(Johnson's Service Station)

-271 East Kellogg Boulevard (between Wacouta and Wall) -

- 1907, J. Walter Stevens -

Since before the Civil War, Wells Fargo expedited national parcel delivery in areas beyond the reach of railroads. By the time this building was constructed, Wells Fargo had become part of American Express, organized principally to enable immigrants to send money to their families overseas. Conveniently located near the Depot, this building served largely clerical functions, which may account for its small scale.

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(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 most famous citizen. He earned his place in history with a combination of aggressive business sense and incessant hard work. His Great Northern Railway had its headquarters in this building until it moved to the Railroad and Bank Building shortly after his death in 1916. The archway on Broadway where Hill entered the enclosed courtyard of his office building has been a local landmark for over a century.

- Profiles in Prosperity: James J. Hill -

James J. Hill, Saint Paul's legendary "Empire Builder," came to Minnesota Territory from Rockwood, Ontario, in 1856 and took a position as warehouse clerk at the Lower Landing. A successful businessman by his mid-forties, Hill went into railroading. With astonishing energy and imagination, he built his Great Northern Railway into the centerpiece of a railroad network that dominated the Northwest.

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- 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 century, F.O.K. salesmen canvassed a territory stretching west to the Pacific Coast and south as far as Arkansas. Today, the company lives on as the national chain of OK Hardware Stores. This massive warehouse illustrates the pleasing effect of rhythmic Romanesque Revival designs in commercial architecture.

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(Northern Warehouse Building)

- 308 Prince Street (at Broadway) -

- 1907-08, Northern Pacific Railway Company -

The Northern Pacific Railway completed construction to the West Coast in 1883. Thereafter, the line played a key role in supplying merchants in North Dakota and Montana with goods from Lowertown wholesalers. Lines connecting with Great Lakes shipping routes created an efficient link with the East Coast. Beyond this warehouse stands one row of an earlier generation of railroad freight houses, the last survivors in Lowertown of a structure once common to all rail centers.

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(Lowertown Commons)

- 300 East Fourth Street (between Wall and Broadway) -

- 1905 -

Originally built for the Saint Paul Rubber Company, this building supported the tremendous weight of E. W. Honza Printing Company's presses and type for many years. Redevelopers found that rot and foundation settling had taken a toll by the mid 1980s. They had to rebuild nearly one-fourth of the structure to make it fit for reuse as apartments. A beautiful central atrium transforms former industrial space into desirable living space.

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(Market House)

- 289 East Fifth Street (between Wall and Broadway) -

- 1902, J. Walter Stevens -

Like many others in Lowertown, this warehouse was built as a rental property with considerable unheated space for storage. Ambrose Tighe, who married one of Conrad Gotzian's daughters, apparently considered capital investment in Lowertown a good way to make his money work.

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- 281-87 East Fifth Street (at Wall) -

- 1904, Reed and Stem -

In 1897, Crane and Ordway Company led the Northwest in the manufacture of valves, fittings, and supplies for steam engines. Their engines probably powered the hoists used in constructing Lowertown buildings and drove the freight elevators that made the multistory structures practical. A year after the completion of this building, Lucius P. Ordway gained control of Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, which became 3M, now one of Minnesota's most important corporations.

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- 258-60 East Fifth Street (between Wacouta and Wall)

- 1883 -

This narrow storefront preserves the scale of Saint Paul buildings from the generation preceding the warehouses that dominate Lowertown today. Italianate details like the tall windows and heavy cornice brackets enjoyed great popularity. Such buildings rarely survive the competition for space except in small towns. Cast-iron columns still bear the founder's stamp: Washington Foundry, Adams and Isher Co., Saint Paul. The building housed James H. Mahler's carriage and buggy dealership until 1889, when it became part of the expanding Gotzian Shoe Company complex.

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(American House)

- 352 Wacouta Street (between Fourth and Fifth) -

- 1895, Cass Gilbert -

Adjacent buildings illustrate Cass Gilbert's commercial work in the 1890s. After nearly forty years of steady growth, Gotzian Shoe Company could afford to hire one of Saint Paul's most prominent architects to design a new factory and wholesale outlet. Paul Gotzian turned the outlet into rental property soon after its construction. Years of use by the American Beauty Macaroni Company gave the building its familiar name. In the 1980s, the factory was renovated into residential space.

