Everything is in the mindset of kids.”

Matthew Carter, Executive Director of the Dakota County Historical Society

For more information about the Lawshe Museum and its future programming, visit their website at www.dakotahistory.org

Lawshe Memorial Museum
130 Third Ave. N
South St. Paul, MN 55075
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The Lawshe Memorial Museum in South St. Paul opened its newest permanent exhibit The Curiosity Collection, an exhibit for children on the history of Dakota County on Saturday, June 14.
From excavating cepheids to loading refrigerated rail cars, the exhibit allows kids a hands-on experience learning about the South St. Paul stockyards, the electrification of Dakota County, fossils from an ancient sea, and much more.
Creating an exhibit built for children is a very different task than other exhibits. While most exhibits in the Lawshe have some kind of interactive component, creating material that is not only more accessible, but most importantly fun, is key.
“Everything is in the mindset of kids,” said Carter about the creation of the exhibit.
That interaction can take various forms from interactive maps of power lines across Dakota County throughout the years to burying fossils in wool pellets to let attendees dig them up.
“We quickly ruled out sand,” joked Carter about the excavation exhibit.
In this way, the exhibit echoes the will of its namesake: Fred Lawshe, an educator, painter, archeologist, and collector who famously liked to get his hands dirty: “He liked to be hands-on and build stuff,” said Carter.
The new exhibit showcases various “wonderboxes” built by Lawshe and lets attendees build their own. Wonderboxes are dioramas made within shoeboxes with a hole cut into one end, creating a depth of field for viewers.
For Carter, the exhibit is an opportunity to expand the museum’s appeal across age ranges. That expanded appeal is already evidenced with a rise in school trips to the museum scheduled for the coming school year.
The Curiosity Collection was funded through various grants and private donations including from the Minnesota Historical Society. The grants also included funds for various renovations including a new main sign to the museum.
Various partners like Dakota Electric worked with the museum on the exhibit providing early appliances, artifacts, and an early company uniform. Other artifacts like fossils came from the Lawshe itself, the exhibit an excuse to showcase “parts of the collection that are unique and hadn’t been seen in a while,” said Matthew Carter, Executive Director of the Dakota County Historical Society
With the new exhibit, the Lawshe is planning on other programming like electrical safety presentations from electricity providers like Xcel.
Several other new exhibits are on the horizon for the Lawshe.
For the semi-quincentennial anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Lawshe will be renovating several of its main exhibits alongside a series of lectures by longtime educator Frank Sachs that will run from July through August 2026.
This fall, the museum will unveil a new temporary exhibit on the history of women’s hockey. The exhibit started as a note for the museum’s newsletter and grew from there.
For more information about the Lawshe Museum and its future programming, visit their website at www.dakotahistory.org