Minnesota, known as the North Star State or the Gopher State, developed as the thirty-second state through small farm communities, many settled by immigrants from Scandinavia and Germany, while its forests, iron ore mines, and Lake Superior shipping lanes drew other settlers and contributed to notable diversity. Its identity is closely tied to water, with 15,000 lakes, many towns named for lakes, falls, rivers, rapids, isles, bays, and beaches, a state name meaning “sky colored water” in Dakota, the Mississippi River beginning at Lake Itasca, and Minnehaha Falls gaining fame through Longfellow’s “song of Hiawatha.” Minnesotans take pride in the state’s natural beauty and leadership in resource conservation and quality of life. Some 12,000 years ago, as the Wisconsin Glacier began to melt, it formed Glacial Lake Agassiz, the largest known glacial lake in North America, which at its greatest extent covered more than 110,000 square miles across parts of present-day Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, reached depths of more than 400 feet in places, and stretched more than 700 miles from near Browns Valley to near Hudson Bay. A moraine at the glacier’s southern end held the meltwater until overflow cut an outlet that formed the present Minnesota River valley, and over roughly 3,000 years, as the glacier kept melting, numerous beaches formed along the lake’s shores, including ones still visible today and named for Herman, Tintah, Norcross, and Campbell. About 7,500 years ago, when the glacier had retreated far enough north for meltwater to drain into Hudson Bay, Glacial Lake Agassiz disappeared, leaving a few undrained depressions such as Upper and Lower Red Lake, Lake of the Woods, and Lake Winnipeg, while the former lakebed in northwestern Minnesota remained almost flat and lakeless and became rich farmland producing wheat, sugar beets, potatoes, sunflowers, and other crops, giving the region a reputation as the bread basket of the world.