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Minnesota History

Powerline Blues

In the late 1970s, a mass protest swept through the normally conservative farm country of west central Minnesota. Farmers tried to stop construction of a 400- mile-long transmission line that would cross their land on the way from North Dakota to the Twin Cities. Powerline Blues looks back at the conflict through the eyes of people who lived it. It's a story of how a system they didn't think was fair turned ordinary people into radicals.

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Wellstone learned to listen, lead during powerline protest

The struggle over the power line caught the attention of a young Carleton College professor named Paul Wellstone. He later co-authored a book about it, Powerline: The First Battle of America's Energy War. The protest helped shape the man who went on to the U.S. Senate as a champion for the little guy against the power structure.

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Today

Powerline Blues Part 7: Stand under the powerline now and you can hear its buzz. The giant towers march across the fields into the far distance, dominating the landscape.

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The towers are falling

Powerline Blues Part 6: If Alice Tripp's surprise showing that September in her race for governor against Rudy Perpich was the faint rumble of thunder in the countryside, lightning had struck just a few weeks earlier.

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Vote for Alice!

Powerline Blues Part 5: In an April 1978 poll, the Minneapolis Tribune asked Minnesotans whether they sided with the farmers or the utilities. Sixty-three percent said they sided with the farmers. Among rural Minnesotans, support for the farmers ran at 70 percent. That spring, Alice Tripp decided to run for governor.

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The 'people's governor' steps in

Although faced with a situation in which law enforcement officials were reluctant to use force against their own neighbors, Gov. Wendell Anderson declined to intervene. But when the fall of 1976 turned to winter, a new governor took office: a former Iron Range dentist named Rudy Perpich.

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Powerline Blues

In the late 1970s, a mass protest swept through the normally conservative farm country of west central Minnesota. Farmers tried to stop construction of a 400- mile-long transmission line that would cross their land on the way from North Dakota to the Twin Cities. Powerline Blues looks back at the conflict through the eyes of people who lived it. It's a story of how a system they didn't think was fair turned ordinary people into radicals.

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Citizen Resistance

In June 1976 the state of Minnesota issued a construction permit for the transmission line. Three days later, utility company surveyors arrived at Virgil and Jane Fuchs' farm. By the end of the day, Fuchs was under arrest.

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Peshtigo: a tornado of fire revisited

You've heard of the Chicago Fire, back in 1871. Unless you are from Wisconsin, you probably haven't heard of another fire, the same night, that killed more than five times as many people. The Peshtigo Fire, near Green Bay, Wisconsin, was the worst in U.S. history. Two new books bring it to life.

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Survivors of hell

After the fire, shocked and badly burned survivors searched for their families. In this excerpt from Firestorm at Peshtigo, by Denise Gess and William Lutz, one survivor tells his devastating tale.

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