Eighty years ago this month, the first of 6,000 soldiers came to the Twin Cities during World War II to be trained at a covert military intelligence language school. Most were Nisei, born in the United States to Japanese immigrant parents. They would later be shipped to the Pacific theater to intercept radio signal communications, translate captured battle plans, interrogate prisoners of war, and even crawl toward enemy lines to spy on Japanese commanders.
For the first time since the pandemic, Historic Fort Snelling was fully open to the public. It was also the first opportunity for people to check out the work done to revitalize the state's first national historic landmark.