March 2017

Minnesota: Big Names, Big Things, Big Farms

Posted on 03/21/2017 by Nathan Lewis in New Content Releases

Jolly Green Giant, 1980

Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes” but it actually has 11,842 Lakes! Perhaps “10,000” just rolls off the tongue a bit better! These lakes make up 90,000 miles of shoreline, which is more than California, Florida and Hawaii combined. This is just the beginning of “big” in Minnesota.

Big Names

The Legendary poet, songwriter, and musical genius Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1941. Bob Dylan has sold well over 40 million albums and he is also one of my personal favorites. Next up, Before he was Prince, The Artist Formerly Known as Prince, and then Prince again, singer/songwriter and music legend Prince Rogers Nelson was born in Minneapolis on June 7, 1958. He has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time.

Big Things

You may not know this, but Minnesota is home to some of the largest “things” in the world. The Mall of America in Bloomington is the size of 78 football fields – 9.5 million square feet. This is the second largest mall in America. The world’s largest ball of twine built by a single person sits in Darwin, weighing in at 17,400 pounds and twelve feet in diameter. The world’s largest pelican, Pelican Pete is a concrete statue that stands 15.5 feet tall at the base of the Mill Pond dam in downtown Pelican Rapids. The world’s largest “kneeling statue,” Paul Bunyan Statue is in Akeley and stands 20 feet tall. The brand “Green Giant Great Big Tender Peas” was created in 1925 and company mascot Jolly Green Giant was born. He stands tall and green in Blue Earth at 55.5 feet tall.

Big Farms

Minnesota is the 5th ranked state for agricultural production. The annual economic activity generated in Minnesota related to agriculture is more than 75 billion dollars. There are 26 million acres of farmland in Minnesota totalling 74,542 farms. The average farm size is 349 acres and they produce corn, soybeans, hogs, dairy products and cattle predominantly. Our photos at Vintage Aerial depict many of these rural homes and farms, and we are happy to announce that we have just made 442,000 photos in Minnesota available. You can search these photos by a current address or by a map location. We hope you enjoy!

Vintage Aerial at the National Center for Nature Photography

Posted on 03/14/2017 by Nathan Lewis in Company Updates

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The Center for Nature Photography at Secor Metropark, Toledo, OH

At Vintage Aerial we are passionately committed to sharing our archive of more than 20 million aerial photographs of rural America. Whether you want rediscover your past or learn more about your family history or just see your part of the world in a new way, we want to help you make those connections. So we were thrilled when the Toledo Metroparks asked us about participating in the aerial-photography exhibit at the National Center for Nature Photography, located at Secor Metropark in western Lucas County. We learned that the Center wanted to create an exhibit that would showcase the power of contemporary aerial photography, using developing drone technology to provide new and intriguing perspectives on familiar landscapes. And we knew right away that our historical aerial photographs, representing more than a half century of our nation’s rural history, could enhance the exhibit by providing depth and historical perspective on the parklands and surrounding areas the Metroparks wanted to feature.

So of course we said yes. Working with the park systems’ expert staff, we explored the locations in and around Toledo that they wanted to highlight. Once we had those locations, we used our state-of-the-art geo-location system and our associated technologies to identify within our vast collection exactly the right pictures that would help tell this wonderful story - how the rich and varied spaces and the accompanying ecologies of our region have changed over time; how buildings have appeared and changed; and how, throughout it all, the Oak Openings region has survived and thrived as a place for healthy and natural living. We donated photographic prints to the exhibit to ensure that the Metroparks achieved its artistic and educational goals of showing visitors something new and beautiful about the past, the present, and the promising future.

You can see the results in the pictures we display here. And better, you can see the whole exhibit at the National Center for Nature Photography at Secor Metropark,10001 W Central Avenue, Berkey, OH 43504.

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The Center for Nature Photography at Secor Metropark, Toledo, OH in 1970 (left) and 2017 (right) photographed via drone by Toledo Aerial Media