Fact Sheet re Rochester, Minnesota

ROCHESTER, MINNESOTA (988 alt., 20,621 pop.) Rochester is the seat of Olmstead County. Rochester's census returns are misleading for they tell only half the story. A constant transient population more than doubles the official figures. Forty hotels, 84 apartment buildings, 200 rooming houses, 20 restaurants, and a 20-acre municipal tourist camp shelter annually 20,000 travelers, each year provide bed and board for more than 150,000 health seekers, their relatives and friends. TRUMAR NATIONAL People: ARCHIVES AND SERVICE GOVERNMENT Social life in Rochester is maintained by two distinct groups although some individuals occupy places in both. The town group amuses itself in ways that differ little from those of other Minnesota cities. Social life for the clinic group, however, resembles that of a university or even more of an Army post. At the head stand the two Mayos and their families, affectionately dubbed by their assistants "the Royal Family." Next in the scale are the heads of the various departments and their wives; then the hundreds of young student Fellows, many of whom are married, and at the bottom the army of nurses and technicians. Not that these lines are sharply or snob- bishly drawn, but they exist, are generally recognized, and are rarely crossed except on large ceremonial occasions. The constant incoming and outgoing stream of distinguished visitors provides a reason for much entertaining by the upper group; and since among these guests are outstanding artists as well as scientists, social life here has a far more sophisticated flavor than that of some cities many times its size. Wives of the busy doctors bring lecturers, concert singers, and art exhibits to the community, and the 95-mile trip to the Twin Cities is regarded as a mild jaunt, gladly undertaken for a symphony concert in Minneapolis or the opera in St. Paul. Industry: Rochester's industrial chart is unique among cities of its size, and here, too, the influence of the clinic is manifest. The influx of sick keeps more than a hundred agents writing life insurance. The yearly florist bill amounts to about $200,000. Manufacturers of remedies and health foods, discerning profit in the Rochester post- mark, have chosen the city as headquarters for their small laboratories. Purveyors of luxuries, gifts, and books, with an eye to the enforced leisure of convalescents and accompanying friends, import their stocks from Europe and New York and find a ready market for goods of a quality rarely sold in small cities. The fact that the proportion of women workers is higher here than in any other city of the Northwest is again due to the hospitals and hotels. But the clinic is by no means the sole source of Rochester's wealth. When railroad scouts arrived in the sixties with orders to routelines through the richest inland spots, they sent back reports of an almost unbelievable volume of crops flowing into this village