When German immigrant and former butcher/saloon owner Theodore Hamm bought a struggling business on Phalen Creek in St. Paul in 1864, would he have thought it would become one of the largest breweries in the country? That first year there were five employees who brewed five hundred barrels of beer.
Hamm’s Brewery was then on the edge of the city and hard to reach in the winter. So the family built a dormitory for single men. His wife Louise cooked their meals and also provided food at noon for the married men. It was, of course, accompanied by beer, which could also be accessed during work hours. Louise also operated the storehouses and did the bookkeeping.
Hamm often invited the farmers who brought their grain to the mill to stay and have a beer. This soon turned into having a meal and Louise, who was deeply involved in company operations, to start a "bier garten." Under her direction, it became a popular destination.
By 1885, Hamm’s Brewery had grown to seventy-five employees who brewed 40,000 barrels and the complex had grown to four acres. Deliveries kept fifteen to twenty wagons busy every day. In 1894, the brewery expanded to include a bottling works and that was followed by artificial refrigeration in1895.
Theodore’s son, William, and grandson, William Jr. inherited the operation in 1903. It continued to prosper until Prohibition hit breweries hard. During that time Hamm’s survived by producing soft drinks, near beer, syrups and other food products.
The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 was celebrated by a huge gathering outside the brewery and when a whistle blasted at 12:01 A. M. on April 7th, the crowd roared and blew car horns. It was estimated that by 6 A.M. that morning, 100,000 cases of beers had been shipped.
Between 1946 and 1954, the site was expanded to twenty acres with 1,300 workers. Hamm’s became one of the country’s top beers advertising that it came “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters.”
The time came when no family members wanted to run things and in 1968 the company was acquired by a series of owners. The last company on the site was Stroh, which operated the brewery until 1997. You can see most of the buildings, in various states of re-use, spanning Minnehaha between Payne Avenue and Arcade Street.
]]>Located at the foot of Indian Mounds Park, Willowbrook Hatchery was started in 1878 by the newly formed State Fish Commission. Raising fish to stock the lakes and streams of Minnesota was—and still is— an important state function and the site below Dayton’s Bluff was an almost perfect spot for such activity. The hatchery utilized ponds to catch the water that came flowing out of springs in the bluffs. The nearby railroad tracks made it easy to ship fish throughout the state. By 1894, 1,212,000 Brook Trout and 31,600,000 Walleye Pike had been produced and distributed.
It became a tourist attraction and contemporary writers tell of the large number of visitors from all over the state who came to stroll around the hatchery grounds. There was also mention of people from “neighboring camps” possibly referring to the frequent gathering of “hobos” near the railroad tracks.
Senator W. W. Dunn and others “engineered a private subscription” for the purchase of a number of acres of land that was donated to the state provided they continued to raise fish on it. The development of Indian Mounds Park on the bluffs boomed the tourism at the Hatchery which was soon expanded to include sixty-two acres.
One Dayton’s Bluff resident wrote that on balmy Sunday afternoons in the early years of the Twentieth Century, “whole families walked to Indian Mounds Park, thence down the long and steep pathway to the fish hatchery where there were several outdoor pools containing large fish, the likes of which some of us had never caught.” Later a small zoo was added as an additional attraction.
The St. Paul Parks Department reported in 1903 that the Fish Hatchery grounds had “for many years been an object of great interest to the public, but it was only accessible by a steep and difficult road, subject to frequent washouts.”
A thoroughfare was finally constructed from Indian Mounds Park to the hatchery below which revealed “a series of delightful views as it winds around the crests and slopes of the hill.” When finished, a newspaper said “it will be one of the pleasantest driveways in the city.”
Today the fish hatchery remains below the bluff, but its operations have been greatly reduced. They still hatch Muskies and raise them to fingerling size before sending the fry, as they are called, to state ponds for further development.
The zoo is long gone and Warner Road was cut through the center of the site during the post-war era. The old road and the trails are over-run and their remnants are barely visible but could be resurrected at some future date. There is still one large pond and, in case you ever wondered about it, that’s where the fish from the DNR’s State Fair display spend the rest of the year.
]]>German immigrants were one of the first large groups of immigrants who flooded into Saint Paul when Minnesota became a Territory in 1849. And, as it turned out, they knew a great deal of the “inns” and outs of beer-making they brought with them from the old country. St. Paul turned out to be an almost perfect place for breweries. Before electricity, underground refrigeration was a necessity and the soft sandstone of the city river bluffs made for easy digging. There also was an abundance of pure water that flowed out of artesian wells.
