The land below the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood that rests along the Mississippi River has been the site of important places and home to many people from the earliest times until the modern era. There was a Dakota village, an early brewery, an…

It is rare that nationally prominent judges were from the same town, but the fact that three important members of the judiciary not only lived in Saint Paul, but were from the same neighborhood is rare indeed. They all went to Van Buren…

Dayton’s Bluff is filled with a rich variety of homes ranging from 19th-century Victorian structures to 1920s bungalows and postwar ranch houses. The Dayton’s Bluff Historic District, created in 1992, has been an important factor in community…

Indian Mounds Park is named for the six burial mounds that are believed to have been made more than a thousand years ago. The first land parcels for the 17-acre park were purchased by the city in 1892 and added to for over a century. Its trails,…

Seventh Street has been the neighborhood’s main arterial since its origin. Starting in the 1880s, a streetcar ran along Seventh, attracting businesses on each side for many blocks. Most of the old companies are gone and their places have been taken…

Theodore Hamm emigrated from Herbolzheim, Germany in 1854, and purchased the Excelsior Brewery on Phalen Creek in 1864. Hamm’s Brewery grew from producing five hundred barrels of beer in its first year to eventually becoming one of the country’s top…

The West End is Saint Paul’s and Minnesota’s first urban neighborhood. With West 7th/Fort Road as its spine, it extends from Seven Corners near downtown to the overlook on the east bank of the Mississippi River across from Fort Snelling. This was…

As the heads of river navigation, the Lower and Upper Landings provided a destination not just for goods but also for entrepreneurs and adventurers who were ready for a new territory and the hope of a new start. Early Saint Paul’s population expanded…

Settlers’ and land-seekers’ endless pressure on the Federal Government rapidly displaced the Native Americans, eventually confining them in reserves with few of the promised payments or amenities. Migrants from the Eastern states, who had often made…

Each component of the arriving populations had its particular religious needs. Religious life in Saint Paul from its earliest days was fertile, with Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Episcopalian, Jewish, African Methodist Episcopal and others…

Infrastructure and commercial development proceeded rapidly, supported by the intense river trade that brought all kinds of goods and people to the area. River commerce that seemed invulnerable was really at the start of its long decline and defeat…

Beginning in the 1950s, urban renewal and interstate highway construction became central issues for cities. The design of Shepard Road as the central link from downtown to the airport and points west and south required that the Upper Levee, home to…

Located northwest of downtown Saint Paul, the area known historically as Frogtown includes several smaller neighborhoods: Mount Airy, Capitol Heights, Rondo, Lower Rice Street and East Midway. The Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad tracks,…

Saint Paul’s status as the hub of transportation, goods and services for America’s Great Northwest was tied to the advent of railroads here. For more than 100 years, countless Frogtown residents provided the labor that kept railroads…

Frogtown has been home to more than a dozen public, parochial, and charter schools over the years. In the early days Frogtown children went to school close to home years ago and almost always walked to school. Most of the first schools were too…

Minnehaha Avenue is one of Frogtown’s major east-west streets. Years ago it marked a section line on early land surveys. In later years it served as a dividing line between part of Frogtown’s residential and commercial-industrial areas. Some…

Frogtown has always been one of Saint Paul’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods. Much of the neighborhood’s ethnic history can be followed through its churches, its community institutions and its businesses and industries. Several of those…

Frogtown’s many old and beautiful churches are one of the neighborhood’s best-kept secrets. Although much attention is focused on the neighborhood’s Catholic churches, especially Saint Agnes, Frogtown also has a long Lutheran heritage. It also has…

University Avenue is Frogtown’s best-known commercial street. It was once home to one of the Twin Cities’ busiest streetcar lines. The University Avenue line connected the downtown areas of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, and also served the University…

Located in the North End neighborhood, Rice Street began as a commercial corridor that served St. Paul’s working class. Rice Street is unassuming; when it was rushed into being more than a century ago, there was no time for ornamentation or…

Follow Selby Avenue west from where it begins. At Selby Avenue’s beginning, you will find remnants of the empire-building years of the late 19th-century atop Cathedral Hill. Here lived people of wealth, ambition, and ostentation. A little farther…

The best place to begin an exploration of Cathedral Hill is where Summit Avenue and Selby Avenue meet. This is the edge of what St. Paul’s early residents called St. Anthony Hill. The site offers one of the city’s best views: to the north, the…

The contours of the earth define and set apart Saint Paul’s West Side. On the north, the great swoop of the Mississippi forms the point and two sides of a rounded triangle; a line of sandstone cliffs--the shore long ago of the glacial River…

No site offers better views of downtown Saint Paul than the bluffs of Prospect Terrace, once the West Side’s answer to Summit Avenue. Scanning from east to west you can see Dayton's Bluff and Indian Mounds Park; Metro State University; the…

Anthony Yoerg (1816 – 1896) came to St. Paul from the little town of Gundelfingen, Bavaria in 1848. St. Paul was still a village then, and the big German migration to Minnesota was just beginning. He opened the state's first brewery, near where…

The top and edge of the bluff, overlooking the river valley, was the precinct of the well-to-do and mostly still is. But once you get just a few streets south, the neighborhood becomes more varied and, for some, more interesting. Start near the…

The “Selby Avenue” neighborhood got its label in the 1960's, after the construction of Interstate 94 largely destroyed the African American district known as “Rondo,” so called after its main thoroughfare. The demolition and clearing of a…

Like so many of St. Paul’s first-ring neighborhoods, Frogtown has lost more than its share of historic and unique structures. Businesses and industries, churches, schools and countless homes have been torn down or burned down. Whether it was a large…

Layers of history give Lowertown its unique appeal. The Saint Paul neighborhood that sprouted at the "Lower Landing" on the Mississippi River grew into a major warehouse and distribution center serving the entire Upper Midwest. Lowertown's…

While none of Saint Paul’s historic African-American churches are in what we know today as Frogtown proper, churches in adjacent neighborhoods served Frogtown’s African-American community. These were the churches Frogtowners could walk to. The…

St Paul’s “West End” is on an intermediate plateau, located between the bluffs rising on the north side of the neighborhood and the bluffs on the south side that descend to the Mississippi. Running southwesterly from Seven Corners to the Fort…

Minnesota's African American history begins with pioneers who trapped, traded and developed lasting relationships with the Indian nations. In the 1790s, Pierre Bongo (Bonga or Bungo), a free black fur trader, came to the territory and married an…

“Growing up on Payne Avenue was like living in a small town,” former resident DeAnne Cherry once wrote. “My family knew all the merchants and Payne Avenue was where we spent our money.” While this remembrance dealt with the area's life in the…

Saint Paul, with its ethnic festivals, diverse neighborhoods, cultural traditions and historic sites, wants to share its culture and heritage with the world. Saint Paul is truly a big city with small town charm. Quaint neighborhoods and family…

Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, as 3M was originally named, moved from Two Harbors, MN, to the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood in St. Paul in 1910 and was headquartered there until 1962. The company started with sandpaper and abrasives, and…

Location of historic homes in Irvine Park area.

This is an unusual "tour", in that none of the buildings remain. In fact, most of the streets are long gone as a result of the city's plan to demolish over 500 structures located on the flood plain of the Mississippi River across from downtown.…