Terror Alert: 1970--The Strange Summer of Bomb Threats in Minnesota

In the summer of 1970 there was a slew of bomb scares in Minnesota, particularly in the Twin Cities. Dynamite blasts at a federal building in Minneapolis and at a department store in St. Paul caused serious damage and injuries. That was followed by numerous bomb threats throughout the region, including at a Minnesota Twins game that lead to an evacuation in the middle of the game, and a 45-minute delay. The 17, 697 fans handled it in a manner you would never see happen today.

"Imagine. Come to Minneapolis and live dangerously. Who would have thought it?" a resident commented to a newspaper reporter at the time.

Twin Cities-based historian Jeff R. Lonto recounts that turbulent summer at the height of the Vietnam War era through vintage newspaper accounts, and shows what a completely different world it was thirty-one years before the 9/11 terror attacks.