So i grew up in the town of tower Minnesota, a small mining town in st Louis County in Minnesota located of the mesabi iron range. When the town was founded it was a fairly major town as it was tied to another town right next door called soudan (breitung township) which was home to a successful underground iron mine called the soudan underground mine. The two towns are technically separate but due to proximity and history (tower was apperently the town where all the businesses and alot of miners lived while soudan was considered on mining company land and wasn't allowed to have any businesses but had some people live there) the towns are kindof considered to be packaged together by most of us living here if that makes sense. We have a local historical society and as a kid my school interacted with them alot. At one point one of the historians there had told me that our town of tower and soudan had been considered as an option to be the state capitol of Minnesota instead of st paul because for a time the town was really successful from the mining industry. He provided more details but it was quite a while ago and I don't remember or didn't get all the details of why we were considered or why we didn't get chosen, I was young at the time and so I don't remember all the context he gave us but the fact always stuck with me since. I recently started doing some research Into it for an alternate history project I'm working on but I don't seem to be able to find anything that confirms the story I had been told growing up. In fact everything I've found seems to indicate that I may have been given false information. I was told that the town of tower was almost chosen as the state capitol, but the problem is the town of tower wasn't founded until the 1880s whereas Minnesota became a state in the 1850s and st paul was named the capitol since then, and from what I could tell from simple Google and Wikipedia st paul had been the capitol of the territory of Minnesota even before it was a state. I'm worried I was lied to or given false information but I don't want to immediately write it off because Maybe at some point the state was considering moving the capital or something (I don't know of that can happen) but I don't seem to be able to find anything else. Even though I'm doing this research for something involving alternate history I'm not asking for what ifs or what it would be like or anything like that. I need help because I was told one thing while growing up but I now have doubts about the historical "fact" I had held with me all these years. I'm not asking what if it happened, I need to know if there was ever a point where my small mining town had actually been in the consideration as a spot for the state capitol?
This is a pretty straightforward question, but it is extremely specific, and that greatly limits the possible number of people who could answer it. One of them is not too likely to be wandering by, and noticing it.
In the 1850's there would have been a discussion, a debate, or a committee chosen to decide where to put the capital of the new state, and there would be records of that process. You could research that yourself: your local library likely has a good book on the history of Minnesota. That history will say something about the creation of the state, and selection of the capital, and if it's a good history, there will be a footnote for the source of that information, and that source will be listed in the back, under references- and libraries often have a reference librarian who can help.
You can also simply contact the Minnesota Historical Society: they have a website. If you do, I would suggest that you not simply ask if your town was considered for the state capital. You should say that you are trying to find the answer to the question, and would like to know what records would show it, where they are: the staff may be far too busy to actually run down your answer for you, but likely they could quickly tell you where to look. But you might be able to do a lot online. I notice on their website more than one promising source is listed, like:
Minnesota Board of Commissioners of Public Buildings. Records, 1851-1854. Minute book (1851-1854), deed for Territorial Capitol site (1851), order and receipt books (1851-1853), and accounting records (1851-1853), recording the board’s actions, primarily concerning construction of the territorial capitol and prison. The accounting records include title abstracts and deeds, construction specifications, proposals (bids), and account statements.