Walls go up at new military museum site

By Tim Engstrom
Construction workers have placed a few walls at the new site for the Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum. The museum is on 32 acres along Minnesota Highway 371.

CAMP RIPLEY — Walls are up at the new Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum.

The grand opening at the site on 32 acres just east of Camp Ripley is expected to happen in summer 2026, said Director Randal Dietrich.

“We would love to be welcoming folks into our museum during our nation’s 250th anniversary,” he said.

The $32 million building will be 40,000 square feet. Motorists can view the walls from their cars and trucks when passing by on highways 371 or 115. Elrosa-based Breitbach Construction is the general contractor.

Dietrich said the construction funding — a mix of donations and state allocations — does not include the cost to move artifacts from the current museum on base or the cost to install new galleries. That fundraiser, he said, is underway.

“We are working to raise another $10 million to outfit the facility, install classrooms, theaters and tell stories,” he said. “We presently have $6 million toward the $10 million so far.”

Past Department Vice Commander Linda Dvorak is on the museum’s board of directors. She has helped the museum with fundraising through sending out charitable gambling request letters to Legion posts last year.

As of end of December, Legion posts had donated $11,358.

To donate, make the check to “Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum” with “fundraiser” in the memo and mail the check to Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum, Attn: Randal Dietrich, Camp Ripley, 15000 Highway 15, Little Falls, MN 56345.

Galleries and theater spaces will illustrate such things as Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 7, 1941, and the role of Minnesotans in those attacks, Dietrich said.

“There were more than 400 Minnesotans at Pearl Harbor that day,” he said. “Eighty of them were aboard the USS Ward.”

He added, “Sept. 11 had Minnesotans in the towers, in the planes, in the Pentagon.”

The role of The American Legion, which spring up across the state like wildfire following World War I, will be illustrated. Minneapolis was the site of the very first American Legion National Convention in 1919. From Legion Baseball to instilling patriotism to the GI Bill to veteran camaraderie, the Legion has had a strong impact on the state.

“Its story is something we want to convey to the public in this museum.”