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16 November 2007
Minnesota 1st Is Home to World-Famous Medical Center
Mayo Clinic arose from community response to 1883 disaster
Washington -- In the summer of 1883, a deadly tornado blew in from the west toward a small city in southern Minnesota. In minutes, Rochester was in ruins.
On that August night, the city's mayor brought together a group of volunteers to help survivors. Three local doctors -- a father and two sons -- took charge of those needing medical help, but there was no medical facility in the area.
The father, William Mayo, who had treated soldiers during the U.S. Civil War, realized he and his sons needed more help to care for disaster victims properly. They called on a local group of Catholic nuns who had trained as teachers, not nurses. The nuns sought donations of food, clothing and money that poured in from neighbors and people in other states.
That inspiring early partnership evolved into the world-famous Mayo Clinic and its sister hospital, St. Mary's. These premiere medical facilities have served presidents, kings and other well-known people from around the world.
Rochester, with a population of 100,000, is the largest city in the broad Minnesota 1st Congressional District. The increasingly ethnically diverse city on the south fork of the Zumbro River is in the southeastern section of the country’s most central northern state. As of the 2000 U.S. census, Rochester’s population was 80 percent Caucasian, 10 percent African American, 4.5 Asian American and 2 percent Hispanic, with the remaining portion a mix of other ancestries.
Rochester is Minnesota's third-largest city -- the largest outside the "Twin Cities" of Minneapolis-St. Paul -- and reflects the American values of charity and innovation. In addition to being home to the Mayo Clinic, it hosts one of largest facilities of IBM, a branch of the University of Minnesota and a new bioscience center.
The diversity of Rochester's population is due in part to the medical professionals attracted to the Mayo Clinic and technology experts attracted to IBM and other high-tech firms. The city also is home to immigrants from many nations who move to the area with the help of faith-based groups.
The Minnesota 1st has strong agricultural traditions. It stretches along the Iowa border from South Dakota to Wisconsin. Its rich farmlands produce maize (corn), soybeans, peas, beef, pork, dairy, and other products. In recent years, some Rochester-area farms have promoted the development of such renewable energy technologies as wind power and ethanol.
Today, the Minnesota 1st has more residents in urban than rural areas. Smaller cities include Austin, home of the food processing company Hormel Foods Corporation (known for introducing the processed meat product SPAM®) and of a new cancer research center; Winona, a university city on the Mississippi River; Mankato, also home to a university; Worthington, at the western part of the state and home to a large Swift Foods Inc. meat-processing plant; and Owatonna, which in 1886 established what is now a well-known state school to serve children with special needs.
VOTERS’ CONCERNS
In 2007, after a major bridge collapse in Minneapolis, 128 kilometers to the north, and flooding in the 1st District, infrastructure and emergency preparedness became hot political issues. Other issues important to voters are the war in Iraq, care for military veterans, and energy efficiency. As immigrants continue to arrive, the question of how to assimilate these new citizens is an emerging issue.
Long a Republican district, the Minnesota 1st in recent years has become more Democratic. In 2006, Democrat Tim Walz, an educator who has taught in China, defeated incumbent Republican Congressman Gil Gutknecht, a businessman first elected 12 years earlier.
In 2008, the 150th anniversary of Rochester's incorporation as a city, Walz will face one of several announced Republican challengers, who include State Senator Dick Day of Owatonna and Mayo Clinic physician Brian Davis.
