Government Records
These records are organized into the following sections:
Accession numbers: 977-23; 2006-26; 2012-65; 2014-40; 2022-45
Digitized by: Minnesota Historical Society, July 2022.
Digitization was made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008.
Catalog ID number: 001735816
Chronological.
Interfiled individual accident reports from all of the parks.
Relating to a Hill Family Foundation grant to study wild lands (1958-1960) and a Minnesota Recreation Survey (1959).
Concerns a 1906 act pertaining to the no cost sale of federal surplus property of historical significance to the states and proposed new legislation.
Includes both full tabulations for each year, 1951-1954, and a comparison of 1952-1955.
Correspondence and statistical data concerning a civil service point rating system used to determine each park superintendent’s class level.
Arranged first alphabetically by park; then chronologically.
Details all construction done in each park and its cost.
Telephone, sewer line, and right of way permits, and land leases for work in various state parks.
Correspondence and legislation concerning a law to allow counties to purchase, lease, be gifted of, or condemn land for public parks.
Report from Harold W. Lathrop, Director, Division of State Parks, upon his retirement, to his successor, L. E. Fiero.
Program run by the National Park Service at Fort Snelling, January 7-April 15, 1965, to train park managers for state park service. Includes agreement, training schedule, and reports on the progress of the program.
Minutes, correspondence, meeting notices, officer lists, reports, and related materials documenting the association’s work to raise money for land acquisition following a 1961 legislative appropriation that was too small to acquire all the land needed for the park.
A National Park Service survey, privately funded and done in conjunction with the states, completed in 1958. Documents Minnesota’s role in, and later use of, the survey.
Includes bylaws, scattered minutes, correspondence, and background materials.
Representatives from the conservation, public institutions, highway, health, and social welfare departments and the Youth Conservation Commission; organized to correlate activities in the field of recreation. The council was the result of a Governor’s Advisory Committee on Recreation recommendation.
Scattered minutes and correspondence from several committees concerned with state park land acquisition.
Notices of public hearings, hearing reports, lists of attendees, and correspondence relating to land within and adjacent to the Superior and Chippewa national forests.
Includes materials relating to the 1959 amending of the Recreation Act of 1926 and to the 1960 department recreation land use program.
Reports on state park management organization, history in the state parks, proposed development in the state parks (1934), and the bearing of the state’s Indian reservations on public recreation (1939).
Mainly concerns requests for state park appropriations, including emergency repairs at Itasca, forest tent caterpillar relief, water systems in several parks, storm damage, land purchases, and development projects. Includes correspondence and maps.
Concerns appropriations for state parks, including correspondence, clippings, and reports for the commissions 1968-1972 annual state parks’ inspection tours.
Correspondence, statistical data on state park camping fees supplied to the commission, and a copy of the commission’s report recommending an increase in fees.
Mainly information on various aspects of the state parks supplied upon request of the commission.
Correspondence, progress reports, statistic sheets, and other materials requested by and supplied to the commission. Topics covered include land acquisition, development of new and existing parks, and the Omnibus National Resources and Recreation Act of 1963.
Covers proposed memorials and events in several of the state parks.
Documents a summer program, begun in Itasca and run in conjunction with the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota Museum of Natural History, employing a naturalist in the parks to provide activities for visitors. Includes the 1947 proposal, correspondence, activity sheets used in the program, attendance figures, and reports.
Compiled reports for the years 1963, 1964, and 1965; they include organizational data, surveys, and reports on activities and management in each of the parks. There is also one for Itasca covering 1946-1964.
Minutes, correspondence, and related materials documenting this program to encourage acquisition and re-establishment of parks at all levels of government.
Reports, including maps and photographs, documenting the Proposed Central Minnesota Recreational Demonstration Project (March 1935), Proposed Nerstrand Woods Recreational Demonstration Project (August 1935), and Proposed Northeastern Minnesota Land Use Demonstration Project (1935).
Meeting notices and minutes of two meetings.
Correspondence, clippings, and landscape plot plan documenting a memorial grove of trees planted by Ramsey State Park employees, dedicated to Schmechel, park superintendent from 1945-1952 and employee since 1911.
Concerns federal regulation requiring running lights on all park boats.
Legislation, resolutions, and correspondence concerning the designation of highways, mainly in the state parks, as State Aid Parkways.
Correspondence concerning claims relating to state park incidents.
Concerns certificates of indebtedness issued and sold through the State Board of Investment; the proceeds used for state park improvements.
Transmittal and certification estimates.
Various versions and revisions.
Mainly correspondence stating the division has no objection to the sale of lands as listed by the Division of Lands and Forestry.
Includes a Minnesota Self-Survey form, conducted as to the instruction of Governor Orville L. Freeman, and filled out for the entire Conservation Department.
Documents covering the transfer of the Alexander Ramsey State Park to the City of Redwood Falls (1957), Pine Tree State Park to Beltrami County (1966-1975), Pomme de Terre State Park to the City of Morris (1966-1967), Sleepy Eye State Park to the city of Sleepy Eye (1967-1968), and Toqua Lakes State Park to Big Stone County (1967, 1974), and lease of the Watson State Scenic Wayside to the City of Watson and Watson Lions Club (1959-1960, 1964).
Minutes, correspondence, and related materials documenting this committee of professional members of the National Conference on State Parks from the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Correspondence relating to the department’s cooperation in establishment of the park, including an economic study of the area (1964) and land exchange (1966).
Correspondence and background materials relating to the proposed camps.
Listed by park.
With the individual passes, the files also contain a sheet describing the State Park Permit chronology listing specific state parks featured on passes from 1983-2010 and examples of resident, senior resident, and non-resident passes (1982-1985 only). In 2001, the passes changed from a January-December pass to an annual pass starting from the month of purchase.
1953-2013
2014-2021
In the matter of the proposed adoption of rules and regulations of the Commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources governing the Minnesota wild and scenic rivers system pursuant to the authority of Laws of Minnesota, 1973, Chapter 271. Hearings were held in St. Paul, December 26, Duluth, December 27, and Mankato, December 28.
Include correspondence, reports, printed items and related records.
Prepared by the Minnesota Resources Commission for the Minnesota State Legislature.