The Old Home building was built in 1912 for the Minnesota Milk Company. Its original, more utilitarian design gave way in 1932 to a sleek Art Deco exterior, with a black stone base and many distinctive details.
One prominent feature was a bas relief of a young girl and boy standing next to a milk bottle. After Old Home closed its facility, the bas relief was removed and taken to company headquarters.
Currently the former Old Home building is the focus of a redevelopment effort to provide townhouse and apartment units, and retail space.
The creamery was one of a handful that operated in and near Frogtown over the years. Creameries not only processed milk and produced dairy products, some delivered milk door-to-door. Other creameries that served the neighborhood include: Sanitary Foods at 1033 Thomas Av.; Midway Creamery at 1563 Como Av.; Peoples Milk Company at 511 Rice Street; and Saint Paul Milk Company at 203 Franklin Street.
]]>The Ford Building, 117 University Av. W., was built in 1914. It was designed by John Graham, with the firm of Keyes and Coburn. It was a sub-assembly plant for ford motor vehicles, only turning out about 500 vehicles per year. It and a Minneapolis plant were replaced when the Highland Park Ford plant opened in 1925.
The building was used by different business before the State of Minnesota purchased it. The state operated its bookstore in the building for several years. State officials have considered knocking it down. It has been identified as one of Minnesota’s endangered businesses by the preservation Alliance of Minnesota.
]]>Manufacturing uses were present along University and throughout the Frogtown neighborhood. Examples include the 1914 Ford Building, 117 W. University, an early motor vehicle manufacturing building and the former Old Home Dairy building at Western and University.
There were also manufacturers related to the railroads near the Dale Street Shops and a handful of different factories between Minnehaha and Como avenues. Yet there were also a handful of small manufacturing operations in modest buildings throughout the neighborhood.
Saint Paul didn’t adopt its first zoning code until the 1920s so it wasn’t unusual to have small manufacturing businesses right next to homes. These include a cigar factory turned artists’ studio and home at 629 Kent Street.
Frogtown has always been one of Saint Paul's most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Many 19th-century newcomers came to work for the railroads and railroad-related industries. Others opened their own small neighborhood businesses along University Avenue and the small business districts of Rice Street, Dale Street and at smaller nodes along Western and Victoria.
At one point in the early 20th century, Frogtown had more than four dozen small grocery stores, fruit and meat markets, and confectioneries.
]]>The Schott Building at 935-937 University Av. is a prime example of a well-preserved University Avenue storefront. The building, which currently houses a secondhand store, has been home to many different types of retail businesses over the years. It contains dwelling units on its second floor. This was typical of many early businesses, where the owner and his or her family lived upstairs about the building.
The brick building dates from 1890. It was honored by the UNITED organization in 2002. Owner Gilbert Marty’s efforts to restore the façade were recognized.
]]>The Brioschi-Minuti Studio and Showroom at 908 W. University Av. is one of University Avenue’s most well-preserved storefronts, even though the use of the property has changed.
Brioschi-Minuti was an ornamental plaster and sculpture showroom. Its building was erected in 1922. Company founders were two Italian immigrants, Carlo Brioschi and Adolpho Minuti. The duo founded the firm in New York and came to Saint Paul in about 1909.
The building was designed by Torelli Minuti, Adolpho’s son. The building’s ornamental panels, carvings and rooftop urns were meant to spotlight the company’s work.
The firm, which continues today out of a suburban location, provided ornamentation and sculpture for countless buildings in the region including the state capitol, Saint Paul Athletic Club, Hamline Church United Methodist, Minnesota Humanities Commission building and the Robert Street Bridge.
]]>The Victoria Theater, at 825 University Av., was one of three University Avenue movie theaters that catered to Frogtown children and families. The other was the Faust at University and Dale (see tour Frogtown: Lost Frogtown) and the Centre Theater near Lexington and University. The Lexington’s building at 1080 University Av. later became the Lexington Branch of the Saint Paul Public Library and then the Central Corridor Resource Center. It is currently eyed as a redevelopment site.
The Victoria Theater building, with beaded brick on its façade, was designed by noted architect Franklin Ellerbe.
What makes the Victoria Theater historically significant is its colorful past as a nightclub and in American music. The Victoria Theater opened in 1915 for movies and live performances, but became a nightclub less than a decade later. The nightclub was known as the Victoria Café and later Casa Grande.
In 1927 the recording “Moonshiners Dance: Part One” was recorded there, by the Victoria Café Orchestra. A history of the Victoria Café, Moonshiners Dance and the recording’s influence on and role in the history of American folk music is on the blog Celestial Monochord (see link below). Moonshiner’s Dance is the only one of 84 recordings in the Anthology of American Folk Music not recorded in the American South or Chicago. The anthology has inflected many American musicians.
The nightclub itself was a speakeasy during Prohibition and was raided at least twice by federal agents during that era. It became a target of political leaders who wanted it shut down. Some suspected anti-Semitism in the attacks on the club and its ownership.
The building was later reused by a number of different businesses but has been vacant for several years. The St. Paul City Council recently granted the structure local historic designation status. Reuse as a neighborhood art center is being considered.
