Shows / Pionerd
Pionerd
Pionerd is a daily Minnesota history podcast. Every day, one story drawn from the people, places, and moments that shaped the state we call home. From the Iron Range to the Mississippi headwaters, from the Twin Cities to the small towns most maps forget, Minnesota's history is richer and stranger than most people realize. Join us every day and find out what happened here.
Episodes
- Pionerd
The Buried Cradle of St. Paul: Our Story of Fountain Cave
On July 16, 1817, Major Stephen H. Long stepped out of a six-oared skiff and walked into a hidden white sandstone cavern, an exploration that would trigger a…
- Pionerd
The St. Paul Diplomat Who Exposed an International Scandal: William T. Francis
He challenged local housing discrimination on Sargent Avenue, backed Minnesota’s landmark anti-lynching law, and broke regional barriers as a diplomat. This…
- Pionerd
The Deadliest Summer: Minnesota's 1936 Dust Bowl Heatwave
In July 1936, a brutal Dust Bowl heat dome transformed Minnesota into a furnace, claiming nearly 900 lives. This episode explores the historic climate crisis…
- Pionerd
The Sea Wing Tragedy: Minnesota's Forgotten Lake Pepin Capsize
On July 13, 1890, a sudden summer squall struck Lake Pepin, causing one of the deadliest maritime accidents on the upper Mississippi River. We review the…
- Pionerd
The St. Paul Betrayal: How a 1902 Capitol Coup Reconfigured the Civil Rights Movement - Part 2
On July 10, 1902, the quiet chambers of the old Minnesota State Capitol became an anomalous laboratory for a high-stakes, sophisticated proxy war that split…
- Pionerd
The Red-Hot Crucible - Part 1
On a sweltering July 9th day in 1902, the absolute titans of the national civil rights movement, including W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Booker T…
- Pionerd
The Invisible Threat Under the Suburbs
In July 1986, a high-pressure petroleum pipeline ruptured beneath Mounds View, Minnesota, sending over 22,000 gallons of raw gasoline into a suburban storm…
- Pionerd
Unity Day - July 7: Honoring the Life and Legacy of Philando Castile
On this anniversary of the two-day Philando Castile Restoration (July 6) and Unity (July 7) observance, we recount the events of July 6, 2016, in Falcon…
- Pionerd
The Duluth Trench: 1889
On July 6, 1889, Duluth was a city being violently carved out of solid rock, driven by an industrial boom that outpaced its own humanity. As wealth accumulated…
- Pionerd
The Killing of Little Crow
In a Meeker County raspberry patch, two settlers kill a Dakota man without knowing who he is. They soon discover they have killed Ta Oyate Duta, Little Crow…
- Pionerd
The First Minnesota at Gettysburg
When the Union center faced total collapse at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863, only one force stood between the Union line and disaster. This episode follows the…
- Pionerd
When the Lights Went Out: The 20-Day Shutdown That Changed Minnesota Politics
In July 2011, Minnesota faced an unprecedented crisis: the total shutdown of state government. For twenty days, partisan gridlock brought essential services to…
- Pionerd
The Nemadji River Derailment: The 1992 Evacuation that Stopped Two Cities
At 2:50 AM on a humid June night, a mechanical failure on a Burlington Northern bridge turned a quiet river basin into a regional crisis. When a tanker…
- Pionerd
The Paper Frontier: How Railroad Graft Built and Broke Early Minnesota
Progress often arrives with a price tag, and in 1854, Minnesota learned exactly how high that cost could be. In this episode, we pull back the curtain on the…
- Pionerd
The Neutral Ground: How Ely Ended Minnesota’s Wolf War
In 1993, a remote Minnesota town became the unlikely battleground for the future of the gray wolf. Discover how the International Wolf Center turned a fierce…
- Pionerd
Alexander Ramsey, the Birth of Minnesota: Progress and the Price of Power
Alexander Ramsey was the architect of modern Minnesota, but his legacy is defined by a brutal collision of ambition and displacement. In this episode of…
- Pionerd
Corruption and Accountability: The Case of U.S. v. Wadena
In 1996, the federal prosecution of White Earth Chairman Darrell "Chip" Wadena brought a twenty-year era of reservation politics to a sudden close. This…
- Pionerd
Viking Heritage on the Great Lakes: The Story of the Leif Erikson
Why would a group of sailors bring a replica Viking ship through the St. Lawrence Seaway to the heart of North America? This episode dives into the history of…
