Frogtown once had a mansion district along University and Sherburne avenues, near today’s state capitol. The mansions of some of Saint Paul’s richest and most powerful people looked out over the downtown area.
One mansion owner was William Merriam, who would go on to serve as governor from 1889 to 1893. His brick mansion was built on University just east of Cedar Street in 1882. The three-story mansion featured multiple porches, balconies and fireplaces.
But his father John would build a larger and grander mansion in 1887, at the northeast corner of University and Cedar. The Richardson Romanesque mansion towered over the neighborhood. It was three stories tall, built of reddish brown and pink sandstone. It had a huge entry arch leading onto a huge front porch. The porch had a detailed and beautiful terrace. The house also had a big stone tower with a pointed roof, a large third-floor arch opening onto a balcony and many ornate details. One detail many neighborhood children remembered was a winged dog on the right front corner of the roof.
The house was also very beautiful inside. One newspaper account described it as a “palace.”
The Merriams were leaders in politics, business and banking in St. Paul. Merriam Park neighborhood, where they were involved in development, is named for them.
John Merriam would only live in his grand mansion for eight years. He passed away in 1895. His window tried to give the house to the state as a governor’s mansion in 1905 but the state wasn’t interested. The St. Paul Institute, forerunner to the Science Museum of Minnesota, bought the house in 1927 and used it as a museum for many years. The state bought the property in 1959 and demolished it after the museum moved out in 1964. The state administration building occupies the site today.
]]>Aurora Park was the site of an ill-fated Saint Paul Winter Carnival Ice Palace in 1896. Weather didn’t cooperate and the palace had to be scaled back from a more grand size. Fort Karnival was more of an ice stockade and was designed by military personnel from Fort Snelling. It was built with two toboggan slides, a tower, a Native American village with 200 Dakota camping there, warming rooms and a restaurant and other features inside. One fun feature of the toboggan slide was that they were in opposite directions, so riders could travel down one and then the other.
The palace glittered at night thanks to extensive lighting. Fireworks above wowed the crowds. But rain ruined the planned storming of the palace and that event had to be postponed.
The next ice palace in Frogtown was built in 1937, where the State Office Building is now. That year’s carnival featured singer Rudy Vallee. Huge crowds gathered to see and hear him, see the parades and see the ice palace.
Crews used 30,000 ice cakes and worked 16-hour days in bitter cold weather to get the fortress-like palace built. Roaring fires were used to heat water to join the ice cakes together. Many of the workers were happy to be busy, because so many jobs had been lost in the great Depression. The 1930s ice palaces were designed by city architects and built through the federal jobs program, Works Progress Administration or WPA.
The palace was a 193-foot long wall, with peaks of up to 60 feet. After carnival it was blown up with dynamite.
In the 1920s when the Midway Club (now Midway Chamber of Commerce) revived the Winter Carnival, West Minnehaha Playground was one of the activity sites. Playground would nominate neighborhood girls as queen candidates and businesses would enter floats and marching units.
Frogtown’s railroads and industries had marching groups in the 19th and early 20gh century carnivals. After the 1930s carnival revival, Frogtowners held their own neighborhood parades and activities at times. Not surprisingly, the Frogtown Marching Club’s colors were green and white. The marchers would make noise with metal, frog-shaped clickers as they marched.
]]>Aurora Park, also known as the Dale and Aurora Grounds or Comiskey Park, was Frogtown’s minor league baseball park. In 1895 Charles Comiskey started Saint Paul’s team in the fledgling Western League. Comiskey was one of the great first basemen of his day. While retiring from active play Comiskey decided to start a team, the Saint Paul Saints. He did play 17 games for his team so the retirement was sporadic.
In spring 1895 he began building a ball park in the area bounded by Dale and St. Albans streets, and Aurora and Fuller avenues. The grandstand and bleachers seated 3,000 spectators.
Comiskey quickly discovered that people would rather watch games for free from a nearby hillside. He put up additional bleachers to block the view. On the morning of the first regular-season game, Tuesday, May 7, 1895, the St. Paul Pioneer Press stated, "The advantageous position on the hill has been blocked by a high row of seats on that corner of the park, and that congregation of person who would otherwise probably not pay their half-dollar to see the game will be disappointed."