One of the earliest breweries in the Saintly City was the North Star Brewery. It was opened in 1855 by the team of Edward Drewry and George Scotten, Scottish and English immigrants who, unlike the Germans, favored the production of ales. They located their new enterprise below the bluff near Commercial Street and Hudson Avenue. Starting with two 50 by 75-foot buildings and one tiny cave, they eventually expanded to a kiln for drying grain that held 120 bushels, a small malt house and cellars in the limestone cliffs.
As one early writer described it, the ale cellars "are cut into the sand rock from a series of gallerys connecting the basements of the several buildings and give a large storage room, with an equitable temperature the year round." Soon they were selling their product as far away as Chicago and Milwaukee.
The history of the brewery is complicated. Starting in 1866 the brewery was sold few times, and the German influence soon predominated with their preference for making lager beer. It appears that for a short time in the late 1860’s it was not operating. When German born Civil War veteran Reinhold Koch became an owner, he hired Jacob Schmidt, an experienced German brewmeister. Schmidt did such a good job increasing production that by the 1880s the North Star Brewery was the second largest brewery west of Chicago, producing at an annual clip of 16,000 barrels.
Schmidt was brought in as a partner and in 1884 he became the sole owner. He continued to run the successful company below the bluff until 1900, when a major fire destroyed the plant. He then removed the firm to the West End, where the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company remained for decades. While the North Star Brewery has vanished, people can still see the cave they used, a small remnant of one limestone wall on the northern section of the park and recently-added gravel outlines of where the buildings once stood below the bluff.
]]>A thousand years ago the area around the confluence of Trout Brook and Phalen Brook near the Mississippi River was a marshy flood plain. By the early 1900s, the entire delta had been expanded by filling and became an industrial railroad corridor. As rail use decreased in the 1970s, the land was largely abandoned and buildings and tracks were removed.
If you saw it in 1980, it was a barren, fed litter-strewn site that had been the victim of illegal dumping. However, local East Side activists and Lowertown residents saw the site’s potential and in 1997 they began working together as the Lower Phalen Area Project. They joined with the DNR, National Park Service to reclaim a twenty seven acre area to start developing a landmark that combined restoration of the riverfront habitat with public access.
The City purchased the land and restoration work was soon undertaken by volunteers who removed tons of debris that had been dumped over the years. Clean soil was brought in to replace marginal land and invasive buckthorn was uprooted. The goal was to bring back a mix of floodplain forest, prairie and oak savanna tamarack seepage swamps, and four acres of bedrock bluff prairie.
The twenty-seven acre park now contains native plant communities and the wildlife is returning. Two small ponds attract waterfowl and the uplands are home to grassland bird species. Turkey vultures, bald eagles, and red tail hawks are now seen along the sandstone bluffs. Pedestrian paths and bicycle trails have been installed, a series of three wetlands now hold abundant water and a spring-fed stream runs through the property.
On May 21, 2005 the park was opened to the public and was named in honor of Bruce Vento, a native of the East Side, a teacher and a U. S. Congressman who served the area from 1977 until 2000. He was the author of a law that created a Mississippi National River and Recreational Area.
There are a few remnants of the older days, including railroad maintenance pads that echo the importance of trains to the area history and mention the old brewery. The project recreated a number of ecosystems that had existed including oak woodlands, floodplain forests, prairies and oak savannas. Carver’s Cave is protected, but its entrance can be observed.
The Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary’s walking and biking paths take visitors through a vibrant habitat with colorful signs that explain and interpret various parts of the site. Volunteers have planted nearly 2,000 trees, and the wetlands and prairie sections are now filled with colorful flowers. While trains occasionally rumble by below the bluff, you are more likely now to see eagles, Indigo buntings, northern flickers and red tailed hawks and other wildlife soaring above the park.
]]>After a lengthy war between England and France (which had laid claim to the area that included today’s St. Paul), they ceded the land to England in the treaty of 1763. Eager to find out the nature of what they saw as their colonial possession, the English dispatched Johnathan Carver to visit. His exploration led him up the Mississippi River and, on November 14, 1766 he came to "a remarkable cave of amazing depth that the Indians called Wakan-Tipi,” which roughly translates as the Dwelling of the Great Mystery.
