Editing New Ulm, Minnesota (section)

==History==

===Settlement===
[[File:NewUlm-1stSettlers.jpg|thumb|left|The first European-American settlers of New Ulm, 1854.]]
The city was founded in 1854<ref>[http://www.newulm.com/about/history.html New Ulm Chamber of Commerce<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070206132950/http://www.newulm.com/about/history.html |date=February 6, 2007 }}</ref> by the German Land Company of Chicago. The city was named after the city of [[Ulm]] in the state of [[Baden-Württemberg]] in southern Germany.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q_lKAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA12 | title=History of the Origin of the Place Names in Nine Northwestern States | year=1908 | pages=12}}</ref> [[Ulm]] and [[Neu-Ulm]] (which may have inspired the name) are [[twin cities]], with Ulm on the [[Baden-Württemberg]] side of the [[Danube]] River and Neu-Ulm on the Bavarian side. In part due to the American city's German heritage, it became a center for brewing in the [[Upper Midwest]]. It is home to the [[August Schell Brewing Company]]. The Sioux called it Wakzupata which roughly means the "village on the cottonwood".<ref>Lightening Blankets Story, Minnesota History Magazine,Vol.38 Fall 1938, pp.126-149 [http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/38/v38i03p126-149.pdf]</ref>

In 1856, the Settlement Association of the Socialist [[Turners|Turner Society]] ("Turners") helped to secure the future of New Ulm. The Turners (German for "gymnasts") originated in Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century, whose motto was "Sound Mind, Sound Body". Their clubs combined gymnastics with lectures and debates about the issues of the day. Following the failed [[Revolutions of 1848]], [[Forty-Eighters|numerous Germans emigrated to the United States.]] In their new land, Turners formed associations (''Vereins'') throughout the eastern, midwestern, and western states. This was the largest secular German-American organization in the country in the nineteenth century.

Following a series of attacks by [[nativism (politics)|nativist]] mobs in major cities such as Chicago, Cincinnati, and Louisville, a national convention of Turners authorized the formation of a colony on the frontier. Intending to develop a community that expressed Turner ideals, the Settlement Association joined the Chicago Germans who had struggled here due to a lack of capital. The Turners supplied that, as well as hundreds of colonists from the east who arrived in 1856.<ref>Alice Felt Tyler, [http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/30/v30i01p024-035.pdf "William Pfaender and the Founding of New Ulm"], ''Minnesota History'' 30 (March 1949): 24-35; Grady Steele Parker, editor, ''Wilhelm Pfaender and the German American Experience'' (Roseville, Minn.: Edinborough Press, 2009).</ref>

The city plan represented Turner ideals. The German Land Company hired Christian Prignitz to complete the plan for New Ulm, which was filed in April 1858. This master plan for New Ulm expressed a grand vision of the city's future. At the heart of the community stood blocks reserved for Turner Hall, the county courthouse, and a public school, representing the political, social, and educational center of the community. The westernmost avenues were named after American heroes George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine—the latter three noted for their freethinking philosophies. Members were given the means to support themselves — in harmony with nature — through the distribution of four-acre garden lots located outside the residential area. Historian Dennis Gimmestad wrote, 
<blockquote>"The founders’ goals created a community persona that sets New Ulm apart from the Minnesota towns founded by land speculators or railroad companies.... The New Ulm founders aspired to establish a town with a defined philosophical, economic, and social character".<ref>Dennis Gimmestad, "Territorial Space: Platting New Ulm", ''Minnesota History'' 56 (Summer 1999): 340-350. Also see Rainier Vollmar, "Ideology and Settlement Plan: Case of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and New Ulm, Minnesota", address to the Brown County Historical Society, May 18, 1991, tape recording, Brown County Historical Society.</ref></blockquote>

[[File:2009-0805-MN-NewUlm-KieslingHouse.jpg|upright|thumb|The [[Frederick W. Kiesling House|Kiesling House]] was one of three downtown buildings to survive the Dakota War. It is listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]].]]

