Winona, Minnesota

Winona is a city located in Winona County, Minnesota. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 27,069. Winona is the birthplace of actress Winona Ryder (Winona Horowitz) and the aviator Max Conrad. It is the county seat of Winona County6. Located in picturesque bluff country on the Mississippi River, its most noticable physical landmark is Sugar Loaf hill. Its annual celebration, "Steamboat Days," is held in the summer. It is home to the headquarters of the Watkins Corporation and Fastenal. Three college campuses are found in Winona: Winona State University, Saint Mary's University, and Minnesota State Colleges - Southeast Technical. Historically a community that was once served by a half-dozen passenger railroads, its current service is the once-daily Empire Builder, an Amtrak service between Chicago and Seattle/Portland. It is also the home of the Great River Shakespeare Festival (founded 2004), and there are plans to build the state-of-the-art Maritime Art Museum of Minnesota, a large river-themed history and art museum with one of its exhibits being the river dredge William H. Thompson, in the city's commercial harbor by 2006.

Golden years

Winona was settled in 1851, and the town was laid out into lots in 1852-3. Its growth was very rapid. The population increased from 815 in December, 1855, to 3,000 in December, 1856. In 1860 Winona had a population of 2,456, and was third largest city in Minnesota until the late 1880s. Part of the surge in population in 1856 was the fact that land claims became legal in 1855 with the completion of land surveys and the opening of a local federal land office. It was incorporated as a city in 1857.

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Growth in Winona was built on a railway and steamboat transportation system, wheat milling, and lumber. In 1856 over 1,300 steamboats stopped at Winona. The railway system grew and the Winona Railway Bridge, built of steel and iron with a steam-powered swingspan over the river, was the second railway bridge to span the Mississippi. The first train crossed on July 4, 1891 and the bridge served the Green Bay & Western (GBW) and Burlington Route for the next 94 years until it was closed in 1985 and dismantled in the fall of 1990. In 1892, a wagon toll-bridge over the Mississippi, a wooden high-bridge, was completed and remained in service until 1942.

Related Topics:
Steamboat - Wheat - Lumber - Railway system - Steam-powered - Train - Wagon

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During the 1860's southern Minnesota was the greatest wheat producing region in the country and Winona was the main port for shipping Minnesota wheat. By 1870, Winona was the fourth largest wheat shipping port in the United States. In 1899 Bay State Milling was founded, and is still in operation today.

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John Laird started the first lumber mill in 1855; he later was joined by his cousins James and Matthew Norton in founding the Laird-Norton Co. The Winona sawmills reached their peak production in 1892 when they produced over 160 million board feet (380,000 m³) annually and ranked eighth in production of lumber in the upper Midwest.

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Winona also became the site of the first normal school west of the Mississippi with the establishment of Winona Normal School (Now Winona State University) in 1858. This was the beginning of Winona's tradition as a center of higher education.

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However Winona was not able to absorb the collapse of the lumber industry as the Wisconsin white pine forests became depleted, even though the city had sought to expand its industrial base. In 1900 Winona population of 19,714 peaked and for the next few decades declined and remained unstable. Winona's pattern of growth had stopped.

Related Topics:
Wisconsin - Pine

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