Carver later wrote a book about his explorations that included information about the cave and, although the Dakota had led him there, he decided to give the landmark his own name. Here, with the original spellings, is part of his descriptions: “The rock at the enterance of the cave is of lightish gray colour and very soft like the grit of a grindstone. I found many strange heiroglyphycks cut in the stone some of which was very acient and grown over with moss. On the stone I marked the arms of the King of England.”
Because Carver published an account of his adventures, later travelers often tried to visit the famous cavern. After the Revolutionary War, the United States gained its independence from England and its leaders also sent people to explore what they considered their new possessions.
The cave was sometimes “lost” when falling limestone and debris covered its entrance, so sometimes explorers were not successful finding the historic landmark. In Saint Paul’s early days, Wakan Tipi was accessible and often visited by early settlers. When the railroads arrived in Minnesota, the front entry may have been destroyed by their construction work.
Over time the famous cavern had been covered by falling limestone and other debris. Then in 1913, a neighborhood group undertook a year-long effort to find it and were able to uncover the entrance. At the time they hoped that it would become a tourist attraction complete with interior lighting.
While the city did buy the area around the cave the grand vision of a national attraction faded and once again Carver’s Cave was mostly forgotten. Recently, however, the significance of Wakan Tipi was once again recognized as it has became one of the area’s high points and although it is protected, it can be seen from the walking trails in the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary.
]]>The headline above appeared in a 1902 issue of the St Paul Globe over a story about a “group of quaint Irish families” at the “foot of Dayton’s Bluff.” The article is one of the few extensive descriptions of the area known as “Connemara Patch.”
The history of this community can be traced to the arrival of a sizeable group of immigrants from the Connemara area of Ireland. They had been persuaded to come to Minnesota in the 1880’s by Archbishop John Ireland and were initially located on farms in the western part of the state. For a variety of reasons, the experiment was a failure and many of the settlers came to St. Paul and settled along the banks of Phalen Creek between Third and Seventh Streets below Dayton’s Bluff.
The area was haphazardly laid out, with irregular roads, containing small homes, referred to as “huts or shacks” by one reporter. While other groups lived there, the Irish were the predominant group of residents. People spoke with rich accents and retained many of their old world customs, such as the production of fine Irish point lace. The community was generally poor, but some of the men found jobs with various railroads.
And it was railroad construction that heralded the disappearance of Connemara Patch. In 1908, most of the homes between Sixth and Seventh Streets were wiped out as new tracks were laid. A small cluster of homes under the Third Street Bridge and along Commercial Street remained, some of them until the 1950’s. By then, Mexican Americans had become the predominant population in the remnants of the old Irish settlement.
There is one known remnant of the historic Connemara Patch. You can find it at a not-too-distant location at 671 Conway where it was moved around 1881. The homes and grocery stores, saloons and boarding houses have disappeared from the area below the bluff, and now only fading memories remain.
Some of those memories were shared one August day in the 1980’s when Matthew McDonough stood by the site of his old home in Connemara Patch and reminisced in a newspaper article. ”It was an Irish settlement,” he said, “although there were a few people of other ethnic backgrounds.” Matthew was brought into the world in 1900 by a midwife who came to the family house at 267 Commercial Street. In the Patch, he recalled, “I don’t remember there ever being much trouble…. Nobody had anything, but we all seemed to get along.”
]]>Former chief justice of the U. S. Supreme Court Warren Burger (1907-1995) lived with his six siblings in a two-bedroom cottage at 695 Conway from 1914 to 1933. His father worked as a railway cargo inspector and sometime traveling salesman so the German-Swiss family’s financial circumstances were limited.
Burger attended Van Buren School and graduated from Johnson High School in 1925, where he edited the school newspaper and earned letters in athletics. He then worked days as an insurance salesman while he attended night classes at the University of Minnesota and St. Paul College of Law.
In 1969, President Richard Nixon appointed Burger to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held until he resigned in 1987 to devote his energy to serving as chairman of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution.
He was part of the conservative wing of the Court and was considered a very competent administrator who made the Court’s work more efficient. Burger was a tireless promoter of judicial reform, working to increase the competence of lawyers trying cases in federal courts and promoting a national court of appeals.
One source suggests that the Burger House was constructed in 1884, but that is not correct. In fact, Warren’s grandfather, a civil war hero bought, remodeled and added to the already existing McLean School that was built in 1871. It was no longer needed because the city had replaced it with a much larger Van Buren School. The family moved into the former schoolhouse in 1884.