- Pionerd
The Fergus Falls Windstorms of 1919
We reconstruct the events of a series of violent windstorms that affected Fergus Falls, Minnesota, leaving a trail of destruction that reshaped the city’s…
- Pionerd
The Rise of the University of Minnesota: A History of Innovation and Survival
Explore the transformative history of the University of Minnesota. This episode of Pionerd tracks the university’s journey from a defunct 19th-century school…
- Pionerd
The Syndicate That Burned the Tracks
In the early 1950s, the Twin Cities possessed one of the cleanest, most efficient electric streetcar networks in North America. By 1954, it was completely…
- Pionerd
The Rotation-Heavy Horizon
Mid-June began like any typical summer vacation across the Upper Midwest, but a massive atmospheric vacuum over the Dakotas quickly tore open the region’s…
- Pionerd
The Fugitive of Highland Park
For over a decade, Sara Jane Olson was known to her St. Paul neighbors as a dedicated soccer mom, local theater actress, and progressive church volunteer, but…
- Pionerd
The Day the Law Broke: The Duluth Lynchings and Their Legacy
On this date in Minnesota history, a lawless mob overran the Duluth city jail, bypassing a medical report that cleared the suspects of any crime. Minnesota’s…
- Pionerd
The White Pine Empire and the Tentacles of "The Octopus"
For seventy-five years, a ruthless timber monopoly controlled the St. Croix River, driving billions of feet of old-growth pine and altering the Midwest…
- Pionerd
St. Paul's War on Bikes
On June 11, 1899, St. Paul deployed a twelve-man bicycle police squad to hunt down fast riders on downtown sidewalks. Discover how a massive transit monopoly…
- Pionerd
The Blood of the Ninth: Disaster and Devotion at Brice’s Cross Roads
When an incompetent Union general ran his infantry division to the point of collapse in a suffocating Mississippi swamp, the raw farmers and woodsmen of the…
- Pionerd
The Iron Horse Trap: How Tiny Cottonwood, MN Took On Big Oil
When American farmers rapidly traded their workhorses for internal combustion tractors in the early 1920s, they unknowingly stepped into a beautifully…
- Pionerd
The Day the Millionaires Invaded St Paul
On June 8, 1854, the remote Minnesota Territory woke up to a logistical nightmare: a surprise fleet of luxury steamboats packed with former U.S. President…
- Pionerd
Building the Megaphone: The 1885 Launch of St. Paul's Black Press
What does it take to sustain an independent voice when the mainstream media landscape is actively hostile? On June 5, 1885, The Western Appeal launched in St…
- Pionerd
39 Words, 30,000 Women: Minnesota’s Suffrage Landslide
On June 4th, 1919, a federal telegraph wire hit Minnesota announcing that Congress had finally passed the 19th Amendment. It triggered an instant…
- Pionerd
When the Cold War Stopped on I-94
Bypassing major coastal capitals like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and his brilliant wife, Raisa, touched down in the…
- Pionerd
The True Giants of the Blue Earth Valley
When the federal government gave the Ho-Chunk Nation a new reservation in southern Minnesota in 1855, they accidentally ignited an economic turf war with…
- Pionerd
10 Feet of Plywood vs. the North Atlantic
What happens when a suburban shop teacher decides to challenge the graveyard of the Atlantic on his own terms? This is the story of June 1, 1979, when Gerry…
- Pionerd
The Day St. Paul’s Underworld Architect Stepped Down
On May 29, 1920, legendary St. Paul Police Chief John J. "The Big Fellow" O'Connor officially retired. We expose the true history of the infamous O'Connor…
- Pionerd
The Secret Civil War Inside Minnesota’s Grocery Stores
In May of 1975, the Twin Cities food co-op movement was torn apart by a bitter, internal struggle for control. The "Co-op Wars" were a high-stakes ideological…
- Pionerd
The Battle of Shakopee and the Two Minnesotas
Just sixteen days after Minnesota achieved statehood, a violent encounter shattered the morning quiet along the Minnesota River. The 1858 Battle of Shakopee…
- Pionerd
Congressman John Blatnik and His Legacy
We honor the birthday of Congressman John Blatnik. Born on the Iron Range to Slovenian immigrants, John Blatnik carried the code of mining solidarity all the…
- Pionerd
A Day of Remembrance, Reflection and Reckoning
