From February 2007 to December 2016, I wrote 119 “Historic Happenings” columns for The Entertainment Guide. What have I been doing since my last column?

Northfielders reading Reed Whittemore’s memoir Against the Grain: The Literary Life of a Poet (Dryad Press, 2007) may have an irresistible urge to start with Chapter

It is not surprising that Susan Garwood, executive director of the Rice County Historical Society, expresses a fondness for history. But it turns out

When I moved to Northfield from New York in 2004 and took an interest in researching and writing about the history of the town

Last month Carleton College published A Beacon So Bright: The Life of Laurence McKinley Gould, a long-awaited biography of Carleton’s fourth president by Carleton archivist

When I last wrote about Laura MacKenzie for our annual music issue of June 2013, I said, “You cannot be much more of a

“We’ve already started three colleges and have the logs cut for four more.” An early 19th century letter from an Ohio settler to a

Ah, May! In the early years of the last century, the sounds of music echoed from Manitou Heights down to Lyman Lakes as Northfielders

“It’s here!” This note, with a big smiley face drawn on it, was in my mailbox at St. Olaf late in the first term

I wrote two paragraphs about Henry Talford Budd, known as “Tal,” in my third Historic Happenings column in April of 2007. I was writing about events

The first “Jesse James Day” was held in Northfield on September 11, 1948, as part of a two-day Jaycee Fall Festival. The event was

Dad, why doesn’t Carleton play metric football?” That question, from Carleton chemistry professor Jerry Mohrig’s teenage son David, sparked a very special and unique

Visitors to Northfield’s third Vintage Band Festival this month may be acquainted with the name of F. Melius Christiansen, founder and director of the

Researching historic happenings can be time-consuming. It can also be as easy as “googling” a  topic on a computer. Occasionally, it is a matter of

As I drove into the driveway of the hilltop home of Bryan Moon outside of Cannon Falls, I saw the first whimsical touch of

“We were built and now stand on the shoulders of Giants.” This was the shared sentiment of the St. Olaf College Department of Art

“Until Dec. 7, 1941, I thought I was a normal boy, a normal American. All of a sudden I was dirty. All of a

I guess I am easily entertained, because my idea of a good time is to look at microfilm of old newspapers at the Northfield

In July of 2011 an open house was held at the Archer House River Inn to show off a $1.1 million renovation of the

The opening game of the 1965-66 basketball season of the Northfield High School Raiders was to be played on the court of a new

The Northfield Raiders won their one and only state football championship at the Metrodome on Nov. 22, 1997, by defeating Detroit Lakes 28-0. But

“Anyone who thinks Northfield is not a good show town should have seen the hundreds of people who could not get into the opera

  Some people look at cut-down trees and think “Firewood.” Curtis Ingvoldstad of Nerstrand, a wood sculptor/chainsaw artist, looks at the trunks that are

In the spring of 2015 the Northfield Historical Society and The Entertainment Guide teamed up to publish volumes 2 and 3 of selected Historic Happenings columns about St. Olaf and Carleton. (Volume

In 1855, at the age of 40,  John Wesley North was ready for new challenges. A New Yorker by birth, he had moved to St.