]]>Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) and his family lived at 847 East Fourth Street after they moved to St. Paul from southern Illinois in 1910. His father was a businessman who owned nearby groceries at 198 Bates and 376 Maria. Harry attended Van Buren Elementary School and graduated from Mechanic Arts High School. After winning a scholarship and attending Harvard University, he graduated from the Harvard Law School. Between 1950 and 1959, Blackmun served as resident counsel for the Mayo Clinic and described the job as "his happiest time" as opposed to later judicial work where he "performed his duty.”
Blackmun was appointed to the Eighth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1959 and stayed there until he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1970. He had been a good friend with Warren Burger since grade school and was even best man at his wedding. Initially the two usually voted together and were sometimes called “The Minnesota Twins.”
But Blackmun slowly began siding with the liberal faction of the court and toward the end of their careers their friendship had cooled. He is probably most remembered for his written opinion on Roe v. Wade in 1973, but was also very concerned with First Amendment rights of free press, Sixth Amendment rights of fair trial and the need to end capital punishment. Blackmun retired from the Supreme court in 1994.
]]>Edward Devitt (1911-1992) was born into an Irish working class family in Saint Paul. He attended Van Buren Elementary School where he was a younger schoolmate of Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun. After the death of his father in 1921, the family moved to East Grand Forks, Minnesota. From 1926 to 1932 he attended St. John's Preparatory School and St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota and from 1932 to 1935 he went to the University of North Dakota where he earned his law degree.
Devitt’s legal career began in 1935 with his election as an East Grand Forks municipal judge. Four years later he was later appointed an assistant Minnesota attorney general until 1942 when he went into the armed forces. He served as a lieutenant commander to the Seventh Fleet in U.S. Navy intelligence during World War II until 1946.
Edward Devitt (1911-1992) was elected to the Fourth Congressional District seat as a Republican in 1946, but lost the seat two years later to Eugene McCarthy. After his short-lived political career he returned to the bench as a Ramsey County probate judge and became a U.S. district judge in 1954, serving until 1981. He died in St. Paul in March 1992 at the age of 80.
Judge Devitt was the co-author of Federal Jury Practice and Instructions and chaired the American Bar Association Legal Advisory Committee on Fair Trial-Free Press. His most notable cases were the 1961 racketeering trial of Minneapolis gangster Isadore “Kid Cann” Blumenfeld, and the Reserve Mining environmental pollution trial of the mid 1970’s. The Devitt home at 716 Van Buren (today’s Surrey) has been torn down and, perhaps fittingly, the land on which it stood is part of the grounds of his old school.
]]>Germans were one of the earliest immigrant groups that came to Saint Paul. As many of them became prosperous, they moved into Dayton’s Bluff and built substantial homes for their families. Several, including the home of Adolph and Anna Muench, were set at the edge of the bluff to take advantage of the descending landscape that allowed for a view of Phalen Creek and the Mississippi River. The Munches began residing at this address in 1873, in an earlier house that burned down in 1884. The current structure was built the same year.
Adolph was a prominent member of the German American community. He was in the lumber business until becoming publisher of the Volkszeitung, a German-language daily newspaper. Anna passed away in 1896 and, when Adolph died in 1901, the house was offered for sale. After staying empty for two years, it was converted into duplex and was rental property for several decades.
One descendant fondly remembered the traditional Fourth of July parties at the house. The lawn was dotted with Japanese lanterns and carriages were crowded in the turnaround. Every summer there were ice cream socials among the lilac bushes and oak trees.
Local architect Emi Ulrici designed the new house that was completed at 653 East Fifth Street. Ulrici, a German-American, who built almost exclusively for his prosperous fellow immigrants that were scattered throughout Saint Paul in the 1880s. This Queen Anne style with asymmetrical towers gables and balconies with a traditional tower is considered the finest of his surviving residential commissions. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977 and once again is owner occupied.
]]>Sitting high on a hill, this red brick and sandstone Queen Anne house at 827 Mound Street can easily be seen by cars zipping along the nearby freeway. It was constructed in 1891 by Peter and Marie Giesen. Peter Giesen came to St. Paul from Germany in 1855 and developed a bookbinding business that became the largest of its kind in the country. His main client was West Publishing Company, the local producer of law books. Peter founded the Mozart Club of St. Paul, was on the board of the German Club of St. Paul and served four terms on the St. Paul School Board.
Marie was as industrious as her husband and in 1872 launched Giesen’s Costumes, which grew into one of the largest such companies in the nation. Giesen’s outfitted many of Saint Paul’s socialites when they attended the popular masquerade balls and costume parties. The business stayed in the family and lasted until 1960.
