“Minnesconsin”: A New Photography Exhibit at the Winona County History Center

September 14, 2025  | 1:00 -3:00 PM
Winona County History Center
160 Johnson St, Winona MN

The Winona County History Center will be opening a new exhibit in the Collection Corridor Gallery. Minnesconsin: Dick Lano’s photography of the
Winona area in the 1970s will open with a reception on Sunday, September 14, 1:00 – 3:00 p.m.

The exhibition, “Minnesconsin: Dick Lano’s Photography of the Winona Area in the 1970s,” (curated by Michael Wm. Doyle, Ph.D.) consists of over 70 of Lano’s photographs depicting a variety of subjects. These include his award winning nature and wildlife prints, sections on “Lost Winona” (the railroad swing bridge, Latsch Island bathhouse, Chicago & North Western depot, the Julius C. Wilkie steamboat),“Winona Characters” (the North Country Band, artist Leo Smith, the Latsch Island boathouse community), and photojournalism (the 1970 protests against the County Courthouse’s demolition, President Jimmy Carter’s 1979 campaign appearance aboard the Delta Queen). There’s also a video installation depicting Walt Neumann in his venerable grocery and ‘bargain store’ on E. 2nd St. in 1972

Minnesconsin is a state of mind that spans a river like a bridge connecting Minnesota and Wisconsin. Richard (Dick) Lano operated a photography studio and took many images of the area and its community members. This new exhibit highlights his portraits, nature, landscapes, Winona sites, photojournalism, and more.

Dick was born and raised in Winona, as was his wife Betsy (Burleigh) Lano. In the 1970s they moved their family across the river to Bluff Siding. There he and his family built a home and he operated a photography studio at the entrance to the valley near Wisconsin State Highway 35. Dick picked up photography as a youth and began documenting his trips to the Boundary Waters and out West, his hometown, his friends, and the “Minnesconsin” region. This exhibit offers a retrospective of Dick’s work mostly from the 1970s. It affords us insight into the evolution of his artistic vision from amateur to professional.

The opening reception is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Short remarks will be made at 2:00 p.m. by community curators of the exhibit.

From the exhibit’s introductory text:

“‘Minnesconsin’ is a state of mind that spans the Mississippi just like a bridge connecting Minnesota and Wisconsin. It designates a pair of neighboring states that are joined at the hip, sharing a river valley, a linked biotic community overspilling its banks. The actual Interstate Bridge at its center serves as an indispensable conduit for commerce and commuting. “Its people commune with a natural world that beguiles with wildlife refuges on the eastern side and the levee-lined main channel on the west; railroads thunder along both banks. Towboats nudge barges full of commodities dodging navigation buoys and deadheads up or down an ‘aquatic
staircase’ fashioned from locks and dams. A profusion of waterfowl migrates along the flyway; hunters stalk game and fisher folk angle in its labyrinthian sloughs. One resides in the Badger State and works in the Gopher State, marries her beau on one bank and is buried as a couple on the other, is educated on one side and retires to the other. This stretch of the Driftless Area is like no other, meriting a unique place name: Minnesconsin.”Learn more and plan your visit at winonahistory.org or call 507-454-2723.

Winona County Historical Society is an organizational member of the River Arts Alliance. To learn more about the benefits of membership, please visit: riverartsalliance.org/membership/.