On This Date In Twin Cities History - July 17, 1938
On this date in 1938, the Crown Prince of Sweden, Gustaf Adolf, visits the Twin Cities on the occasion of the New Sweden Tercentenary celebration.
New Sweden was a Swedish colony scattered along the lower reaches of the Delaware River Valley in the present-day states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania between 1638 to 1655.
Established near the end of the devastating Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the New Sweden colony generated significant interest among Swedes regarding immigration to North America. When a major wave of Swedish immigration to the United States occurred years later between 1870 to 1910, over one million Swedes arrived in the U.S., settling particularly in Minnesota and other states of the Upper Midwest.
