Rochester: An Urban Biography
A concise history of Rochester, featuring stories that are familiar, surprising, and sure to change the way you see the city.

Rochester, Minnesota’s third-largest city, is best known for its world-renowned medical facility, the Mayo Medical Center—yet its history and contemporary life are filled with countless other stories, people, and pivotal moments. Rochester has always been a crossroads. For centuries, Dakota and Ho-Chunk people have lived in this beautiful area around the Zumbro River. The town itself began in 1854 as a stagecoach stop for people traveling between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa.

In this brief and engaging history, Virginia M. Wright-Peterson explores fascinating stories of the community: the area's indigenous people; the importance of the region's agriculture on the karst, driftless, prairie landscape; the persistent flooding of the Zumbro River; the hidden histories held in the unmarked graves of Potter's Field; the cyclone of 1883 and the famous medical center it spawned; the emergence of an increasingly diverse community; and Destination Medical Center, a twenty-year plan to develop the area as a global destination for health care—and the largest public-private economic initiative in Minnesota’s history.

Cities, like people, are always changing, and the history of that change is the city's biography. This book illuminates the unique character of Rochester, weaving in the stories of place, politics, and identity that continue to shape its residents' lives.
1139764365
Rochester: An Urban Biography
A concise history of Rochester, featuring stories that are familiar, surprising, and sure to change the way you see the city.

Rochester, Minnesota’s third-largest city, is best known for its world-renowned medical facility, the Mayo Medical Center—yet its history and contemporary life are filled with countless other stories, people, and pivotal moments. Rochester has always been a crossroads. For centuries, Dakota and Ho-Chunk people have lived in this beautiful area around the Zumbro River. The town itself began in 1854 as a stagecoach stop for people traveling between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa.

In this brief and engaging history, Virginia M. Wright-Peterson explores fascinating stories of the community: the area's indigenous people; the importance of the region's agriculture on the karst, driftless, prairie landscape; the persistent flooding of the Zumbro River; the hidden histories held in the unmarked graves of Potter's Field; the cyclone of 1883 and the famous medical center it spawned; the emergence of an increasingly diverse community; and Destination Medical Center, a twenty-year plan to develop the area as a global destination for health care—and the largest public-private economic initiative in Minnesota’s history.

Cities, like people, are always changing, and the history of that change is the city's biography. This book illuminates the unique character of Rochester, weaving in the stories of place, politics, and identity that continue to shape its residents' lives.
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Rochester: An Urban Biography

Rochester: An Urban Biography

by Virginia Wright-Peterson
Rochester: An Urban Biography

Rochester: An Urban Biography

by Virginia Wright-Peterson

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Overview

A concise history of Rochester, featuring stories that are familiar, surprising, and sure to change the way you see the city.

Rochester, Minnesota’s third-largest city, is best known for its world-renowned medical facility, the Mayo Medical Center—yet its history and contemporary life are filled with countless other stories, people, and pivotal moments. Rochester has always been a crossroads. For centuries, Dakota and Ho-Chunk people have lived in this beautiful area around the Zumbro River. The town itself began in 1854 as a stagecoach stop for people traveling between St. Paul, Minnesota, and Dubuque, Iowa.

In this brief and engaging history, Virginia M. Wright-Peterson explores fascinating stories of the community: the area's indigenous people; the importance of the region's agriculture on the karst, driftless, prairie landscape; the persistent flooding of the Zumbro River; the hidden histories held in the unmarked graves of Potter's Field; the cyclone of 1883 and the famous medical center it spawned; the emergence of an increasingly diverse community; and Destination Medical Center, a twenty-year plan to develop the area as a global destination for health care—and the largest public-private economic initiative in Minnesota’s history.

Cities, like people, are always changing, and the history of that change is the city's biography. This book illuminates the unique character of Rochester, weaving in the stories of place, politics, and identity that continue to shape its residents' lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781681342283
Publisher: Minnesota Historical Society Press
Publication date: 08/16/2022
Pages: 180
Sales rank: 423,737
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Virginia M. Wright-Peterson has taught writing for more than fifteen years and is on the administrative team at the Universityof Minnesota Rochester. She is the author of Women of Mayo Clinic: The Founding Generation and A Woman's War Too.

Table of Contents

Knowing a Place, Knowing Ourselves 1

1 Indian Heights 7

2 Waterways, Roadways, and Railways to Development 29

3 Out of Destruction 49

4 Potter's Field 79

5 More Hidden Stories 89

6 Women Take the Lead 107

7 Big Blue Comes to Town 125

8 City of Innovation, Collaboration, and Hope 139

For Further Reading 149

Acknowledgments 157

Index 159

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