Place:Morris, Stevens, Minnesota, United States

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source: Family History Library Catalog

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Morris is a town in Stevens County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,286 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stevens County.

The town is home to the University of Minnesota Morris (UMM), part of the University of Minnesota system. The first buildings on campus were constructed in 1887 as the Morris Industrial School for Indians, a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns of the Sisters of Mercy, under contract to the federal government to serve Native Americans from reservations in the region. In 1898 the federal government took the school over to be operated by the Office of Indian Affairs (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs) in order to introduce a more progressive curriculum. In 1908, the school facility was one of five transferred to states under a program to concentrate Indian schools on reservations, rather than in distant boarding schools. The state agreed to allow American Indians to attend the college tuition free.

Since 1910, programs and facilities have been added to what was originally an agricultural college; in 1960, it became a liberal arts college and part of the state university system. Today UMM is one of the largest employers in Morris. It ranks second behind Superior Industries.

On 9 July 1975, Morris was the site of the largest earthquake of the last century in the state, rated at 4.6 in magnitude. Eighteen years later, on 4 June 1993, another quake slightly shook the community. This one measured 4.1 in magnitude and ranks as the third-largest earthquake in Minnesota of the 1900s.

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