The story of Dayton’s Bluff begins on top of the bright white cliffs over-looking St. Paul, where the great Mississippi River cut hundreds of feet downwards into the sedimentary rock, forming the bluffs. This natural landmark attracted the first inhabitants who built burial mounds that can still be found upon this sacred site. Later, the Dakota would call the area Imniza Ska, meaning white cliff and their large seasonal village of Kaposia could be found just down river.
This bluff also stands on top of the sacred Wakan Tipi cave or “Dwelling of the Great Mystery” later called Carver's Cave, after Jonathan Carver, the first British explorer to visit and witness the impressive site.
Soon after the coming of the first explorers, and the U.S. achieved independence, other immigrants began to arrive, including fur traders and soldiers from Fort Snelling.
Claims were made, farming land was established and homes were built atop the bluff, by wealthy speculators such as Lyman Dayton and his wife Maria, for whom the area is named.
Before the railroad cut through a portion of Carver’s cave and filled the land below, the area was a vast swamp that separated it from downtown St. Paul, before bridges connected these two points. Phalen Creek, which fed this swamp, attracted many of the first flour, feed and lumber mills and here working-class neighborhoods grew.
The 1860's saw the growth of German and Irish communities, and businesses, churches and cultural institutions began to flourish. The wealthier began to build large houses higher on the hills - the most prominent being the Hamm’s mansion which overlooked his large brewery below.
Industries like the Hamm’s Brewery and the railroad provided new economic opportunities for the waves of immigrants coming into the area. Neighborhoods like Swede Hollow and Connemara Patch, separated by the 7th Street improvement arches, flourished along the Phalen Creek Ravine.
Soon, businesses like 3M and Whirlpool brought additional economic prosperity and housing flourished, up and beyond the ravine.
While Phalen Creek has since been placed underground and many of the mansions that topped the bluff no longer stand, much of Dayton’s bluff remains the same.
Today, Dayton’s Bluff is alive with vibrant insitutions like Metro State University and a more recent immigrant population that continues to build the character of the East Side of St. Paul.
But at any moment, you can travel back...
As you walk the bluff you can imagine the first indigenous peoples looking out across the marshy valley and vast river below, see yourself as an original pioneer hunting deer and meeting with the Dakota people, listen to the steamboat whistles and chugging locomotives coming up from the river valley, and watch the first aeroplane fly over the light tower, as you look down, seeing St. Paul for what it truly is, a gateway to our past and our future, flowing with the ever running river current below.
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]]>German-born Albert Koehler, who actually had the first name of Heinrich, was a foreman at Hamm’s Brewery. He married Wilhemina Hamm, the daughter of Theodore and Louise Hamm. Since there was little remaining open land near the family grouping on Greenbrier, they chose to establish themselves in the Mounds Park area.
Wilhemina was an avid gardener—another reason for moving to an area with much available open land. Their new home encompassed almost all of the block, and became filled with large gardens that were lovingly tended by Wilhemina. The couple needed a large home because they had six children. Unfortunately, Albert only spent a short time on Maria Avenue because he died in 1916.
This 1912 Georgian Revival house was designed by local architect Thomas Holyoke. He came to St. Paul from Germany in 1877 and worked as a draftsman for architect Cass Gilbert and become his partner in 1892. Holyoke formed his own company a decade later.
There currently is not a lot of material on the family at 170 Maria. The Ramsey County Roll of Honor shows that Harold A. Koehler served in the First World War. Eleanor Koehler was an Arts and Music major at University if Minnesota and was a member of the class of 1919. And, according to the 1920 City Directory, a gardener named Edmund Behrens resided there, probably working for Wilhemina.
The large building now houses Northwestern Alano, a setting for alcohol and drug abuse twelve step group meetings. They have given the old Koehler Home the nickname “The White House.”
]]>Peter John was a prominent shopkeeper and saloon owner in Dayton’s Bluff. After marrying Louisa Hamm, the daughter of Theodore and Louise Hamm, the couple lived in this 1906 Colonial Revival house. It was the work of the architectural firm of Buechner & Orth, which designed a number of early twentieth century buildings in Saint Paul, including the Orpheum Theater.
The large five-bedroom home with a matching carriage house was well maintained during the seventy-five years it remained in the family. It is unique because the home still retains many of the original wall coverings, complete with hand-painted motifs. A variety of wood carvings, stained glass and inlaid floors decorate the interior. Architectural historian Larry Millett wrote “occupying a corner lot, the house is a stately exercise in Colonial Revival”
Information about the John family is difficult to find, but two items do show up in the St. Paul Globe. The first dealt with an 1885 dispute between Peter John and another man over three Payne Avenue properties. Sadly, the second was a notice from Peter and Louisa John announcing the death of Theodore, their “beloved infant son,” who died at the age of one year and three months.
]]>This Queen Anne house at 680 Greenbrier has had not one but three families with Hamm’s connections living inside. It was designed in 1887 by architect Edward P. Bassford for Peter and Emma Classen. Bassford was probably the busiest designer in the city and mentored many architects who also became famous, including Cass Gilbert, Augustus Gauger and Clarence Johnston.
Peter Classen worked for Hamm’s as a collector and Emma had her own “fancy goods” shop downtown. The two lived here until 1899. Following Peter's death, Emma moved to a house on Margaret Street next door to her sister Alice Franzen. In 1900, George G. Benz, a second-generation German-American and his wife, Josephine Hamm-Benz moved into the house. Unlike many other Hamm husbands, George does not seem to have worked at the brewery, but worked with his father in the wholesale liquor business and then in real estate. He was on the St. Paul school board and served three terms in the Minnesota Legislature and was a member of several fraternal groups, including The Sons Of Hermann.