Peter and Marie moved to Summit Avenue in 1907 and Eric V. Hauser, a prosperous contractor and civic leader became the owner. He was born in Saint Paul and went into the railroad business, becoming president of Grant Smith & Company. Hauser ventured west and built lines through mountains and also became well-known for creating and operating “eating cars” for the railroads. During World War One his company turned to shipbuilding and later gave the profits to various war charities.
Hauser died in 1929 while living out West. After the family sold the Mound Street mansion in 1944, it ended up as a boarding house from the 1940’s through the 1970’s. Unlike most of the other huge homes, it has been returned to a singe family use and is locally known as the Greg and Nancy Ward residence.
The Giesen-Hauser House is the only intact surviving work of Albert Zschocke. He was a talented local architect who died at the young age of 33 a year after the house had been built. As one architectural historian put it, Zschocke was “a meteor who flashed across the local architectural scene in the 1880’s.” His creation was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
]]>William Schornstein was a prominent member of the local German American community. The first mention in the historic record said that listed him as a bartender at the Tivoli, a downtown tavern. By the 1880’s he had a combination saloon and grocery made of brick. Unfortunately in 1884 a fire destroyed that building as well as a nearby house.
The Schornsteins then decided to rebuild in grander fashion and he hired prominent German-American architect Augustus Gauger to design the structure at 707 Wilson. The result was one of the few French Second Empire style business buildings in the city. It was a combination grocery and saloon, that included family living quarters. The establishment was especially popular among the area’s German-Americans and there was a large hall on the third floor for meetings and special events.
William Schornstein and his wife Wilhelmina resided at this address starting in1885. He operated his grocery and community gathering place until 1920, the year of his death at the age of seventy-two. The building continued to be used and, for instance, the 1937 city directory listed it as a grocery and meat market.
Architect Augustus Gauger and his family left Germany for the United States in the 1860’s. He moved to St. Paul in 1875, was employed in one of the city's most successful architectural firms. He set up his own practice in 1878 and remained active until the late 1920s. In addition to his private practice, Gauger served as architect to the State Board of Education and was a St. Paul city building inspector. His firm was responsible for buildings throughout the country, including courthouses in fourteen states, school, commercial and institutional structures and many residences. The Schornstein Grocery and Saloon was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
]]>Some 12,000 years ago, groups of people followed the big game up the Mississippi River as the glaciers melted. If they happened to stop in what is today’s Indian Mounds Park they must have been awed by the panorama. There was a huge waterfall that stretched from bluff to bluff. This scenic site contained a variety of trees and shrubs found in oak savannas.
The First People recognized it as a special place and, although they lived below near the Mississippi River, chose the area for burial mounds. The early European settlers comment on the beauty of the area and often walked up to the bluff line to experience its majesty.
After a St. Paul Park Board was created in 1887, the city decided to buy land in Dayton’s Bluff. However, as a report said, “defeated by the rapacity of real estate speculators, it was not until 1892 that a narrow strip of land along the edge and slope of the bluff on which the mounds are situated” was acquired. It initially comprised around seventeen acres and, after a time, additional land was procured, enlarging the park to sixty-six.
With its history and spectacular views, Indian Mounds Park, was popular from the outset. It became more heavily used when, in 1894, the Streetcar Railway Company started a special service to bring people into the local landmark. Visitors were now able to travel from downtown St. Paul in around fifteen minutes and often stayed for a full day.
The St. Paul Parks Department Report for 1895 proudly stated said that “Indian Mounds Park… is but 17 acres, but… at the top of the high bluff at the apex of the grand elbow of the Mississippi valley… it takes in a prospect of such magnificent extent and picturesque variety as has few, if any, equals in any American City.”
In 1896, the city started grading streets for carriages through the area and as a result, eleven mounds were removed. In 1903 thirty-five acres were added to the park and by 1912 the total amount of land was 135 acres after the nearby state forest reserve on the east was officially added to the park land. Around the same time a series of “parkways” were created to allow carriages to go from park to park. Johnson Parkway, for example, linked up Indian Mounds Park to Phalen Park. In a decade these roads were used by automobiles and in 1912 Saint Paul removed the ban on motor vehicles in Indian Mounds Park and now horse-drawn vehicles were no longer allowed.
