- Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue -
(Northeast corner)
The Dale Street Shops were part of a large industrial park, at the northeast corner of Dale Street and Minnehaha Avenue. Built as part of what became the Great Northern Railway, the Dale Street Shops began to take shape in about 1900. The last of the buildings came down in 1999. Most were closed in the1970s and 1980s.
In the late 19th century, railroads and railroad-related industries employed one of every four wage earners in Saint Paul. So it made sense for Hill to expand his railroad shops and put them in Frogtown, a neighborhood with a proven work force.
The Dale Street Shops area had several buildings. Most were made of yellow-tan or red brick. Much of the work that went on in the Dale Street Shops was heavy-duty locomotive repair.
Like the Jackson Street Shops, the Dale Street Shops were a major employment center for Frogtown residents. Many people who grew up in the neighborhood during the early to mid-20th century remember hearing the end-of-day whistle, signaling that workers would be coming home soon.
Although their work was dirty and strenuous, workers for the Great Northern Railway also had fun. They marched in the Saint Paul Winter Carnival parades, wearing striped “blanket coats’ bearing the company logo. They played sports together and looked forward to annual worker picnics and other events. Jobs for the railroad shops were coveted and family members often helped one another get hired there.
The presence of the railroad shops led to other related factories opening in the area.
Through mergers the Great Northern Railway became part of the Burlington Northern Railroad in 1970. It is now the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad.
The 11-acre Saint Paul Port Authority Great Northern Business Park South is now on the old Dale Street Shops site. Great Northern Business Park North is to the north, and includes property where the old Saint Paul Foundry stood.
]]>(Empire Builder Business Park)
- 23-27 Empire Drive -
Built in 1882, the shops and the people who worked in them did every aspect of work imaginable for locomotives, freight and passenger rail cars for what became the Great Northern Railway. Most of the buildings were originally erected for the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad.
Not only did mechanic, welders and machinists work here, they were joined by workers who sewed, dyed cloth, crafted light fixtures and did a range of tasks to keep the railroads running. The work ranged from machining parts for cattle cars to making sure that silver fixtures in the luxury rail coaches were sparkling. The site had everything from a foundry where blacksmiths toiled to rooms where careful sewing was done. Locomotive, freight cars, livestock cars, passenger cars and cabooses were built, repaired and maintained here, although much work on locomotives was shifted over to the Dale Street Shops.
Thousands of area residents worked here over the years, for what eventually became the Great Northern Railway.
Three of the Jackson Street Shops buildings are now part of the Empire Builder Business Park, developed by the Saint Paul Port Authority in 1985. The area is also the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway Historic District. The three remaining historic buildings are under the purview of the Saint Paul Heritage Preservation Commission as a local historic district.
The three native limestone buildings remaining are the pattern shop, the machine shop and a storage building. The buildings were designed with two-foot thick walls and heavy wooden columns. They are the remnants of what had been a group of 25 buildings on a 36-acre site.
When the shops were no longer needed by the railroad in 1970, they were used for storage. Eight buildings were remaining. Some were in a deteriorated condition and were torn down when the industrial park was created.
]]>The best view of the railroads is from the east sidewalk of the Dale Street Bridge, where the railroads passed through what is now Great Northern Business Park.
A railroad was first chartered by the Minnesota Legislature in 1857 and received a Congressional land grant as the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad. The financial panic of 1857 and other difficulties slowed the project but most of the railroad between Saint Paul and Saint Anthony had been graded by 1860.
In 1861 a small steam locomotive, rails and rail cars arrived on the steamboat Alhambra. The locomotive was the William Crooks, named for the chief engineer on the rail line.
In 1862 the railroad’s name was changed to the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad. Track was laid that spring and on June 28, 1862, the William Crooks pulled a small passenger train from Saint Paul to Saint Anthony. (That location today is in Minneapolis near Saint Anthony Main.) Part of that trip went through what is now Frogtown.
