This Week in History: Freeborn County commissioners pass resolution
Published 7:30 pm Monday, April 22, 2019
- This postcard’s notation reads, “Upper Fountain looking West, Albert Lea, Minn.” On the back it is inscribed with the words, “Published for Chas. A. Foht, Albert Lea, Minn. Made in Germany.” - Provided
Editor’s note: This is a weekly column dedicated to local and national history. It will appear in the newspaper every Tuesday.
Local history
April 23, 1969: Hawthorne Elementary School teacher Gary Koeder was elected president of the Albert Lea Jaycees at the club’s annual election meeting at Elks Lodge. Koeder succeeded Walter Dahl.
April 23: 1969: Patty Shea was named editor of the Ahlahasa and Kathy Gilbert the editor of the Tiger, following the traditional candle ceremony at the Town House.
1969: The Freeborn County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution providing for the advancement of funds from Freeborn County for the construction of the Turtle Creek Watershed bordering Freeborn, Steele and Mower counties.
April 24, 1919: The 41st session of the Minnesota Legislature was completed. The Tribune article stated, “legislators passed a constitutional amendment for a $100 million bond issue for good roads. For the most part, however, curative acts and local measures make up the big bulk of the work.”
U.S. history
1898: Spain declared war on the United States, which responded in kind two days later.
1943: U.S. Navy Lt. John F. Kennedy assumed command of PT-109, a motor torpedo boat, in the Solomon Islands during World War II. (On Aug. 2, 1943, PT-109 was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crew members; Kennedy and 10 others survived.)
1968: Student protesters began occupying buildings on the campus of Columbia University in New York; police put down the protests a week later.
The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church.
1969: Sirhan Sirhan was sentenced to death for assassinating New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. (The sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment.)
1971: Hundreds of Vietnam War veterans opposed to the conflict protested by tossing their medals and ribbons over a wire fence in front of the U.S. Capitol.
1988: A federal ban on smoking during domestic airline flights of two hours or less went into effect.
1998: James Earl Ray, who confessed to assassinating the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and then insisted he’d been framed, died at a Nashville, Tennessee, hospital at age 70.
2009: President Barack Obama met privately with leading executives of credit-card issuing companies; afterward, the president said he was determined to get a credit-card law passed that eliminated the tricky fine print, sudden rate increases and late fees.
— Information from “History of Freeborn County,” Albert Lea Tribune archives and the Associated Press.