Small children then began boring holes in the ballpark fence, more than 200 holes in all. Comiskey fought back by building a second fence, six inches inside the first one.
But a bigger problem was the outcry from folks who opposed Sunday baseball as sinful. Foes got a judge to grant an injunction prohibiting Sunday games, so Comiskey had to move games to Minneapolis and to a ballpark on Saint Paul’s West Side. He held Sunday games elsewhere in 1895 and 1896, moving all games to the new Lexington Park at Lexington Parkway and university Avenue in 1897. Lexington soon replaced Aurora Park and the land was sold for other uses.
]]>- 289 Como Avenue -
On the site of what is now a storage business was one of Saint Paul’s most memorable taverns. In 1936, two 1887 Pullman coaches that once graced Northern Pacific's Chicago-to-Seattle line were transformed into a tavern. Wheels and other gear were removed, so the cars would stay put. Railroad and steelworkers flocked to Millers’ Coaches for a drink after work. Prohibition had ended and Millers Coaches was a popular neighborhood destination for decades.
In 1981 Millers Coaches was sold to new owners. What had been a working-class spot was transformed into the swanky Night Train. About $250,000 was spent on new art deco décor. South African mahogany woodwork was refinished and brass luggage racks were polished. Neon tubing and ferns were also part of the decor. The 75-foot-long mahogany bar in one of the coaches was restored. The other car was transformed from a humble dining car to comfortable booths. Those owners were only around for a couple of years, selling to Cathedral Hill restaurateur Leo Gadbois. He added a sunroom and jazz music.
But a 1985 fire, along with smoke and water damage, was the beginning of the end for Night Train. The insurance settlement wasn’t enough to pay for restoration.
The Gadbois version of Night Train featured jazz, and he tacked a modern sunroom on the side of the coaches and installed an outside deck. Then, in 1985, a fire destroyed mechanical equipment and the attic of the 15-foot-wide room that joined the two coaches. The fire didn't spread to the coaches themselves, but they were damaged by water and smoke. Gadbois said his insurance company went bankrupt, and he didn't recover enough to fix the coaches.
The cars sat boarded up for years. Gadbois and city officials battled over their fate. In the late 1990s the cars were purchased and taken out of Saint Paul by a private owner.
]]>Rapinwax Paper operated in Frogtown for many years at 293 Como Av. The company made wax paper for food handling and food preservation. In the days before plastic wrap and resealable plastic food bags, wax paper was a staple in every kitchen and neighborhood grocery store.
Dozens of neighborhood residents worked there in hot conditions. The paraffin wax had to be melted before it went into the paper sheets.
At 12:15 p.m. on June 15, 1936, during an intense summer heat wave, the St. Paul Fire Department responded to a call to Rapinwax. Flames broke out in the company’s 75 by 280-foot factory, where vats held two tons of wax. The factory, which was up to three stories tall in places, was engulfed in flames.
Black smoke hung over the Frogtown neighborhood. It took an hour for crews to contain the blaze.
But what many people would always remember was the flood of melted wax that flowed over sidewalks and grassy boulevards, down Como Avenue and onto a few adjacent streets. Wax coated every surface. The fire loss was more than $109,000. Firefighters and company officials had a very long and messy cleanup.
Rapinwax is long gone but its main brick building at 293 Como Av. remains.
]]>Most of the industrial buildings in and around the Dale Street shops were large, utilitarian structures. One exception was the main office building for the St. Paul Foundry, which stood at 500 Como Av. The two-story brick building was designed by noted architect Clarence Johnston, The building was commissioned by foundry owner C.M. Powers and built in 1901. The brick building had many attractive features, including brick and stone detailing, arched windows, transom windows and rafters supporting broad eaves. It had a tall and prominent flagpole as well. By 2000 it was gone, making way for the great Northern Business Park. But it lasted longer than the nearby Foundry Park, a North End park on Burgess Street where factory workers took breaks
]]>- 3121 Edmund Avenue -
This beautiful and detailed wooden church was built in 1886. Like so many other Frogtown congregations it began as a mission church in 1885. Mission churches were typically started by larger churches although it’s not clear which of the city’s churches spun off Ninth Presbyterian.
