Editing New Ulm, Minnesota (section)

===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]].]]