Historic Winona

The first day we were camping we drove over to visit my dad at his campsite across the Minnesota border in Winona. It was his birthday the day before so we cooked up some steaks and brought along some cupcakes also.

While passing through Winona we noticed that there was some great architecture in town.
Winona only has a little over 27,000 people living there now, but used to be a center of industry due to its location on the Mississippi River. Growth in Winona was built on a railway and steamboat transportation system, lumber and wheat milling. In 1856 over 1,300 steamboats stopped at Winona. The Winona Railway Bridge was the second railway bridge to span the Mississippi and during the 1860s southern Minnesota was the greatest wheat producing region in the country and Winona was the main port for shipping Minnesota wheat. The Winona sawmills reached their peak production in 1892 when they produced over 160 million board feet (380,000 m³) annually and ranked eighth in production of lumber in the upper Midwest. During the late 1800's Winona was the place to be!

One of our stops was the Winona County History Center.  For a small museum there was lots to see.  While driving through town over the next few days we saw a lot of surprising things, so if you're passing through Winona stop and give it a closer look!

coffee cart from the Temperance Society ladies