Federal and state transportation authorities wanted to connect Highway 5 with Interstate 94 by running a six-lane freeway between the two, dividing the West End neighborhoods and cutting off the area…

“Thermo-Fax”  “It all started with writer’s cramp.” When Dr. Carl S. Miller was doing research and taking hand-written notes for his doctorate in physical chemistry at the University of Minnesota,…

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…

Stormwater facilities at the Saint Paul Port Authority’s Beacon Bluff Business Center treat rainwater as a resource that is used to recharge groundwater, irrigate landscaping, as well as enhance and…

Horseshoer seems like a little bit of an exotic profession today, but in the 19th century--in fact until the 1920's--a motorized truck could not haul as much weight as a draft horse and wagon. While…

Construction of the Horace P. Rugg mansion was completed in 1887, at an estimated cost of $24,500. Rugg built his fortune selling railway, plumbing, and pump supplies. Designed by the firm of Hodgson…

Fort Snelling (constructed 1819-25), at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, was built to protect our northern borders from the British and to control development in the…

- 652-658 Sherburne Avenue - This complex at 652-658 Sherburne Ave. has large porches and a rough brick block exterior that on first glance appears to be stone. There is a similar building at…

- 698 Lafond Avenue - The Herman A. E. Trapp House was built in 1900. This brick house has an open front porch; what appears to be the original top gingerbread porch trim and front roofline trim…

A mix of rigor and romanticism. The main mass of the house is quite subdued, its forms outlined by long bands of precisely detailed ornament. By contrast, the house’s pointy-headed tower, from which a…

In 1873, the City and County Hospital opened, followed in 1891 by the Ancker School of Nursing. City and County Hospital was one of the first in the country to have onsite residences and training for…

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…

Nature made it an island, but it is an island now only in name, its back channel filled in 1950 to connect it to the shore. It takes its name from Harriet Bishop (1817 -- 1883), who came from…

William Hamm donated this park located at the corner of Greenbrier in memory of his father in 1910. The land for this “mini park,” as the city calls it, was created when Lyman Dayton's Addition and…

Park Square Theatre: 20 West 7th Place // Saint Paul, MN 55102 Located in the historic Hamm Building, Park Square Theatre, a dynamic professional company, produces a perfect balance of familiar…

The Hamline Hotel, at 543 N. Snelling Ave, was the site of one of the earliest sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement in St. Paul. Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) a Black organizer and activist who…

In 1914 the Union Hall Association was created to meet the needs of the growing black community and to improve relationships with the white community. It built the Hallie Q. Brown Community House…

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing initially raised capital by selling stock at $1 per share in 1903. In the early years, it was essentially worthless as the company struggled. 3M paid its first…

- 300 Broadway Street (at Kellogg) - -1894, Edward P. Bassford - Real estate investors financed this warehouse for use by Farwell, Ozmun, and Kirk, hardware wholesalers. At the turn of the…

(James J. Hill Office Building) - 281-99 East Kellogg Boulevard (between Wall and Broadway) - -1887, James Brodie - James J. Hill's success at building a railroad empire made him Saint Paul's…