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.