Quite a few minor changes were made in the late “Teens and Twenties.” Various facilities were put in the park--a ski slide, a refectory house, tennis courts, a warming house, six horseshoe courts.. In the 1920’s Mounds Boulevard was paved through the park to Earl Street. The Indian Mounds “were reseeded and put back in their original shape."
During the Great Depression the park only operated during the summer. There was little concern for having a playground and few, if any, child-oriented features were added. There was a single brick building, toilets, a stove, two tennis and six horseshoe courts. There were no ball fields, sand boxes or swings and an almost complete absence of play equipment.
The first major park renovation in many years was undertaken in the 1980’s. Using "Great River Road" funds, the city made improvements, including restoration of the pavilion and removal of the road behind the mounds. The last two houses on the west side of Mounds Boulevard were purchased and removed. Picnic tables, rest rooms and a new children's play area were built. Partly as a response to the increase of joggers and bikers, major new trails and beautification of the bluff line was begun.
A new organization named Friends of Mounds Park (FOMP) was started in 2009 to speak up on the area’s needs and to sponsor events. Two years later, members of FOMP and other local organizations convinced the city to undertake the first comprehensive plan for Indian Mounds Park. Their suggestions for improvements which included a new children’s play area and the creation of a small open-air amphitheater were begun in 2013.
]]>In 1900, because of large attendance in the park, a small refreshment pavilion was built at Earl Street. It was sometimes used for concerts. Unfortunately, it was burned down the next year “evidently the work of vandalism.”
The current pavilion at Earl and Mounds Boulevard was completed in 1916. A city report called it a "commodious and well designed building” meant “to serve the public as a refreshment stand, a concert pavilion and comfort station, all of which were for a number of years requested by the public.”
This Prairie-style structure, with its low-hipped roof and horizontal feel is a rarity in the Twin Cities since most other Prairie style buildings are houses or commercial buildings. It was designed by Charles H. Hausler, who was born in Saint Paul and apprenticed with Louis Sullivan in Chicago before getting a Minnesota architect’s license in 1908. Six years later he became the first City Architect and designed many municipal buildings and other structures some of which are on the National Register of Historic places. In 1923 he started a political career and served eight terms in the Minnesota Senate, afterwards returning to private practice.
]]>Air travel was changing from a novelty to a serious form of transportation by the 1920’s. The federal government supported this new industry by paying to have planes deliver mail. Over 600 airway beacons were constructed by the post Office and the Department of Commerce between 1923 and 1933 to help pilots find their way on night flights by following lights from city to city.
In 1929, a one hundred foot high steel tower for an airway beacon was constructed in Indian Mounds Park a little west of Earl. It was designed to light the route between St. Paul and Chicago, and ever since has been a local landmark. Ironically, in that same year, low frequency radio range system began to replace the visual system.
The rotating beacon features a twenty-four-inch mirror with a one kilowatt lamp mirror that spins at six revolutions per minute. The pilots of old and people in the park today see a flash every ten seconds. In clear weather they could be seen for forty miles. The Smithsonian wanted to move the Indian Mounds Park beacon- the last of its kind- still standing- to their museum back east but it’s still here. The lamp still works and revolves, bringing its light to the surrounding neighborhood.
People were fascinated with the development of flight and according to a newspaper, “large crowds of onlookers throng the bluffs overlooking the airport.” On June 24, 1929 they gathered near the park to gaze at a plane. Unfortunately, it was a Northwest Airlines passenger/air mail plane that had lost power and crashed near the intersection of Mounds Boulevard and River and today’s Wilshire Street. The veteran pilot died in the initial impact and the plane caught fire, but all of the seven passengers escaped.
The beacon was restored between 1994 and 1995. The revolving light was taken down and refurbished. A modern red and white color scheme on the tower was stripped off and was replaced by the original black and chrome yellow color scheme was restored. An interpretive marker now sits near Mounds Boulevard and, after more than seven decades, the spinning light continues illuminating the bluff above the St. Paul Airport across the river.
]]>The Saint Paul Municipal Forest is located at the eastern edge of Indian Mounds Park. Most people in the city and even in Dayton’s Bluff know that it exists as a separate entity. The twenty-five acre site is located along Burns Avenue and is centered in the general vicinity of Point Douglas Road. This tree covered area has an interesting history.
In January 1915, Senator Dunn who represented Dayton’s Bluff in the State Legislature asked the City Council to push legislation for a state appropriation providing that part of the current fish hatchery tract be procured “for the nucleus of a municipal forest for St. Paul.” In a sense, he was just asking for a return of previous city land.