The governor, lieutenant governor, St. Paul’s mayor and several city aldermen directors of the Saint Paul & Pacific Railroad and about 100 citizens made the trip, according to the Saint Paul Daily Press. The train left St. Paul at “about half past two o’clock and returned at six o’clock,” when an evening banquet was held when the group returned.
Railroads made it possible for Minnesota and the nation to grow, carrying goods and passengers where riverboats couldn’t travel. Saint Paul became a major center of railroading.
James J. Hill, the “Empire Builder” whose Great Northern Railway would reach the West Coast – and included the original Saint Paul & Pacific line, left his mark on Frogtown.
During the Panic of 1873 the Saint Paul & Pacific went bankrupt. Hill purchased the line and in 1879 it became the Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad. By early 1893 these lines had become part of the mighty Great Northern Railway, which provided train service from Saint Paul to Seattle. By 1901 Hill also had control of his rival line, the Northern Pacific Railroad.
The Great Northern was the only privately funded, and successfully built, transcontinental railroad in United States history. Hill was proud that he hadn’t had to seek federal land grants to build the transcontintental line. Hill would state that his railroad was built "without any government aid, even the right of way, through hundreds of miles of public lands, being paid for in cash". Rails through Frogtown mark the start of that system.
]]>(Jackson Street Roundhouse)
- Jackson Street and Pennsylvania Avenue -
The roundhouse dates from 1907. It is the second roundhouse in that area. The first was built in 1882, just to the west of the current structure. It is one of the few remaining working roundhouses in the Twin Cities and offers a rare look at how powerful locomotives were stored and maintained.
As the name indicates, a railroad roundhouse is a circular building. It is used for storage and repair of locomotives. It has a powerful turntable in the center, to move the locomotives from place to place.
The Jackson Street Shops roundhouse was designed to hold up to 25 locomotives. Each locomotive had an assigned space. The roundhouse turntable is 70 feet in diameter.
The roundhouse was used by the Great Northern Railway until 1959 when repair and maintenance of locomotives was moved elsewhere. It was one of the first parts of the greater Jackson Streets Shops area to be decommissioned. While roundhouses were the technical marvel of their day, by the mid-20th century they were deemed obsolete.
In 1985 the roundhouse became part of the Minnesota Transportation Museum, which offers train, steamboat and street car rides at various locations. The roundhouse is open for visitors and offers a number of activities and special events of its own. The turntable has been restored and the museum offers a look at what was a longtime place of employment for area residents.
Not only is it interesting to visit the museum and see the variety of railroad cars and buses preserved on the grounds, a great view of the yard and the historic vehicles is from the east side of the Jackson Street bridge.
The museum, as an organization, marked its 50th anniversary in 2013.
]]>(Within Great Northern Business Park North)
Walk around some of St. Paul's historic buildings and look for metal base plates, which often bear the name of the St. Paul Foundry. The foundry was started in 1863 by C.N. Parker and H.W. Topping. It operated for most of its history on the Frogtown-North End border and provided jobs for thousands of area residents. While the work was hot and dirty, jobs at the foundry were prized because the work paid well in those days.
Workers had their own little green space, Foundry Park, near Arundel, Topping and Burgess streets. (The park site was redeveloped in about 1937.) Originally launched as a supplier for the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads, the foundry soon began to produce a wide variety of other goods including building materials. One unique remnant of the foundry is metal ashtrays bearing its name, which turn up from time to time at antique shops.
Parker and Topping were civic leaders as well as industrialists. Topping served as a St. Paul alderman (now city council member) and chaired the city's Park Board. The foundry was the scene of a few spectacular fires over the years. The last occurred after its closing, when paper pellets in an old production building caught fire. Smoke could be seen for more than 40 miles.
Foundry ownership changed several times after its incorporation in 1883. At one point the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railway was a major stockholder. The foundry became the St. Paul Engineering and Manufacturing company in the 1940s and in the 1960s was purchased and operated by the Maxson Steel Corporation before closing in the 1980s.
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