For Immediate Release
Contact: Steve Kohn
Planning Manager
Community Development Department
651.385.3622
(May 15, 2023, Red Wing, Minn.) – In celebration of Historic Preservation Month, the Red Wing Heritage Preservation Commission invites the public to a free presentation and walking tour centered around the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary on Wednesday, May 24.
A visual presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Red Wing Golf Course Skyroom, 1311 West Sixth St., followed by a tour of the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary’s former President’s House and the seminary ruins at 7:30 p.m.
The presentation and walking tour will be given by Todd Walsh, whose parents bought the former President’s House in 1978. That began his interest in the former Lutheran academy for women. Walsh graduated from Red Wing High School that year and obtained his undergraduate degree at Macalester College in St. Paul. Luther-Northwestern Seminary and ordination followed. He has since served three parishes and is now a chaplain at a senior living community at Albert Lea.
This presentation and walking tour are a precursor to additional work being done to share the history of the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary. Later this year, the Goodhue County Historical Society, with a grant from the Red Wing Shoe Foundation and a kind gift from Suzanne Blue, intends to publish a book telling the story of the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary. Red Wing’s own noted historian and author Frederick Johnson is the editor working with a skilled assembled team. The goal for the book is a publication date of September this year.