Check out Free Family Fun Day at the Goodhue County History Center! From 12-4 PM on Sunday, July 2, visit the museum for our annual ice cream social!  Enjoy an ice cream cone and then explore the exhibits! More information will be posted as available. Free admission and activities begin at 12 PM.  This event is made possible through the support of Xcel Energy. 

Bluffs & Brews is a collaborative program between the Red Wing Environmental Learning Center and the Goodhue County Historical Society that began in 2015. First, the group explores a local history topic through an engaging presentation and Q & A session. Immediately after, the group explores the outdoors, specifically a local area that represents the historical topic discussed. Following the outdoor adventure, the group convenes at a local restaurant to reflect on the experience, and for an opportunity to win door…

Enjoy a day of 1860s base ball in Old Frontenac!  The Crescents Base Ball Club of Red Wing will be hosting the Afton Red Socks for a doubleheader in Wakondiota Park.   To learn more about vintage base ball in America, check out the Vintage Base Ball Association website.

Spend your lunch hour at the Goodhue County History Center for our monthly free lunchtime program!  Attendees are encouraged to bring a lunch with them for our History Break programs. Historian Tom Olson returns to provide a fresh look at the themes discussed in his book, Sheldon's Gift:  Music, Movies and Melodrama in the Desirable City.  Olson will explore the early financial struggles of the Sheldon were attributed to the separation of highbrow and lowbrow culture and entertainment in the late 19th…

From the 1820’s when soldiers at Fort Snelling presented Shakespearean plays for one another,  entertainment—theater, music, variety entertainers, radio and the movies—has played an important part in the lives of Minnesotans.  Historian Tom Olson explores show business in Minnesota from lyceum halls and ubiquitous opera houses to motion picture nickelodeons, palaces, modernes, and multiplexes as well as live theater, symphony and opera during the evening program. Tom Olson grew up in Red Wing, graduated from the University of Wisconsin River…

Local Bob Dylan junkie Jamie Lorentzen will consider Minnesota Native Son Bob Dylan's influence on 1960s popular culture and beyond, apocryphal links to Red Wing, and thoughts about Minnesota that the singer-songwriter has offered over the years. Based upon Dylan's vast body of work and career, the remainder of the discussion will consider where Dylan might locate the place and meaning of his own home against the backdrop of the most iconic and central question he poses amid his 600+…