Charles Halsted
American politician

Charles Lafayette "Chas" Halsted (September 23, 1894 – February 19, 1968) was a Minnesota politician. Halsted was a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives for more than 20 years. He was a candidate for governor of Minnesota in 1948.
Charles Halsted was born in Ellendale, North Dakota. He attended the North Dakota State Normal and Industrial School at Ellendale, graduating in 1914. He moved to Brainerd, Minnesota in 1929 and opened Halsted's Grocery Store. Halsted served as town clerk in Brainerd in addition to his work as a grocer. He was first elected to the legislature in 1937, representing Brainerd. He served in the legislature until 1947.
In 1948, he unsuccessfully challenged incumbent Republican governor Luther Youngdahl as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate in Minnesota's 1948 gubernatorial election.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Charles Halsted” is american politician. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Charles, Halsted and American, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “american politician” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5078715. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1894, 1968, 1948 and 1914.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Charles Halsted”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Charles Halsted primary sources, Charles Halsted archive and Charles research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Charles Halsted”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Charles Halsted” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.