Making Headlines: 'Minnesota Municipalities' Magazine Debuts

Pg. 1: Chock full of turn-of-the-century tidbits.

It was February of 1916, and the League of Minnesota Municipalities made magazine headlines, literally, with the debut of their new publication.

What Was Inside:

• “Park Planting for Prairie Towns,” written by Montevideo councilman Lycurgus R. Moyer—Moyer explains how to enhance the look of small prairie towns, which were often strictly utilitarian and limited in decoration by modest finances.

  “The time comes eventually when the people begin to look about them and dimly begin to realize how inexpressibly ugly their town really is,”  bluntly states Moyer.

  (Wow.)

• “The Religion of Inspired Politics,” written by Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati, also known as “The Preacher in Politics”—Bigelow details what he sees as the intersection of upholding his Christian values to serve the less fortunate and the role of service inherent in politics. “My friends, it is through the agency of politics that we must let down the bars and let in all—all the poor lost sheep of the sheepfold.”

• In its back pages, the Information Department of the University Extension Service’s Municipal Reference Bureau answered questions from members on the oiling of streets, visiting nurses, and the cost of saloon licenses.

The League's Minnesota Cities magazine is prepping for a new look debuting in the May/June issue! View covers of the magazine from decades past in our special Friday post this week.