Just west of Winona County is Olmsted County (pop. 144,248). Its county seat is Rochester, the third-largest city in Minnesota.
Rochester was named for Rochester, New York; its population has grown from 40,663 in 1960 to 106,769 in 2010.
Rochester is famous for its Mayo Clinic; Dr. William Worrall Mayo (1819-1911) started the medical practice that eventually became the Mayo Clinic.
More than 30,000 people work at the Mayo Clinic, and the clinic has more than a million patient visits each year.
IBM is another large employer in Rochester, with more than 4,000 workers at its Rochester facility.
Downtown Rochester’s Chateau Theatre (1927) was converted into a Barnes & Noble bookstore in 1994.
The University of Minnesota Rochester opened in downtown Rochester in 2006.
The 38-room Mayowood Mansion, home of three generations of the Mayo family, is open for tours.
Stewartville (pop. 5,916) was the birthplace of Richard Warren Sears (1863-1914), cofounder of Sears, Roebuck, and Company.
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i’d hate to be a mailman on foot at the Sears house.
One of the few old theaters in the state that was converted to another use (it seems).