Stearns History Museum Publishing First-Ever St. Cloud Focused Book, Images of America, in May

(KNSI) — The Stearns History Museum is bringing 150-plus years of St. Cloud history to life this spring with the publication of a new Images of America book set to hit stores May 5th.

Librarian Miranda Stueckrath and archivist Grant Wilson worked from March through November combing through the museum’s extensive photo collections to put the book together, including works from longtime St. Cloud Times photographer Myron Hall.

The book marks the first time Arcadia Publishing, the book’s publisher, has featured St. Cloud. Stearns County was the focus of a paperback in the past, but not St. Cloud itself. The book organizes its content thematically rather than chronologically, with chapters covering topics such as transportation and infrastructure, laborers and farmers, settlers and immigration, education and religion, culture, and historic neighborhoods. Each chapter contains 10 to 15 photos.

With only 115 pages and 10 chapters to work with, Stueckrath told KNSI News that narrowing down St. Cloud’s rich history was hard. “The most challenging part for this is definitely choosing what to talk about and what to not talk about. So on one hand, you can’t leave out some of the big, big parts of the history, even though it’s been done in every other St. Cloud book. But on the other hand, you can’t do really, really small, obscure things for the whole book.”

While the book includes expected landmarks like St. Germain Street, it also highlights lesser-known moments in St. Cloud history. One of Stueckrath’s favorites is Operation Lollipop, a popular nickname for communitywide polio vaccination drives in the 1950s and ’60s when sweet treats were given to kids after getting their shots or pills to make the experience less scary and encourage participation.

Stueckrath, whose background is in labor history, particularly enjoyed creating a chapter focused on the workers who built St. Cloud rather than just the businesses or industries themselves. “I really wanted to focus on the actual labor that went into things. So the building of things, kind of the smaller people, so to speak, who don’t often get talked about. And so that was our way of telling the same story, but slightly different.”

Stueckrath hopes the book will inspire more visitors to the museum’s research center and archives. “A lot of people don’t come to the research center because they don’t think it’s for them. They don’t think it’s something interesting for them. But our museum and our archives are open to people. You are allowed to come and look at these photos and look at our collections.”

The book is not yet available for pre-order, but the museum will announce when ordering becomes available. Pricing is expected to range from $16 to $20, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the museum.

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