships.
33:11Today, giant machines drill deep holes for explosives to blast the bedrock.
33:17Then, 33-cubic-yard shovels extract the ore.
33:23Motorcades of 240-ton trucks then bring in the rock for processing,
33:28where it's crushed so the ore can be separated and shipped to steel mills.
33:35Since it opened in 1895,
33:38almost a billion and a half tons of ore have been removed from this big hole.
33:43Helping Minnesota become the largest producer of iron ore
33:47and lower-grade taconite in the country.
33:54On this outcrop of land, at the edge of the mine,
33:58lie faint traces of a ghost town the mine left in its wake.
34:02From the air, the abandoned streets and foundations of old Hibbing
34:06are still faintly visible.
34:09In the 1910s, the Oliver Mining Company realized the town
34:14was sitting on a gold mine of iron ore.
34:17And so, it convinced the town to pack up and move everything.
34:22Residents used horses, steel wheels, and logs
34:26to transport 180 houses and 20 businesses to a site two miles away.
34:31The move cost the mining company $60 million at the time,
34:35but considering the potential wealth of the mine, it was a small price to pay.
34:43New Hibbing went on to become the largest town in the Iron Range
34:47and one of the great melting pots of Minnesota.
34:50Since jobs were plentiful and English wasn't required,
34:54mining was a natural fit for immigrants.
34:57In the early 20th century, Swedes, Finns, Croatians, and Slovenians
35:01made up 70% of the mining force in the Iron Range.
35:06In the nearby town of Chisholm,
35:09this 36-foot tall brass statue commemorates the miners
35:13who've been digging in these hills for more than 100 years.
35:16Life was made easier for many of them, thanks to one local businessman.
35:21In 1914, Swedish immigrant Carl Wickham
35:25began offering rides to help Hibbing's miners get to work.
35:29Within seven years, his sleek grey buses, known as greyhounds,
35:34were taking them to cities across Minnesota.
35:37Some of these early workhorses now rest here in Hibbing's Greyhound Bus Museum.
35:43Greyhound buses ultimately linked Minnesota with the rest of the country,
35:47but it was a giant body of water on Minnesota's eastern border
35:52that would connect the state with the world.
35:55Giving rise to one of America's great port cities,
35:59and the birthplace of an American cultural icon named Bob Dylan.
36:10In the late 1600s, a group of French-Canadian explorers
36:14crossed Lake Superior and guided their canoes into this inlet
36:18at the mouth of Minnesota's Pigeon River.
36:21They had heard rumors that this waterway would lead them to rich hunting grounds for beaver.
36:28But as they paddled upstream, a formidable obstacle towered above them.
36:34The rapids roared beneath these menacing falls.
36:38Plunging 120 feet, they're the highest in Minnesota.
36:44Luckily for the traders, they weren't the first to face this navigational dilemma.
36:50Near the falls, hidden beneath the trees, lay a trade route of the local Ojibwe people
36:56who had long used it to carry their canoes around the falls.
37:01Safely upstream, they could paddle on to rich inland hunting grounds.
37:07Both the Ojibwe and French names for the trail mean a great carrying place.
37:13Today, it's known as Grand Portage and lies near the U.S.-Canadian border.
37:20Thanks to Grand Portage, the beaver trade flourished.
37:24So in 1794, the Montreal-based Northwest Company set up a trading post nearby
37:30on the Lake Superior shoreline.
37:34In the bay, they built over 70 canoes each year for their travel upriver.
37:43A reconstruction of their great hall is now the centerpiece of Grand Portage National Monument,
37:48which celebrates the historic fur trade and Ojibwe culture.
37:57The adventurous fur traders who paddled up Minnesota's rivers may be long gone,
38:02but explorers continue to navigate these northern waterways.
38:07They journey here to experience one of Minnesota's greatest riches,
38:13the pristine wilderness of an area known as the Boundary Waters.
38:19It covers a million acres of lakes, streams, and forests,
38:24stretching across northern Minnesota to the Canadian border.
38:28With more than a thousand lakes,
38:31the Boundary Waters can seem like an impenetrable landscape from high above.
38:38But this aquatic wilderness is a playground for those who love to paddle.
38:44And archaeologists recently unearthed siltstone tools here,
38:49suggesting that humans inhabited these shores as early as 10,000 years ago,
38:54soon after Ice Age glaciers carved out the lakes.