]]>This structure at 344 W. University Av., which is more than 70 years old, has retained much of its original character. It was one of a handful of funeral homes in the Frogtown neighborhood and is the only one left today. The National Funeral Home, located at 344 W. University Avenue in St. Paul was purchased by Kenneth and Helen Spielman in 1950 and the name was subsequently changed to Kenneth F. Spielman Mortuary.
The husband and wife team was known for its dedication to serving area families at their time of grief. For more than 34 years, the Spielmans lived above the funeral home and only took one short vacation during that entire time.
In October 1984, the Spielmans sold the funeral home to the Willwerscheid family of St. Paul and the name was abbreviated to Spielman Mortuary. As fourth-generation family funeral directors, the Willwerscheid family continues ownership of the funeral home to this day.
]]>Other key commercial districts in the neighborhood include Dale Street and the Dale-Como-Front intersection, which abuts the North End, Lower Rice Street and several small pockets of commercial property and converted commercial and small industrial properties in the neighborhood.
Como-Dale-Front has a handful of its older commercial buildings remaining. The building occupied by John’s Pizza Café, 616 Como Av., was built as a bar affiliated with the former Schmidt Brewery.
Dale Street is still home to the former Dale Street Greenhouse office and residential building, a converted gas station at 631 N. Dale Street, and other 19th-century storefronts are still present. A number of longtime Dale Street businesses on the street’s east side were lost during a controversial street widening project that took shape during the late 1980s and early 1990s.
When it closed in 2006, the Dale Street Greenhouse was Saint Paul’s oldest greenhouse operating at its original location. Bavarian immigrant Christian Bussjaeger opened the greenhouse in autumn of 1896. His family had lived at 449 Edmund Av. for several years before he opened the greenhouse and built a house beside it. One year after opening, he was selling flowers at the Saint Paul City Market.
Bussjaeger leased out the greenhouse to F.W. Topel in 1908 and moved his family to 599 N. Dale St., where he operated a saloon next door. He later moved the family to University Avenue and pursued other work before returning to the greenhouse business.
Topel, for his part, became a prominent florist with his own large greenhouses on University Avenue and later, East Seventh Street.
Bussjaeger returned to the greenhouse in 1912, changing the name from Christian Bussjaeger’s Greenhouse to Dale Street Greenhouse. The extended Bussjaeger family continued to operate the greenhouse up until after Christian Bussjaeger’s death in November 1927. The greenhouse went through a series of owners until Alfred and Lillian Seeger bought the business in 1936. They extensively renovated the business, adding a used boiler purchased for $50 from Saint Columba Catholic Church. The Seegers owned the greenhouse for 40 years, building a strong business of funerals, weddings and holiday florals. At one point almost all of Saint Paul’s Catholic churches sent clients to the business for funeral, wedding and other arrangements.
Sons Gerry and Richard Seeger bought the greenhouse in 1960, selling it to final owner Barbara Stromer in 1992. Stromer closed the business in early 2006.
The property was purchased by Greater Frogtown Community Development Corporation, which retained the original house but removed the greenhouses and added a large garden.
]]>Hooray for Hollywood! Frogtown’s unique contribution to the early film industry began at 823 University Avenue. A film projectionist named Charles Bell came to St. Paul from Seattle in 1908. He operated his own movie theater for a short time before working at the Gayety Theater.
Bell learned of the Northern Pacific Railroad’s need for scenic film footage for its publicity. In the pre-television days short films were used to promote goods and services. Bell partnered with Gayety Theater owner Otta Rath and Edward Seavolt to form a production company to work with Northern Pacific. The Rath-Seavold Film Manufacturing Company, later Rath-Mills, worked with the railroad for many years and shot more than 100,000 feet of publicity footage.
Reid Ray joined the company in 1915 as a camera technician. Ray had worked at Iowa State College, now Iowa State University, in Ames. He made films for the school’s athletic department. Today Ray is considered a pioneer of sports cinematography, because of his work to shoot footage for coaching staff.
By the 1930s Bell and Ray owned the film company, now Ray-Bell Films, at 823 University Ave. The building was designed to be used for film shoots and for processing and editing film. Crews traveled throughout North America making all types of educational and promotional films.
During World War II Ray-Bell Films produced more films for the federal Office of Education than any other company. By the 1940s Ray-Bell Films outgrew its Frogtown space and moved to 2269 Ford Parkway. Ray took over the company and renamed it Reid H. Ray Films. The Minnesota Historical Society has more than 180 images from the company on file, showing a wide range of clients.
When the company closed in the 1970s it was the oldest operating commercial filmmaker in the United States.
]]>University Avenue was once one of Saint Paul’s “auto row” districts, where people could shop for cars. Owens Motor Sales (now Lifetrack Resources) at 709 University Av. (1917, second floor 1922-23) is one of the last vestiges of an auto industry that included more than half a dozen vehicle dealerships. At one point Owens advertised itself as the city’s oldest dealer of Hudson automobiles. The business also sold Fords.
This brick building was expanded from one story to two as its uses changed. It also was expanded to the east. Tile work accents its brick exterior.
Frogtown had more than a dozen new and used auto dealerships over the years. Only a few used vehicles dealers remain in the community today.
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