All Projects

To assess the condition of and propose treatment for significant artifacts recovered from the Thomas Wilson shipwreck

To professionally assess culturally significant maritime artifacts and implement a long range plan to better care for them

Legacy-funded programs at the Minnesota Humanities Center demonstrate our determination to collaboratively create humanities programs for the broader public by forging strong partnerships with local, state, and national cultural organizations. These programs show the broader community how the humanities can be used to address issues important to their everyday lives. Each activity, event, and program shares an Absent Narrative with participants, which help residents across the state engage in a more sophisticated understanding of their community. 

To add 40 standard Minnesota history titles to broaden public accessibility

Vermilion Community College Library added 73 volumes and 33 titles to their collection.

The library is working on building a collection covering all eras of Minnesota history, as well as the geographic and ethnic distribution of Minnesota's population to support the outside reading required in Minnesota History.

To add 43 standard Minnesota history titles to broaden public accessibility.

To add 19 standard Minnesota history titles to broaden public accessibility through well-rounded interpretation

To add 43 standard Minnesota history titles to broaden public accessibility

This project will create a high accuracy elevation dataset - critical for effectively planning and implementing water quality projects - for the state of Minnesota using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geospatial mapping technologies. Although some areas of the state have been mapped previously, many counties remain unmapped or have insufficient or inadequate data. This multi-year project, to be completed in 2012, is a collaborative effort of Minnesota's Digital Elevation Committee and partners with county surveyors to ensure accuracy with ground-truthing.

The Minnesota County Biological Survey (MCBS) is an ongoing effort begun in 1987 by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that is systematically surveying, county-by-county, the state's natural habitats. The effort identifies significant natural areas and collects and interprets data on the status, distribution, and ecology of plants, animals, and native plant communities throughout the state. Through 2009 surveys have been completed in 74 of Minnesota's 87 counties and have added nearly 17,000 new records of rare features to the DNR's information systems.

Minnesota Public Radio is the state's largest cultural organization, providing 96 percent of the population with free access to some of the best broadcast cultural programming in the world. Minnesota Public Radio is using a grant from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund to implement projects around the following four goals:

This funding is for arts, arts education, and arts access, and to preserve Minnesota's history and cultural heritage.

The Minnesota Children's Museum will develop a literacy focused exhibit to catalyze community engagement around early childhood learning and education.

To restore the prominent fifty-square foot stainglass window above the facility's front entrance

To repoint masonry and preserve windows of the B'nai Abraham Synagogue, undergoing rehabilitation for use as a community center. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

To preserve and make available the early issues of the Range Facts, a weekly newspaper that was published from 1934 to 1941 by W.A.Fisher and edited by George A. Perham,  It covered the Mesabi and Vermilion range towns as well as adjacent rural areas and gave extensive  coverage to state, county and local affairs, sports, social news, farming, obituaries and Depression programs. Copies were not sent to the Minnesota Historical Society until 1942 when the Virginia Daily Enterprise assumed ownership.

Purchase and install fishing piers at priority lake and river sites in Region 2

Having current and accurate data on historic and archaeological sites is important to understanding our past and to preserving Minnesota’s history for future generations. In 2010-2011, the Minnesota Historical Society awarded contracts for these survey projects:

The St. Louis River Alliance will complete the data set for the water quality assessment of six target streams in the Lake Superior Basin. These streams are the Gooseberry River, Beaver River, Lester River, Big Sucker River, Split Rock River and Knife River. In addition, the St. Louis River Alliance will complete the data set for the water quality assessment of two non-target streams in the St. Louis River watershed. These two streams are Coffee Creek and Buckingham Creek. The St.

This assessment will be performed using scientific volunteers, will build capacity at a technical training program at Itasca Community College (ICC), and will provide MPCA with answers providing a reasonable expectation for water quality in this under-studied region of Minnesota.

The purpose of the project is to create a fresh introduction to the museum. The five panels that previously lined the wall outside the museum doorway were put in place nearly thirty years ago in the1980s. These panels have faded over the years and were in need of replacement. In addtion there was a desire to expand the time line back to the Paleolithic peoples who first inhabited the region in about 10,000 years ago.

Fourteen oral history interviews were conducted with people knowledgeable about the establishment of the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD), early conditions and relevant local environmental issues of the early 1970’s.

Rehabilitation of State Trail Bridge over 93rd Avenue in the City of Duluth.

Rehabilitation of State Trail Bridge over Grand Avenue / TH 23 in the City of Duluth.

This project entailed reconstruction and resurfacing of 1.1 miles of the segment of the Willard Munger State Trail that spans the trail terminus to Grand Avenue in Duluth.