Bloomington: A Sesquicentennial Celebration

by John C. Chalberg

A Sesquicentennial Celebration For 150 years, transportation has been central to the story of Bloomington. First there were the rivers, the Minnesota and the Mississippi; then there were the dirt roads, and then an isolated airfield. Then came interstate highways, an international airport, and now a nascent mass transit system. But in the end, the Bloomington story is about people the Dakota and the Ojibwe, missionaries and fur traders, soldiers and sodbusters, sandlot athletes and major leaguers, and the veritable flood of suburbanites who settled here in the 1950s and 1960s. God and nature may have carved the land, but it s the handiwork of man that has shaped Bloomington. The city s story could not be told without naming names and telling tales of visionaries and builders, then and now. The suburb that became a city has had more than its share of leaders who benefited from what was here and who worked to benefit the community along the way. A Sesquicentennial Celebration is a story of community spirit, of sometimes seemingly ordinary people who have put their stamp on Bloomington. They have done so in a way that transcends any story of boats or cars, trains or planes. This, then, is their story.

156 pages, Hardcover

Published November 19, 2007

About the author

A graduate of Regis College in Denver, Colorado, John Chalberg holds an MA and Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota. He taught American history at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, MN, until his retirement in 2016.

Reviews

[Beki Eikum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to read early history of Bloomington.