A few decades earlier, Saint Paul had given the state 200 acres for a fish hatchery. It turned out that the state never needed that much acreage. As Dunn remarked that the section that had been procured to protect the springs was hilly and “would make an ideal forest.” The senator got his way and the St. Paul Municipal Forest became a reality. Beside trees, the area included trails and, at one time, a serpentine road that connected the park with the fish hatchery below.
The fish hatchery is still there, but is no longer the visitor attraction it once was, and the road is overgrown, although parts of it can be seen if people look carefully. The city web site does not include much information about the landmark, saying only that "the St. Paul Municipal Forest lies in the eastern end of Indian Mounds Park. Some twenty acres of the site was a gift from the state and was acquired in 1915. It had been a portion of the fish hatchery property that was not usable because of its high location.
]]>On October 16, 2006, two new sculptures were officially dedicated in Indian Mounds Park. They were part of the Minnesota Rocks! International Stone Carving Symposium. It was a Public Art Saint Paul program which brought sculptors from around the world to spend six weeks educating the people about sculpture and creating works of art to be placed in public spaces. The two works described below were created at the event and came to rest in this local park.
- Usumacinta Meets the Mississippi -
According to its artist, "Usumacinta Meets the Mississippi" is meant to represent the ties between the waters of Mexico City and the waters of the Mississippi River. The sculpture is located just off Mounds Park Boulevard near the intersection with McLean.
Javier Del Cueto’s is well-known for his work in both ceramic and stone and teaches sculpture in Mexico City. He studied in Spain and also took sculpture courses with ceramic and stoneware masters in his homeland. He started his work in stone sculpture in 1988 with a famed Japanese sculptor.
When Javier came to the symposium he was not familiar with Saint Paul, but he became enamored by the Mississippi River and it became the inspiration for this work. The sculpture is made up of two pieces of limestone from the Vetter Quarry in Kasota, Minnesota. The main sculpture is attached to the base with four steel rods.
Javier explained that “Mexico is a country with a strong tradition in stone carving from Pre-Hispanic and Colonial times to the present.” One of his goals is to carry on and help add to the appreciation of this art form in his homeland.
“I am very interested in revitalizing stone carving for contemporary sculpture. I consider stone an ideal material for sculpture with unlimited possibilities and great potential, and it lasts forever.” Del Cueto was not able to attend the dedication but the Mexican and Aztec culture were well represented by the local Aztec Mecia Cuctemec dancers.
- The Sacred Dish -
This sculpture is a representation of a Native American woman made of dolomitic limestone. It was originally slated to be in another part of the park, but when Duane “Dewey” Goodwin, the artist, saw the Indian Mounds, he felt that it belonged on the knoll across the boulevard, just west of Earl Street. He wants people to see Sacred Dish as representative of both the strength and the giving of the Native American people and make them aware of the area’s rich Native American history.
Goodwin dedicated Sacred Bowl to his eighty-seven year-old mother. At the event, a number of rituals highlighted the artist’s Ojibwa heritage. One man played Native American flute, while Goodwin burned sage and held a traditional pipe ceremony.
Goodwin, who lives in Bemidji, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. He studied at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, which, he said, brought a contemporary perspective to his work. Dewey had a dream just before he was finishing his work. In it he saw a tear coming from the statue. He decided to imbed a pipestone tear below the woman’s eye. It represents the sorrow that has been experienced by women of all backgrounds.
He believes that the stone itself will determine the final piece of art. It contains an inner spirit and “as I carve,” he said, “I seek to glean not only the hidden spirit of the stone itself, but also the essence and wisdom of Native America. I chisel spirits from stone, evoking animals, birds and faces that emerge to speak of the harmony and dependence we share.”
]]>The Carver’s Cave overlook at the western end of Indian Mounds Park is known for its vista and is one of the most photographed river scenes in the metro area. The overlook was rebuilt in 1995-96, including some low decorative walls, ornamental lights and a central limestone structure with an interpretive plaque explaining the history of the famous cavern located on the river flats below. There is also a drinking fountain, so if it’s a hot day, you may want to fill your water bottles.
The Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR) has been working in the surrounding landscape since 2011 with Saint Paul Parks and Recreation Department and community volunteers to remove invasive species and restore the native bluff prairie on the west side of this historic park's overlook. Scores of people have hauled and stacked invasive brush, including European buckthorn, on the overlook slope. They also weed and tend native shrubs planted on the west side of the overlook.
