"Articles from the Blue Earth County Historical Society's quarterly newsletter, The Historian, from 2006 through 2010. Topics include mills and elevators; literature and photography; murder and gangsters" --

The Red Jacket Valley, located in Blue Earth County, in the heart of southern Minnesota, has beautiful scenery, rich soil, meandering rivers, and a rich history of human settlement.

"The late 19th Century was a golden age; the beginnings of American industry. We've heard about the great captains of industry like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Carnegie, but Southern Minnesota had its own crop of captains. The village of Garden City, Minnesota, population of 400 in 1900, was home to ten gifted, ambitious and remarkable men that went on to be significant contributors to modern day industry giants like Piper Jaffray, Archer Daniels...

In 1863, after the end of the US--Dakota War, a group of men in Mankato, Minnesota, formed a secret society. At the beginning of every meeting, members of the Knights of the Forest recited its ritual pledge, including these words: "I sincerely hope this meeting may be profitable to each one of us, and that we may go forth from this Lodge stronger and braver in the determination to banish forever from our beautiful State every Indian who now desecrates...