39:00The view today is much like Minnesota's early inhabitants would have found it.
39:07But not all waters in Minnesota are as peaceful as these.
39:14Due east of these placid lakes, Lake Superior provides a stark contrast.
39:21Like a vast ocean, the 33,000 square mile surface of this great lake
39:27provides the perfect opportunity for northeastern storms to pick up steam
39:31before hitting Minnesota's coast,
39:34earning this area of the North Shore the title
39:37the most dangerous piece of water in the world.
39:40In the last half of the 19th century,
39:43the outline of this great lake has been a graveyard for freight steamers.
39:48The jagged cliffs around Split Rock Lighthouse have been particularly cruel.
39:54On November 28th, 1905,
39:57hurricane force winds through a ship called the Madeira
40:00straight into the rocks just north of where the lighthouse now stands.
40:05Once aground, a member of the crew leapt from the ship
40:09and scrambled up the 60-foot cliff face.
40:11Slinging a rope out to his crew, he managed to save all but one.
40:16After the storm cleared, construction began on the Split Rock Lighthouse.
40:21At the time, it was one of the most remote lighthouses ever built.
40:26During the 1905 storm, 29 freighters were either damaged or destroyed along this coast.
40:35One of the deadliest wrecks happened right outside of Duluth,
40:39Lake Superior's largest port.
40:41In the early 20th century, steel freighters were fixtures on the horizon here.
40:53Unlike any other U.S. port, Duluth had access to both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans.
41:00Trains brought Minnesota's mineral bounty to Duluth,
41:04and Duluth shipped it to the rest of the world.
41:11During World War II, crews on these ore docks loaded as much as 400,000 tons a day
41:18onto ships heading for the iron and steel works of Chicago and Pittsburgh.
41:22They all passed underneath Duluth's most iconic landmark, the Aerial Lift Bridge.
41:29It was constructed in 1905 to connect the long spit of land known as Minnesota Point
41:34to the rest of the city, but not interfere with its busy shipping lane.
41:39Today, Duluth's shipping business has slowed,
41:42but the bridge still rises up to 40 times a day for all ships, big and small.
41:52This gritty landscape made a powerful impression on one Duluth resident, born here in the 1940s.
42:00I like the way the hills tumble to the waterfront and the way the wind blows around the grain elevators.
42:06The train yards go on forever, too. It's old age industrial, that's what it is.
42:13Those are the words of one of America's greatest cultural icons,
42:18a Minnesota boy named Bob Zimmerman who grew up in Duluth's hillside district
42:24and went on to become the musical genius known as Bob Dylan.
42:29He was born at St. Mary's Hospital in 1941,
42:33and for the first six years of his life, lived in the second-story flat of this now green-roofed clabbered house.
42:40At the age of four, he was already filling the house with music and later sang at family gatherings.
42:47In 1959, when he was 17, he went to see rock legend Buddy Hawley perform here at the historic Duluth Armory.
42:56It was one of Hawley's final performances, just three days before he died in a plane crash in Iowa.
43:04In the packed auditorium, the 17-year-old Zimmerman was right in the front row.
43:09That night would prove to be a key inspiration for his career.
43:14Not long after the Armory show, Bob was on to the big city of Minneapolis.
43:19His time here transformed him.
43:24After enrolling at the University of Minnesota, he moved into the student neighborhood known as Dinkytown.
43:30It was a mix of students and counterculture types, a little piece of Greenwich Village in the Midwest.
43:36He rented a small apartment above this former corner drugstore, and while he attended a few classes, music consumed him.
43:44A local beatnik poet lent Bob a copy of Woody Guthrie's autobiography,
43:49and he was surrounded by the music.
43:51Music consumed him.
43:53A local beatnik poet lent Bob a copy of Woody Guthrie's autobiography,
43:58and he was surrounded by American folk music, which was coming back into vogue.
44:02Something clicked.
44:04He traded in his electric guitar for an acoustic one and began singing in coffeehouses, under the new stage name Bob Dylan.
44:12You call yourself what you want to call yourself, he later said.
44:16This is the land of the free.
44:22It's rumored that one of Dylan's greatest songs, All Along the Watchtower,
44:27was inspired by this hat-shaped building called the Witch's Tower on the University of Minnesota campus.
44:33Like a medieval turret, this water tower lords over Prospect Park,
44:38which made it easy to spot from Dylan's apartment.