On this Memorial Day, as we honor the ultimate sacrifice of our nation’s veterans, we also mark a profound anniversary in our own backyard. Pionerd steps…
- Pionerd
The Battle of Deputies Run
In 1934, Minneapolis was run by a shadow group of wealthy barons who ruthlessly crushed unions, but they pushed the city's truck drivers too far. On May 22…
- Pionerd
The Lone Eagle's Ascent and Darkest Descent
On May 21, 1927, he was the most celebrated man on earth. A decade later, he was a national pariah compared to a Civil War traitor. How did the exact same icy…
- Pionerd
The 14 Minute Catastrophe That Broke Minnesota's Gallows
Minnesota hasn't executed anyone in over a century, and we reveal the gruesome reason why. Discover how a smooth talking Minneapolis sociopath and a…
- Pionerd
He Saw It First
Before the mines, park or carnival, Louis W. Hill looked at Minnesota and Montana and saw what nobody else had figured out yet and spent his life building it…
- Pionerd
Before the Country Was Ready
Minnesota has a habit of being first, not because it plans to be, but because the right people show up at the right moment and do not wait for permission…
- Pionerd
The Big Middle
Before St. Paul had a name, the Dakota called this stretch of the Mississippi the big middle. Then a one-eyed bootlegger showed up and nearly named a capital…
- Pionerd
The Pilgrims and the River
Robert Hickman escaped slavery in Missouri in 1863 with nothing but a congregation and a name. Twelve years before he was permitted to lead the church he…
- Pionerd
The General and The Secret War's Legacy
May 14th is Hmong American Day in Minnesota. In 1961, the CIA recruited a General Vang Pao to fight a war America would deny for thirty years. Tens of…
- Pionerd
The Factory That Came Too Late
In the spring of 1942, more than eighty Dakota County farm families had six weeks to leave. What the federal government built in their place was unlike…
- Pionerd
Dr. Nellie Barsness Goes to War
Dr. Nellie Barsness died 60 years ago today. She became the first woman born in Minnesota to earn a medical degree from the University of Minnesota in 1902…
- Pionerd
Two Constitutions and the 32nd State
Minnesota became a state on May 11th, 1858. What Congress actually ratified that day is a harder question. Two political parties so opposed, they refused to…
- Pionerd
She Created Mother's Day and He Carried a Red Umbrella
On May 10th, 1908, Anna Jarvis held the first official Mother's Day service in Grafton, West Virginia. What transpired didn't go according to her plan. On this…
- Pionerd
The University of Minnesota Shuts Down
The University of Minnesota, May 1972. Eight days that became the most turbulent moment in the school's history — and a story most Minnesotans have never…
- Pionerd
He Wore a Gophers Visor and Told Us the World Was Getting Better
Before 1992, exactly two Tibetans lived in Minnesota. Today there are thousands. This is the story of how one man named Thupten Dadak built a community out of…
- Pionerd
The Law That Broke the Still
Sixty-six days into Prohibition, the sheriff of Hennepin County was under arrest. The county attorney was next. A bootlegger, a brothel owner, and the highest…
- Pionerd
Roaring Like Drunken Devils and the Night the Sirens Wailed
On the evening of May 6th, 1965, six tornadoes, four of them among the most violent on the Fujita scale, tore through the Twin Cities over three hours…
- Pionerd
In the Heart of the Beast - How Minneapolis Invented Its Own May Day
On May 5th, 1975, fifty artists and neighbors marched through the Powderhorn neighborhood of South Minneapolis — one of the most culturally diverse communities…
- Pionerd
The Ford Plant Comes to St. Paul
On May 4th, 1925, the first Model T rolled off the assembly line at Ford's new Twin Cities plant on the bluffs above the Mississippi River in St. Paul. What…
- Pionerd
The First Ocean Ship Enters Duluth
On May 3rd, 1959, a British cargo ship named the Ramon de Larrinaga sailed under Duluth's Aerial Lift Bridge and became the first oceangoing vessel in history…
- Pionerd
The Night the Mills Exploded
On May 2nd, 1878, a flour dust explosion destroyed the Washburn A Mill in Minneapolis, the largest flour mill in the world, killing eighteen men and…
- Pionerd
Say Hey in the Snow - Willie Mays Opens in Minneapolis
It's May 1st, 1951. A nineteen-year-old from Alabama wakes up in Minneapolis to snow on the ground and has no idea what happens next. His name is Willie Mays.