November 25, 1982: The Minneapolis Thanksgiving Day Fire

November 25, 1982: Downtown Minneapolis is hit by a fire on Thanksgiving Day. It destroys the former Donaldson's department store, in front of which Mary Tyler Moore had thrown her hat into the air for the opening sequence of her show in 1970.

The other building that was damaged to the point where it had to be demolished was the 16-story Northwestern National Bank Building.

Nobody was injured or killed as a result of the fire, though 10 firefighters were treated at hospitals.

Donaldson's, the largest department store chain in Minnesota, had recently moved across the street to the new City Center mall. But it was still in trouble, and in 1987 was bought Carson Pirie Scott, which phased the Donaldson's name out in 1995. Most Donaldson's became Target stores. Based in Minneapolis, Target bought the naming rights to the NBA Timberwolves' arena, the Target Center, in 1990; and the MLB Twins' new ballpark, Target Field, in 2010.

The Norwest Center (now the Wells Fargo Center) was built on the site of the Northwestern National Bank Building. It stands 775 feet tall, now the 3rd-tallest building in the City and in the State, behind the 792-foot IDS Center, built in 1973; and the 776-foot Capella Tower, built in 1992.

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November 25, 1982 was a Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. The NFL had its usual 2 games. The Detroit Lions lost to the New York Giants, 13-6 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. And the Dallas Cowboys beat the Cleveland Browns, 31-14 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

There were 3 games in college football:

* Number 14 Texas walloped arch-rival Texas A&M, 53-16 at Memorial Stadium in Austin.

* Virginia Tech beat arch-rival Virginia, 21-14 at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.

* And in a non-rivalry game, North Carolina beat Bowling Green, 33-14 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

And in New Jersey high school football, East Brunswick, the Middlesex County school I would begin attending in 2 years' time, lost away to Woodbridge school Colonia, 34-14. We played them because pretty much every other school in the County already had an arch-rival to play on T-Day, while we hadn't played on the day for our 1st 20 years of varsity football, with 1 exception (and that due to a postponement, in 1963, after the assassination of President Kennedy).

Baseball was out of season. Only 1 game was played in the NBA: The Kansas City Kings beat the Houston Rockets, 88-79 at The Summit in Houston. When the Rockets moved to the Toyota Center in 2003, The Summit was bought by televangelist Joel Osteen, who converted it into the centerpiece of his "megachurch," the Central Campus of Lakewood Church.

And there were 2 games in the NHL. The New York Islanders and the Boston Bruins played to a tie, 1-1 at the Boston Garden. And the Quebec Nordiques beat the Calgary Flames, 3-2 at the Stampede Corral in Calgary.