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Of the 64 men from the tank company that left Brainerd who went with the 194th to the Philippines, three were killed in action and 29 died as prisoners of war and 32 survived captivity, including Walt Straka, a lifelong Brainerd resident and last survivor of the Bataan Death March.
A nationwide railroad strike in 1922 eventually embroils Brainerd in the controversy over pay. Many of the 1,400 strikers were blackballed from Northern Pacific shops when the eight-month strike ended.
The Brainerd Ski Club in 1938 built the Boom Lake ski slide with Works Progress Administration labor. Ski jumpers landed on the Brainerd lake’s southeast shore. The ski slide no longer exists.
Minnesota's first forest reserve was established in 1900 when 1,000 acres of cutover pine lands in Cass County was donated to the state by Gov. John S. Pillsbury to become Pillsbury State Forest.
The Young Men’s Christian Association in Brainerd — better known as the Brainerd Family YMCA today — had its beginnings at Sixth and Front streets when the Northern Pacific Railway offered to build a wholesome place for the young men of the railroad and the community to spend their leisure time.