The Brunson House, located at 485 Kenney Street and built around 1856, is thought to be the oldest brick residence in St. Paul. Its original owner was Benjamin W. Brunson who was born in Michigan and went with his parents to Wisconsin in 1835. He…

Benjamin Brunson, a surveyor of Saint Paul in 1847, planned Brunson’s Addition in what is now lower Payne Avenue. The neighborhood had pleasing views of Trout Brook, Phalen Creek and downtown, because no railroads had yet cut through the area. The…

Set on the hills overlooking downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River, the East Side has always been separated from the rest of the city, first by the marshy ground of the Trout Brook and Phalen Creek beds on the east side of Downtown, and then…