- Profiles in Prosperity: Conrad Gotzian -

Conrad Gotzian came to Saint Paul about the same time as James J. Hill. A German immigrant, Gotzian established a shoe manufacturing firm that continued to flourish into this century. The two men were fast friends and built neighboring houses in the residential area surrounding the First Baptist Church.

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(Spin Knits Fabric Company)

- 350-64 Sibley (at Fifth) -

- 1882, attributed to J. Walter Stevens -

The buildings on the south side of Mears Park share many business connections. Noyes Brothers and Cutler rented the John Wann Building before constructing their own building a block to the north. After only a few years, they built the Powers Dry Goods Company building, apparently with that tenant in mind. Powers grew into a major Twin Cities department store before Donaldson's (now Carson Pirie Scott) bought them out in a struggle to keep pace with Dayton's.

Noyes Brothers and Cutler employed Stevens to design yet another wholesale house. The Fairbanks-Morse Company, makers of scales, windmills, pumps, and engines, took over this building in the 1920s. Adaptation for use as Metropolitan Council offices required expanded space, so renovators combined this structure with its neighbor. By strategic location of elevators and connecting stairways, they were able to compensate for different floor heights in the two buildings.

The Wann building, with its neighbor, illustrates the evolution of decorative fashions in architecture. The Wann building still retains the rounded window hoods characteristic of its Italianate design, although the original heavy cornice and elaborate entrance disappeared years ago. The Fairbanks-Morse building demonstrates the more subdued features of the Classical Revival style, using contrasting brick and stone for decorative effects in place of fancy carving or brickwork.

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(Cosmopolitan Building)

- 366 Wacouta Street (at Fifth) -

-1911, James F. Denson, architect; C.A.P. Turner, engineer -

-1923 addition, Clarence Johnston Jr., architect -

Finch, Van Slyck, and McConville started as a dry goods store in 1856 and moved into wholesaling by the early 1860s. By the turn of the century, they had become the largest dry goods wholesaler in Saint Paul. Thanks to C.A.P. Turner, an innovative Minneapolis engineer, Finch, Van Slyck, and McConville were able to consolidate their citywide operation in one new warehouse in 1911. Turner's revolutionary reinforced-concrete construction technique called for flat slabs supported by mushroom-capped columns. The system could support heavy loads across broad spans and soon became standard practice in reinforced-concrete construction. Today, the voluminous space provides ample room for 255 condominiums.

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(Gilbert Building)

- 413 Wacouta Street (between Sixth and Seventh) -

- 1893-94, Cass Gilbert -

The Boston Northwest Realty Company saw great money-making potential in the commercial expansion of Saint Paul, Minneapolis, and Duluth in the early 1890s. They built a warehouse in each city, choosing Cass Gilbert to design the Saint Paul structure. The handsome corbelled brick cornice and graceful windows demonstrate the attention to detail that earned Gilbert his national reputation. More important to the first tenant, T.L. Blood's Northwestern Paint Works, was the "slow-burn" construction. Exterior walls of brick support massive, fire-resistant timbers. Cast-iron columns provide interior support without taking up valuable space. Today, tenants choose this building for its meticulous renovation and ready access to the skyways.

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- 499 Wacouta Street (at Ninth) -

- 1875, William Boyington -

(adapted by master builder Monroe Sheire)

The First Baptist Church links Lowertown with its earliest history. The congregation built its first chapel in 1851 on a prominence called Mount Pisgah which soon earned the nickname Baptist Hill, now Mears Park. The present church replaced a second "meeting house" on Wacouta near Eighth Street, built at the center of Saint Paul's residential area. The original 190-foot spire proved too heavy for foundations based in swampy ground, so it was removed in 1945. Norman Mears supported the church's commitment to stay in the inner city as part of his vision of a Lowertown revival, symbolized by the steeple reconstruction in 1965.

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- 208-66 East Seventh Street (between Sibley and Wall) -

- 1875-87 -

The extroverted designs of the historic buildings on Seventh Street caught the attention of shoppers and workers riding the streetcars and farmers hauling produce along the bustling thoroughfare.

