Category Archives: Blue Earth County Beam

“The scaffolding must have been sufficient to build the state capitol”

Posted on April 28, 2012 by Carrie Zeman

Truth be told, one of the reasons I love doing history is that there’s always something new just around the corner. Today, filing sources that I pulled to write about the execution artifacts, I encountered two more newspaper clippings about … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Earth County Beam, Doing Historical Research | Leave a comment

Up in Smoke, Twice?

Posted on April 18, 2012 by Carrie Zeman

I’m writing a paper on the provenance of a collection of 1862 execution-related artifacts, inluding the mystery beam in Blue Earth County and have a pile of sources on my desk to digest, including a newspaper clippings file. Clippings files are a … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Earth County Beam, Doing Historical Research | Leave a comment

What We See is What We Think We See

Posted on March 27, 2012 by Carrie Zeman

In history, as in life, what we see is what we think. Or maybe more precisely, what we see is what we think we see. Have you ever brought home a piece of fruit from the grocery store only to … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Earth County Beam, Opinion | 1 Comment

One Noose, Two Beams, Same Story

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Carrie Zeman

Like PBS’s History Detectives? Read on. ***** Roughly a decade ago, a Blue Earth County Historical Society volunteer took a historian into the back room of their Mankato, Minnesota facility and unwrapped a huge wooden timber. The volunteer said it was … Continue reading →

Posted in Blue Earth County Beam, Minnesota Historical Society, Opinion, truth-telling | 4 Comments