Here are highlights in history for July 3, gleaned from the files of the Albert Lea Tribune:

1989 — Wells was designated as the state’s 85th locality to be a Star City by the Minnesota Department of Trade and Economic Development.

1979 — Albert Lea, a chicken farmer from New Zealand, would be the grand marshal for Albert Lea’s Fourth of July Parade.

1969 — The Freeborn County Sheriff’s Department was searching the 11th Street area south of Albert Lea for a five-foot boa constrictor that had escaped from its owner’s cage.