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(Stevens Building)

- 235-37 East Sixth Street (at Wacouta) -

- 1891, J. Walter Stevens -

Koehler and Hinrichs established a wholesale house for butchers' and meat packers' supplies at Fourth and Saint Peter streets in 1884. This Sixth Street location offered better access to railyards. By 1901, they had outgrown this building and moved to 255 East Kellogg. Many Lowertown wholesalers followed similar relocation patterns as railroad development expanded their markets.

- Profiles in Prosperity -

Celestia Gilbert, Alice Jackson, and Carol Currie: Women as well as men recognized the profit potential of investing in construction in Lowertown. Celestia Gilbert, Alice Jackson, and Carol Currie owned adjacent buildings (Konantz Saddlery Company Building, and Koehler & Hinrichs Company Building), which they rented to wholesale firms.

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(Railroader Printing House)

- 227-31 East Sixth Street (between Sibley and Wacouta) -

- 1893, J. Walter Stevens -

The Konantz Saddlery Company started making harness and saddles in Quincy, Illinois, in 1871. They opened a Saint Paul branch in 1876. Later, from the early 1920s until the 1980s, this building was the home of the Railroader Printing House, producer of thousands of tickets, menus, and railroad promotional materials.

- Profiles in Prosperity -

Celestia Gilbert, Alice Jackson, and Carol Currie: Women as well as men recognized the profit potential of investing in construction in Lowertown. Celestia Gilbert, Alice Jackson, and Carol Currie owned adjacent buildings (Konantz Saddlery Company Building, and Koehler & Hinrichs Company Building), which they rented to wholesale firms.

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(Park Square Court)

- 400 Sibley Street (at Sixth) -

- 1886, 1889, 1906, J. Walter Stevens -

Noyes Brothers and Cutler, importers and wholesale druggists, moved into their new five story building at Sixth and Sibley in 1886. Pharmacists mixed medicines in the laboratories on their upper floors while clerks on the ground floor filled orders from new drug stores as far away as Montana. Noyes Brothers and Cutler grew into the largest wholesale drug firm in the Northwest and found it necessary to add three additional bays to the building in 1906. In the 1970s Minnesota Public Radio broadcast the Prairie Home Companion from a tiny theater on the second floor until the show's popularity called for larger quarters.

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(McColl Building)

- 366-68 jackson Street -

(at Fifth)

- 1892, Edward P. Bassford -

When the Merchants National Bank opened in 1892, its two-story lobby attracted a great deal of attention. Public appreciation for the warm red stone and lively architectural treatment led to protest when a proposal to widen Jackson Street threatened this jewel of Romanesque Revival design with demolition in 1967.

The diminutive building could easily have been overpowered by Galtier Plaza. However, Lowertown Redevelopment Corporation took up the challenge to develop guidelines for new construction that would complement historical structures. They recommended dropping the height of the new building and adding an arch detail on the Fifth Street facade to echo the bank's design.

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- 340 North Robert Street -

(at Fourth)

- 1889, Solon Beman -

The Pioneer Building's owner boasted on his stationery that the building stood "At the Business Heart of Saint Paul." The high value of land in the "100 percent block" demanded a tall building so the Pioneer Press looked to Chicago for an architect familiar with the new metal skeleton-frame construction technique that made skyscrapers possible. The twelve-story walls rose higher than any others in Saint Paul. An elevator ride to the top floor offers an excellent view of the inner workings of the lift mechanism, the steel bracing that reinforces the four floors added in 1910, and the only surviving example of an open light court in the Twin Cities.

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- 141 East Fourth Street -

(between Robert and Jackson) and

- 350 North Robert Street -

(between Fourth and Fifth)

- 1891, Cass Gilbert -

Cass Gilbert, architect of the State Capitol, designed the Endicott Buildings as an arcade to wrap around the Pioneer Press Building, then under construction at Fourth and Robert streets. The Italian Renaissance facade with floral designs carved in red sandstone earned early appreciation form the historic preservation movement. But misguided efforts to clean a century's accumulation of soot from the facade taught preservationists the painful lesson that sandblasting can damage fragile details.

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