We all know Rochester by the nickname of the Med City. But did you know it was once also called the Queen City?

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According to this Answer Man column in Tuesday's Post-Bulletin, our fair city was, in fact, once known as the Queen City. But, as the story says, the nickname was based on little more than an advertising campaign.

Way back in the late 1870's, the story noted, advertisements for Delbert Darling's Business College and Photographic Institute referred to Rochester as "the Queen City of Minnesota."

Though I'm guessing that proclamation wasn't necessarily based on anything other than a way to brand Mr. Darling's school (and a way to lure students to their prestigious campus located in the 'Queen City' of the North Star State), the nickname eventually stuck with Rochester, the story said.

In fact, several local clubs and businesses embraced the name, the story continued, saying, "by the turn of the century Rochester had a Queen City Band, Queen City Orchestra, Queen City Gun Club and more."

The Queen City nickname, began to fade 20 or 30 years later, though. And by the 1920's, the story surmises, it began to appear less and less. Today, there are only a few remnants of Rochester's era as the Queen City left, the story noted.

Seeing as I've only been a Rochester resident for a little over 4 years now, I'm not sure when the Med City moniker first became popular. When I first moved here, though, I thought people were referencing Rochester as the 'Mad City,' which confused me, as I was used to hearing that nickname in reference to Wisconsin's capital city of Madison. (Which, logically, calls itself the 'Mad City.')

And, recently-retired morning guy Alan Reed told me the story of how he once referred to Rochester as the Med City some 25 years ago, well before the nickname had caught on. But, he said a listener who worked at IBM (which, back then, employed many more people here in Rochester than it does these days) called in to complain, saying the nickname ignored the many hardworking IBM employees who also live and work here. So, Alan said he stopped using it. Turns out, he was just a little before his time!

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