After Theodore Hamm's death in 1903, his son William and wife Marie moved out of their 668 Greenbrier home and into the Hamm mansion. George and Josephine moved into 668 Greenbrier and lived there until 1926.
John Flanagan and Emma Hamm—yes, another daughter of Theodore and Louise—arrived at the house in 1904. John worked at the Bank of Minnesota and later served as president of the Stockyards National Bank in South Saint Paul. Unlike others, they stayed there for an extended period. John died in 1941, and Emma died in 1947 in Dallas, Texas. Their son, John T. Flanagan and his wife Virginia lived in the Classen house until they moved to Minneapolis by 1941.
680 Greenbrier is now the home of the Greenhouse Recovery Center, a post-treatment transitional housing facility.
]]>One of three Hamm residences on Greenbrier, the Muller home was built in 1891 for Otto Muller and his bride Marie Hamm, the daughter of Theodore and Louise Hamm. Otto Muller moved to St. Paul from New York in 1872 and soon began to work at Hamm's Brewery. When Otto married Marie Hamm he was promoted to vice president of the brewery.
The Mullers occasionally showed up in the St. Paul Globe’s social pages. In September 1902, for instance, Marie hosted a Tuesday afternoon euchre event for a group of nearby German-American women. She and her husband were both active in the German-American Central Bund of Minnesota, the German-American Red Cross Society and the Saint Paul Mozart Club.
The Queen Anne house with its twelve rooms was designed by architect Augustus Gauger, a locally prominent German-American architect who designed several other structures in Dayton’s Bluff. In later years the home was turned into apartments, but now has been restored to a single-family home.
]]>Three splendid houses grace the eastern side of Greenbrier--once called Cable Street. All of them were connected with the extended Hamm family who decided to remain close to their company instead of moving to more prestigious areas. All three of the houses, along with the mansion across the street were heated by steam piped up from the brewery. There was a stairway that led from the end of Greenbrier to the brewery below that they walked to and from work.
One of the most startling Hamm family events occurred on this well-travelled route. On June 15, 1933 William Hamm Jr., then president of the brewery, was walking home for lunch around 12:45 in the afternoon. He was grabbed by what papers described as “four shadowy figures” and put in a car that had been sitting on the corner of Minnehaha and Greenbrier. He had been kidnapped by the infamous Barker-Karpis gang, was driven to a hideout in Illinois and held for ransom. A large sum on money was paid and William was returned, unhurt but shaken up by the experience.
The first of three Hamm residences at 668 Greenbrier, on the northeast corner of Margaret Street, was built in 1892 by William Hamm Sr. who, it is said, gave it as a wedding gift for his bride Marie Scheffer. They married in October 1893. The designer of the Georgian Revival house was the locally prominent team of Reed and Stem. It was neo-classical inspirit, and showed Stem's love of monumental exteriors and finely crafted interiors. One of the features that has disappeared are verandas with balustrades that faced both streets.
By 1904, William Sr. and his family had outgrown the house and moved across the street into his parent’s old brick mansion. For a brief time the Otto Muller and George Benz families, who earlier had Greenbrier homes of their own, lived there pending moves to other locations. In 1926, the George and Josephine Hamm Benz family moved to a new house on the River Road. Otto and Marie Muller moved from 672 Greenbrier into 668 Greenbrier.
When no members of the Hamm wished to live in the house, the family made the generous decision to donate the use of the house to the Community Chest. For a time it was East Side Relief Center where sometimes there were long lines of poor people who came for public assistance during the Great Depression. The Hamm's finally sold the house in 1934 and it began its forty- year history as a boarding house. It has now been returned to single-family use and is in the process of being restored.
]]>If you go east on Margaret Street and cross Greenbrier, you will come to a red brick pillar in a small park with a plaque— a small remnant of the old Hamm Mansion. The historic home was located on the northern section of the area and the rest was its elegantly landscaped grounds.
The brick Queen Anne house at 671 Greenbrier was built in 1886 for Theodore and Louise Hamm by their children, while the couple made an extended trip to their homeland in Herbolzheim, Germany. Designed by German-American architect Augustus Gauger, it had twenty rooms filled with ornate fixtures and eight fireplaces.
Family lore says that at first Louise didn’t like the new house and would have preferred to remain in their living quarters in the workers’ dormitory. Many elegant parties thrown there, often with Chinese lanterns hung throughout the yard. Sometimes tame deer and peacocks mingled with the guests.
Theodore lived there until his death in 1903 and son William and his family moved in. After he died in 1931, no other Hamm family members resided there and it was a boarding house for many years. In April 1954, while it was unoccupied, it was burned down by a teenage arsonist who said he set the fire “out of boredom.”
Local residents wanted the site to become a city park and tamed up with the St. Paul Garden club. Their leader, philanthropist Olivia Dodge, spearheaded the project. Upper Swede Hollow Park was officially dedicated in October, 1976. The red brick column you saw upon entering was a gatepost for the mansion found on the ground in nearby bushes. It was saved and moved to its current location where the plaque tells some of the story of the family’s story.
]]>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 Irvine’s Second Addition met up at an angle. Originally a fifth of an acre, the size of the dedicated land was somewhat expanded in recent times by the vacating of a section of Maple Street Avenue.
As a City Council member, William Hamm had a special interest in public amenities and designed the large rock circle for flowers. He served on the City Park Board and believed that parks were a vital amenity of city life. The deed for the property states that if not used as a park, the property goes back to the William’s descendants.
In 2013, the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council sought city funding for a plan for a redesign of Hamm Park. Their restoration calls for walkways to create passages into the center of the park. They also hope to create features incorporating community history and diversity. Other possibilities include adding a small fountain and landscaping with sustainable plantings.
]]>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.
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