Category Archives: Minnesota Resorts

Gunflint Lodge: Classic Blue Ribbon Resort #3

About fifty miles up the Gunflint Trail, northwest of Grand Marais, there exists one of the most famous lodges in northern Minnesota: Gunflint Lodge on Gunflint Lake. While most resorts have changed hands many times over the years, including the … Continue reading

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Sharing your old resort postcards

Rick Wolfe, from Crosby, Minnesota, has donated digital copies of many old resort postcards from his personal collection to this website. Rick is a postcard collector with 40 years of experience. He is also a stamp collector and seller through … Continue reading

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They’ll Be Back! Recognizing Vacation Milestones

On August 3, 2013, I enjoyed speaking again at Itasca State Park’s Brower Visitor Center as part of the Presenter Under the Pines Series. My talk included slides of early tourism in and around Itasca Park. I was happy to … Continue reading

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Guess Who Turned Ninety

On July 21, I was at the Minnesota Fishing Museum in Little Falls to help celebrate Al Baert’s 90th birthday. Al is the museum’s founder and continues to be an important part of its operation. (He was also one of … Continue reading

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Guess Which Resort

On a hot July 18, in the basement of the cool Hubbard County Historical SocietyMuseum, I showed a few slides of unidentified local resorts as part of the museum’s noontime Brown Bag Lunch Series. We met in the recently refurbished … Continue reading

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Chase on the Lake: Classic Blue Ribbon Resort #2

For the second in a series of  blog entries on Classic Blue Ribbon Resort, I have selected Chase on the Lake (click here for the definition, then click the back arrow to return). When the New Chase Hotel was built on … Continue reading

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Burntside Lodge: Classic Blue Ribbon Resort #1

Highlighting Early Resorts: As my book, The Early Resorts of Minnesota, reaches a larger audience and my website blogs accumulate, I am adding a special blog feature called “Classic Blue Ribbon Resorts.” A Classic Blue Ribbon Resort will be defined … Continue reading

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The 2013 Governor’s Fishing Opener

The 66th Minnesota Governor’s Fishing Opener at Park Rapids celebrated the beginning of the 2013 tourist season on May 10. It is now history, and will go down as unique because of ice covering the major lakes in the northern … Continue reading

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The Floating Hotels

The first quarter of the nineteenth century found the citizens of the United States busy clearing land, building structures, and expanding the western frontier. Half the country was considered wilderness. There was little opportunity or means for citizens to travel … Continue reading

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From Tom’s to Kee-Nee-Moo-Sha: What’s in a Name?

The Early Resorts of Minnesota covers resort development from the first ones along the lower Mississippi in the 1860s to the entire state in the late 1950s when resorts were nearing their peak in numbers. Resorts that were operating at … Continue reading

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