]]>It is Bridge 90386 according to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, but architectural historians almost speak in reverent tones when they talk about the Seventh Street Improvement Arches. They consider them one of the most important feats of engineering in Minnesota history.
As the Dayton’s Bluff grew, its residents wanted a better and safer way to get across the railroad tracks and the Phalen Creek wetland that separated the neighborhood from downtown. As early as the 1850’s, they started demanding the construction of a bridge. Finally, in 1873, an elaborate wooden bridge appeared on Seventh Street. It was not all that well-built and soon became rickety. Once the heavy streetcars made their appearance in the city, it became clear that a stronger bridge was needed. The street also needed to be rebuilt because its steepness made it almost impossible for the streetcars to make it up the grade from downtown.
The Seventh Street Improvement Arches, with their unique spiral construction, were chosen to solve the special engineering challenges of the site. The street crossed the St. Paul and Duluth tracks at a troublesome sixty-three degree angle. The bridge also had to carry sewer and water pipes in addition to pedestrians and streetcars. Work on the project began in September 1883, and the bridge opened for traffic on December 18, 1884.
According to the State Historic Preservation Office, “the Seventh Street Improvement Arches are historically significant for its rarity and the technically demanding nature of its skewed, helicoidal, stone-arch design.” The bridge is one of the few of its style in the United States, and is the only one of its type known in Minnesota. The abutments and wing walls were built with gray limestone quarried in St. Paul, while the main structure was built with a buff-colored Kasota limestone quarried from the Minnesota River Valley.
William Truesdell, an experienced local engineer who had been involved with many kinds of construction, was the designer. Raised on a farm in Wisconsin, he studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin and graduated in 1867. After working as a school teacher and a surveyor, he joined the engineering staff of the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway in 1880 and was hired by the City of St. Paul Engineer's Office to supervise the entire project.
One newspaper article said he was imbued with "the desire to go the beginning of things" and studied mathematics as a hobby. He was not one to flaunt his technical skills. When he discussed his work on the Seventh Street Arches in a national engineering journal in 1886, he just remarked that "very few have ever been built in this country." But his fellow engineers recognized his achievements, and upon his death in 1909 characterized the bridge as "the most important piece of masonry in the city."
The Seventh Street Improvement Arches represent the only documented example of Truesdell’s design work and the structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. It was also placed on the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks in 2000. Today the arches of the bridge shelter a bike and a section of the Bruce Vento Regional Trail that leads into historic Swede Hollow. To view the arches, you need to follow the paved path leads down from the small parking area south of the intersection of East Seventh and Payne Avenue.
]]>The Dayton’s Bluff Commercial Club was started in 1905 to provide a place for social exchange and community leadership. The clubhouse at 770 East Seventh Street was built for meetings and socializing for the area’s professional class. Later expansions added bowling lanes, private dining rooms, a men’s smoking room, a billiard area, as well as a banquet hall and dance floor.
The Commercial Club often spoke on behalf of the community and undertook a number of local initiatives. In 1909 they published a booklet entitled Picturesque Dayton's Bluff. In it, they discussed "the wonderful strides in material progress" that had been made in the area. There were photos of many area businesses and industries around East Seventh and the nearby homes of their owners. According to the booklet, “the many advantages offered on Dayton's Bluff are attracting home builders and residents” and over 700 new houses were going to be built.
The Commercial Club was involved in many activities in its early years. It had raised money for the erection of a ski slide in Indian Mounds Park. The organization launched an “industrial expansion project” to “encourage the establishment of industries in the East District. An energetic Women’s Auxiliary held many events including many “canned goods parties” to give food to charities. Large crowds also came to their annual picnics.
The Commercial Club shifted away from involvement in civic and economic matters after World War Two. The members were no longer the wealthy, but more of a cross section of the neighborhood. The leadership of the group had slowly shifted to small businessmen. It continued as a location for neighborhood events, including community sings, wrestling matches and wedding receptions. The annual bowling banquet after "pin season" was eagerly awaited by the community. Hundreds of people came to Commercial Club events such as musicals and vaudeville acts.
There were commercial clubs in many Saint Paul neighborhoods, but they slowly faded away. The Dayton’s Bluff Commercial Club was one of the few that hung on and continued to have members into the 1970’s. Since it closed, the building has often been empty, but has been sold from time to time. In the late 1970’s it was owned by a man who raised wholesale fish bait there and dubbed it “Worm City.” Most recently it has served as the meeting place for an Ethiopian Church.
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