===U.S.–Dakota War of 1862===
{{Main|Battles of New Ulm}}
On August 18, 1862, the [[US-Dakota War of 1862|US-Dakota War]] began with the [[attack at the Lower Sioux Agency]] only 30 miles up the [[Minnesota River]] from New Ulm. As the closest significant town to the [[Lower Sioux Indian Reservation|Dakota Reservation]], New Ulm fell under attack by a [[Mdewakanton]] force the next day. A hastily formed militia of armed townspeople repelled the attack and immediately set about constructing barricades around the center of the town.<ref>Wall, Oscar Garrett (1908). Recollections of the Sioux Massacre. Lake City, Minnesota: The Home Printery. p. 124</ref>

The Dakota returned with a larger force on the morning of August 23. Bolstered by the timely arrival of volunteer [[militia]] from other towns under [[Charles Eugene Flandrau|Charles Flandrau]], the outnumbered defenders of New Ulm again repelled the attack.<ref>Wall, Oscar Garrett (1908). Recollections of the Sioux Massacre. Lake City, Minnesota: The Home Printery. p. 125</ref> Most of the town outside the barricades was burned, however, leaving only 49 buildings to house a population of 2500.<ref>Clodfelter, Micheal (1998). ''The Dakota War: the United States Army versus the Sioux, 1862-1865''. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. p. 42. {{ISBN|0-7864-0419-1}}.</ref> Short of shelter and ammunition and facing outbreaks of disease, the majority of the population evacuated to [[Mankato, Minnesota|Mankato]] on August 25.<ref name="scouting">{{cite book | last =Burnham | first =Frederick Russell | author-link =Frederick Russell Burnham | title =Scouting on Two Continents | publisher =Doubleday, Page and Co | year =1926 | location =New York | pages = 2 (autobiographical account)| id = ASIN B000F1UKOA }}</ref><ref>Wall, Oscar Garrett (1908). Recollections of the Sioux Massacre. Lake City, Minnesota: The Home Printery. p. 127</ref>  The dead were buried in New Ulm's streets.

===1881 Tornado===
On July 15, 1881, New Ulm was struck by a [[1881 Minnesota tornado outbreak|large tornado]] that killed six people and injured 53.

===World War I and II===
Between the outbreak of [[World War I]] in 1914 and U.S. entry into the conflict, the citizens of New Ulm closely followed events in Europe. Local newspapers sometimes printing news from relatives and friends in Germany. In an unofficial referendum in early April 1917, local voters opposed war by a margin of 466 to 19. Even as President [[Woodrow Wilson]] prepared his Declaration of War, a Brown County delegation arrived in [[Washington, D.C.]] to voice its opposition to that action.

On the national level, the Wilson administration organized an active campaign to suppress antiwar fervor, joined on the state level by Minnesota Governor [[James Burnquist]]. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety was granted broad powers to protect the state and assist in the war effort. Specific actions taken by the commission included surveillance of alleged subversive activities, mobilization of opposition to labor unions and strikes (which were considered even more suspect in wartime), pursuit of draft evaders, and registration and monitoring of [[alien (law)|alien]]s (foreign nationals).

Given the strong German heritage of New Ulm residents, federal and state agents began to visit the city soon after the United States' entry into the Great War. They filed reports to offices in Washington and St. Paul because immigrants and first-generation ethnics were suspected of having divided loyalties at best, and perhaps favoring Prussia and the Central Powers. Locally, several business and civic leaders joined in efforts to root out antiwar fervor.

On July 25, 1917, a massive rally, attended by 10,000 people, was held on the grounds of Turner Hall. The people had gathered to “enter a protest against sending American soldiers to a foreign country.” Speakers included Louis Fritsche, mayor of New Ulm; Albert Pfaender, city attorney and former minority leader of the Minnesota House of Representatives; Adolph Ackermann, director of Dr. Martin Luther College; and F. H. Retzlaff, a prominent businessman. Federal and state agents mingled through the crowd, gathering information.

A month later, Governor Burnquist removed Fritsche and Pfaender from their positions. The Commission of Public Safety pressured the college to fire Ackermann. These blows sharply divided the community — on one side, many residents took the removals as an attack on the city's heritage and traditions. Albert Pfaender was the son, and Fritsche, the son-in-law, of the city's principal founder, Wilhelm Pfaender. On the other side, prominent local businessmen, including flour mill managers, feared economic repercussions and promoted pro-war parades and bond drives.<ref>''New Ulm Review'', May 23, 1917. For an overview of these events, see Carl H. Chrislock, ''Watchdog of Loyalty: The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety During World War I'' (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1991).</ref>

During [[World War II]], German POWs were housed in a camp to the immediate southeast of New Ulm, in what is now [[Flandrau State Park]]. In 1944, a New Ulm family was fined $300 for removing a prisoner from the camp, housing him, and taking him to church.<ref>Dean B. Simmons, ''Swords into Plowshares,'' Cathedral Hill Books, 2000</ref>