Sinclair Lewis

Sinclair Lewis (HMTFE)

Location: Sauk Centre, MN 56378 Stearns County
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Country: United States of America
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N 45° 44.229', W 94° 57.446'

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Inscription
When Harry Sinclair Lewis was born here on a bitter cold February 7, 1885, Sauk Centre was a raw prairie town with an unpaved main street and five or six blocks of false fronts. A gawky, sensitive child who achieved little success in school and was the brunt of every crude piece of horseplay. "Red" Lewis spent most of his youth tagging after his adored older brother and doctor-father, and reading every book he could find. He began to write at age fifteen. Despite the years of lost jobs and false hopes that followed his graduation from Yale University in 1908, he persisted in his determination to be a writer.

With the publication of Main Street and Babbitt, Lewis became a successful novelist and critic of American culture, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930. He returned frequently to Minnesota; never able to deny his underlying attachment to the Northern Middle West, he described it as "...the newest empire of the world... a land of dairy herds and exquisite lakes, of new automobiles and tarpaper shanties and silos like red towers, of clumsy speech and a hope that is boundless." Lewis talent declined and he died alone in Italy on January 10, 1951. As he had requested, his ashes were brought home to Sauk Centre.

Details
HM NumberHMTFE
Series This marker is part of the National Historic Landmarks series
Tags
Year Placed1988
Placed ByMinnesota Historical Society
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Monday, October 20th, 2014 at 4:20am PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)15T E 347716 N 5066706
Decimal Degrees45.73715000, -94.95743333
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 45° 44.229', W 94° 57.446'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds45° 44' 13.74" N, 94° 57' 26.76" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)320
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 800-898 Co Hwy 17, Sauk Centre MN 56378, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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