The congregation used a small temporary building at Western and Edmund, with 40 people showing up at the first meeting to plan a more permanent building on Edmund.
The church was built at a cost of $4,500. It was dedicated on July 25, 1896, with representatives from the city’s other Presbyterian congregations present to celebrate. The church had a 40-foot corner tower, stained glass windows and ornate woodwork.
The church had a difficult start. The pastor was involved in a scandal and left under a cloud. The congregation grew over time but was never more than a few hundred people. The Presbyterians worshipped at the facility until the mid-1930s.
Other churches used the space over the years, including First Wesleyan Methodist Church. After the Presbyterians left the Methodist occupied the church for the longest time. But it wasn’t unusual for the church to sit vacant for a few years at stretch. It was in use until about 1970 and then demolished.
]]>- 507 N. Dale Street -
The beautiful Gothic Revival style brick church was a landmark in Frogtown from 1919 until its demolition in 2010. The church, designed by Saint Paul architect William Alban, had a four-story spire, a lancet arched entry and lancet stained glass windows, side stepped buttresses and a rose window. It was the second church built on the property.
Saint Matthew’s Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded in Frogtown in 1887. The first church was built on the site in 1888. The congregation was German, made up of workers from the railroads and other industries. Services were held in German.
A devastating fire destroyed the church in 1918. The congregation didn’t hesitate to plan its new building. Alban was a well-known architect; his buildings included Fairmount Avenue United Methodist Church and Payne Avenue State Bank.
1919 also marked the first year English-language services were held at Saint Matthew’s. German services would continue until the congregation moved out in 1950.
Church of the Nazarene moved into the building after that, followed by saint John’s Church of Christ in 1964 and the Lively Stone Temple of Jesus Church (Apostolic faith) in 1968. In 1974 Rock of Ages Missionary Baptist Church moved in, staying until 2009.
After a long struggle and rising maintenance costs, the Baptist congregation moved out of the church. Their efforts to save the structure failed and the Saint Paul City Council ordered its demolition. The Church of the Nazarene erected a cross on the site after the church was demolished.
]]>Built in 1911 at the southwest corner of University Avenue and Dale Street, the Faust was the neighborhood theater for generations of Frogtown and Rondo residents. The once-beautiful building had ornate brick detail, as well as stucco and wood features that gave it an almost Tudor-style appearance.
The Faust hosted afternoon kiddie matinees as well as first-run movies. Many area residents remember having date nights there or going to enjoy movies with friends. But by the 1960s the Faust closed due to suburban theater competition. After being leased to a church for a time the Faust reopened in 1970 as one of St. Paul’s pornographic businesses. University and Dale, and Wabasha Street downtown were two of the worst areas. The Faust and its across-the-street neighbor, the Flick, were two of the X-rated theaters. The Faust also had peep shows and a dirty bookstore.
The theaters were Ground Zero in Frogtown’s long fight against the sex trade, street and storefront prostitution and related problems of drug dealing and other illegal activities. Then-Mayor George Latimer and Ward One Council member Bill Wilson were shocked by what went on there and crusaded for the businesses to close. Latimer called it a “supermarket of porn.” Neighborhood residents staged protests and picketed the theaters, saying they were a blight on the community. At one protest annoyed Faust employees dumped water out of an upstairs window and onto the protesters, damaging a $40,000 television camera. Some of the protests got physical.
The 20-year struggle to close the theaters ended in March 1985, after the owners took a $1.83 million buyout from the city and closed the business. The Flick owners had accepted a buyout offer two years earlier but the two theater closings were tied together.
The properties were turned over to the city. Various redevelopment ideas, including a new Penumbra Theater and a German restaurant, were floated before the Faust was torn down in the summer of 1995. The Rondo Community Outreach Library now stands on the site.
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