350 St. Peter Street // St. Paul, MN 55012 Built by Thomas Lowry in 1911 as the Lowry Medical Arts Building, The Lowry is one of the loveliest buildings in downtown, built to fit in with the surrounding buildings like the Saint Paul Hotel.…

350 Market Street // St. Paul, MN 55102 The Saint Paul Hotel, members of Historic Hotel of America and rated four diamonds by AAA, is Minnesota's landmark hotel for business and leisure.

345 Kellogg Boulevard West // Saint Paul, MN 55102 The Minnesota History Center is home to an innovative museum with ever-changing exhibits and a modern library.

Landmark Center, once the Federal Courts Building and Post Office and now a vibrant cultural center, offers some of the Twin Cities' most gorgeous architecture, and is open daily to the public with free tours on Thursdays at 11:00 am, and…

People arriving in Saint Paul between 1900 and 1940 generally came by train through the Union Depot. In its heyday, this neoclassical structure served 282 trains and 20,000 passengers daily. The depot is significant both as a point of entry for…

A block from Rice Park stands the Roy Wilkins Auditorium. Renamed in 1984 for the executive director of the NAACP and longtime civil rights advocate, the auditorium has been an important venue for live entertainment since 1932. Entertainers booked…

Even though pre-Civil War legislation attempted to restrict the movement of African Americans to Minnesota, free blacks and fugitive slaves continued to come. The highest concentration of blacks resided in the downtown commercial districts where…

- Saint Paul Early Settler, 1799-1884 - James Thompson arrived at Fort Snelling as a slave in 1827. He married an Ojibwe woman and learned the language. In the 1830s, he was hired by missionary Alfred Brunson as an interpreter. Thompson's…

(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…

(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…

- 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…

(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…

(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…

(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…

- 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…

(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…

(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…

(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…

(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…

- 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…