Farmers and their allies supported improving the river’s shipping capacity once it became clear that railroad dominance meant higher shipping rates. The Equity Co-operative Exchange was formed in 1911…

John Irvine’s gift to the young village had seen its zenith and a long decline, and so became a target for urban renewal. Many of the houses in the area were owned by absentee landlords and subdivided…

Federal and state transportation authorities wanted to connect Highway 5 with Interstate 94 by running a six-lane freeway between the two, dividing the West End neighborhoods and cutting off the area…

Some of the oldest public and private schools in the City and State are located in the West 7th neighborhood. While some schools have come and gone—Riverside, Davis, and St. Stanislaus—the community…

In 1873, the City and County Hospital opened, followed in 1891 by the Ancker School of Nursing. City and County Hospital was one of the first in the country to have onsite residences and training for…

Fort Snelling (constructed 1819-25), at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers, was built to protect our northern borders from the British and to control development in the…

For over a century, St. Paul regarded Indian Mounds Park as a recreational area. Now, it’s being recognized for its history as a cemetery for at least seven tribes

Minnesota doesn’t typically come to mind when you think about slavery and the Civil War. It’s also not a place that’s figured into the national imagination when it comes to Black activism, either—at…

The first bridge here opened in 1859; at that time, only two other bridges- the Hennepin Avenue Suspension Bridge (1855) in Minneapolis and a railroad bridge (1856) at Rock Island, IL- spanned the…

The first bridge here opened in 1886 and served until the early 1920s, when a higher bridge was required to accommodate a raised railroad platform at St. Paul Union Depot. Designed by Toltz, King and…

[Built in 1874, Assumption Church is] St. Paul’s oldest functioning church structure and a nationally significant example of the nineteenth-century revival style variously known as Romanesque,…

A historic limestone church, built for what is now Minnesota’s oldest Baptist congregation, founded in 1847 when pioneer teacher Harriet Bishop established a Sunday School. The first church was on…

An exceptionally well-preserved Italianate house that includes a Hamm’s Brewery and whose wife, Emma, was the sister of their next-door neighbor, Otto Muller. This house was built in 1880.

A mix of rigor and romanticism. The main mass of the house is quite subdued, its forms outlined by long bands of precisely detailed ornament. By contrast, the house’s pointy-headed tower, from which a…

Although this vigorous Italianate house has lost its corner tower and part of its wraparound porch, it still offers many exuberant details, such as the attenuated columns and ornate brackets found on…

The Euclid View Flat Apartment building was designed by Hermann Kretz and built in 1895. Kretz, a German-born architect who immigrated to America in 1880, was responsible for other local buildings…

3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company. Except for limited efforts to extract low-grade corundum from Crystal Bay, Minnesota, for abrasives in 1904, the company has done no mining. …

Meet a 3Mer and you will often find that he or she has family members who also work at 3M, part of a long 3M tradition. Otto Meissner was a prime example. Living at 668 Greenbrier, he did not have far…

“Scotch” as a brand name for 3M tapes is believed to have its origins in a disgruntled auto-body painter who was using the new 3M masking tape. It was not sticking properly because it was not…

On May 5, 1943, Brig. Gen. Carl R. Gray, Jr., head of U.S. Army railroad operations in North Africa, sent a request to President William L. McKnight: "[Please send] your Scotch Cellulose Tape, 3/4 x…