44:45In Minneapolis, while Dylan was finding inspiration for the music of generations past,
44:49the city itself was becoming one of the more forward-thinking places in the Midwest.
44:57Some of its progressive roots can be found at Dylan's alma mater.
45:01The University of Minnesota was one of the first co-ed public universities in the country,
45:06and ever since it was founded in 1869, its students have been thinking outside of the box.
45:13U of M graduates have dreamt up such revolutionary products as Gore-Tex, Post-Its, and Rollerblades.
45:21But despite being on the cutting edge, one age-old tradition here holds fast.
45:27Football.
45:29This 50,000 seat stadium known as Gopher Hole is the beloved home of the Golden Gophers,
45:35one of the oldest college football teams in the country.
45:38With one of the most storied rivalries,
45:40since 1890, they've battled the University of Wisconsin Badgers 122 times,
45:47vying for hometown glory and claim to the six-foot Paul Bunyan axe.
45:53Lately, the Badgers have been the ones chopping down the goalpost post-game, a winner's tradition.
46:00Much like Paul Bunyan himself, this mythic rivalry will never die.
46:04Minnesota is a land of many legends, from its sports teams to its Fortune 500 companies.
46:12But Minnesotans are particularly proud of their local music heroes.
46:16Dylan was the king of folk music in the 1960s.
46:20But 20 years later, a young musician from Minneapolis named Prince
46:25appeared on the scene and revolutionized pop music.
46:35In a quiet suburb of Minneapolis, this 65,000 square foot fortress
46:41is the stage for one of the most outrageous showmen in pop history.
46:46Prince Rogers Nelson, better known simply as Prince, was born in Minneapolis in 1958
46:53and by the age of 24 already had an album that had gone platinum.
46:58Following the runaway success of Purple Rain, Prince built Paisley Park Studios.
47:04Beneath its glass skylights are a soundstage, rehearsal hall and multiple recording studios,
47:10where he masterminded a new genre of music, the industrial synthesizer-infused Minneapolis sound.
47:22Here in the Twin Cities, Purple pride is fierce.
47:26When 64,000 fans pack the Vikings' Metrodome, it's guaranteed to be a raucous evening.
47:33In fact, it's known as one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL.
47:38But this once state-of-the-art dome is over 30 years old,
47:43and like many NFL players, it's looking at retirement.
47:47Now, an even bigger $975 million stadium is in the works.
47:53But pro sports fans in Minneapolis have plenty to keep them entertained while they wait.
47:58Their legendary Minnesota Twins have one of the best new ballparks in the country.
48:05It also happens to be one of the greenest.
48:08Here at Target Field, rainwater is collected under the grass
48:12and steam-powered electricity is generated at the trash incinerator next door.
48:18Just a few blocks away, its sister stadium, Target Center, boasts one of the largest living roofs in the state.
48:25It covers the ball courts of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves,
48:29keeping the team and its fans warm during even the coldest of the state's notorious harsh winters.
48:37Back in 1885, a New York journalist called Minnesota another Siberia, unfit for human habitation.
48:47But ice and snow hasn't stopped immigrants from flooding into the state.
48:51Even those from one of the hottest countries on the planet.
49:00This is Little Mogadishu, home of the largest Somali population in North America.
49:07Many of those who fled Somalia's former civil war to seek refuge in America
49:12now live in this cluster of public housing apartments the Somalis call the Towers.
49:17There are more Somalis in Minnesota than in any other state.
49:21That's because local volunteers have worked hard to help these refugees adapt to life here.
49:26And despite the cold, most choose to stay in Minnesota.
49:31Over the years, many immigrants' dreams have become reality in the Twin Cities.
49:36The fact is, the quality of life here ranks at the top of the country.
49:40It could be that there's something to Minnesota Nice, after all.
49:45Or maybe it has to do with being surrounded by so much water.
49:49The name Minneapolis means Water City, thanks to the 22 lakes that sit within its limits.
49:56Here on the largest, Lake Minnetonka, locals can enjoy the great outdoors without even leaving town.
50:06Only from above does the true scope of Minnesota's bounty come into focus.
50:11From the farmers who inspired a great American storyteller,
50:15to the lumberjacks and miners who power the nation's big industries,
50:20to the adventurers and innovators who still keep the pioneering spirit of the state's early explorers ablaze.
50:41To learn more, visit minnesota.gov