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Few people made
their home in the Hill District or beyond before the Civil War.
Although it was a beautiful, pastoral landscape, a prairie dotted
with clumps of hardwood and traversed by small streams, the high
cliff was a considerable barrier to travel. Developers considered
it inaccessible, and only a few intrepid households established
themselves on the edge of the cliff during this period.
Although the suburban villas
commanded an excellent view of the ragged city, they were not in
the city's most prestigious neighborhood. Indeed, they stood in
the midst of farms, such as Josiah Selby's west of the present cathedral.
Before paved streets and mass transit systems, few liked to commute
long distances through the dust and the mire that passed for roads.
Wealthy and poor alike lived close to their places of employment,
whether the fine residential districts near the city's center, such
as Irvine Park and the Lafayette Square, or the working class areas
close to factories on the edge of the city.
During this period, known as the
walking era, houses were built close together and over fifty stairways
were constructed throughout Saint Paul to enable pedestrians to
take significant shortcuts on their way to and from work.
After the Civil War, the pace of
urban development increased dramatically, resulting in the ascent
of an affluent middle-class. Repelled by the congestion and pollution
of the industrializing center city, this new class clamored for
the life of the country squire. Even before streetcars and trains
opened the surrounding countryside to settlement, land speculators
promoted the exceptional attributes of their newest suburban offering.
At first these were located east
of downtown, but after construction of the railroad along Trout
Brook, the noise and soot of coal-burning engines made the eastern
bluffs an unpleasant and inconvenient neighborhood for those who
could afford to move elsewhere. Thus, Saint Paul's development moved
westward.
The Historic Hill, Saint Anthony
Park, Merriam Park, and Macalester Park followed a similar pattern,
as mass transportation provided the vehicle for nineteenth century
urban sprawl. Each community, however, developed the quite different
character that is apparent even today.
Historic Hill District
In the 1870s, developers of
Woodland Park and Terrace Park in the Hill District expected to
entice the middle class away from other locations by advertising
the beauty and healthy climate of these additions to the city. To
make their developments accessible to downtown, they actively promoted
the horsecar transit system. Two horsecar lines, one on Western
Avenue built in 1879 and one on Laurel Avenue built in 1882 were
constructed to serve the area. The steep hill was conquered by cable
cars on Selby Avenue in 1888. The cable cars were slow, however
and were replaced by streetcars with an elaborate counterweight
system that enabled them to more rapidly climb the hill.
During the prosperous years
between 1886 and 1892, the Historic Hill area became the city's
most fashionable place to live. Land speculation, a major economic
activity in all frontier cities, was particularly rewarding here.
Settlement spread out from Summit, Marshall and Grand Avenues. The
eastern section of the neighborhood known as Saint Anthony Hill
was the most popular area for both merchants and politicians, as
well as skilled workers and middle-class families.
In 1905, a streetcar tunnel
was dug from the base of the cliff at Kellogg Boulevard, westward
until it emerged in the middle of Selby Avenue at about Nina Street.
This made it possible for the streetcars to travel up the hill under
their own power. The tunnel reduced the travel time from downtown
drastically and as a result, the western portion of the district
was platted and settled.
Families moved into this area
from other neighborhoods in the city or new families formed from
established households in the eastern part of the Hill District,
moved farther west within the same neighborhood. At this same time,
the basic Hill District pattern of residence began to emerge. Wealthier
people lived in the eastern and southern areas while middle and
low income groups lived to north and west.
Until the 1930s, the
city's most influential families lived in mansions lining Summit
Avenue and in large frame homes in the vicinity. Partly in response
to the craze for building duplexes and apartment houses, in 1915,
Summit Avenue residents petitioned for a restricted residential
district under a state law permitting residents of an area to limit
development. Several lots were left out of the district but for
the most part of the restrictions, together with zoning laws, protected
Summit houses from uncontrolled subdivision until World War II,
after which absentee landlords created many warrens along the street
that were tolerated by the city.
In the 1940s and
1950s, some of the structures were divided into multiple family
units or occupied by institutions, their former occupants having
abandoned the area or passed away. It was generally believed that
these houses could never be occupied as residences again because
they were designed when domestic help was available and presumably,
no one in the modern era could afford to maintain them. But in urban
rebirth of the 1970s Summit Avenue is once again becoming an architectural
showcase. It has impressed visitors and residents for generations.
Crocus Hill, the
southeast part of the Hill District, was developed gradually between
1880 and 1920. Few homes were built in the area until the Grand
Avenue horsecar was replaced by electric service in 1890. Houses
were, for the most part, constructed for individuals by contractors
and occasionally with the services of an architect. But many places
used prefabricated decorative details, both wood trim and leaded
glass, available from catalogues or lumberyards.
Beginning in the
early 1950s, the Historic Hill area rapidly lost a great deal of
its status. The northern part along Selby Avenue was occupied by
families of lower income and minorities forced to relocate when
Interstate Highway 94 was built. Many of the large houses on Summit
Avenue were turned over to the Catholic church and other institutions
for office buildings or residence halls. By the early to mid-1960s,
the area north of Summit Avenue was generally regarded among the
middle class as an undesirable neighborhood. The area to the south,
Crocus Hill, continued to maintain a certain amount of status, but
even its future was becoming less certain.
Several racial
conflicts along Selby Avenue, the construction of super highways
easing access to suburban areas, changing patterns of work and family
life, and less expensive, more easily financed suburban housing
lured families out of the older city. In the late 1960s, however,
the trend began to reverse as the lower prices and aesthetic amenities
of older houses attracted the attention of younger couples looking
for a house. Deteriorated neighborhoods began to reverse direction;
areas, such as Crocus Hill, escaped the fate of eventual decline.
The Hill District has
been the scene of phenomenal amount of restoration and redevelopment.
In addition to the refurbishing of single-family houses, apartment
buildings have been rebuilt as condominiums. As a result, many parts
of the Hill District are now dominated by owners rather than tenants.
The private redevelopment programs have been complimented by attempts
to promote the construction of new "market rate" housing. Today,
the area contains some of the newest, as well as the oldest, housing
in the city. It is home for a wide variety of people and is the
most cosmopolitan part of Saint Paul.
Grand Avenue's development
in the Hill District began in 1871 when William S. Wright, John
Wann and their partners platted the residential district between
Lexington and Dale running from Laurel to Osceola. This area, called
Summit Park, was to be a prestigious development.
In 1872, the city's
first horse-drawn trolley lines ran on Grand Avenue. It is interesting
to note that Wann was the streetcar company's president and Wright
served on the board of directors. This early line ended at Grand
and Victoria, one block away from Wann's Home. During the 1880s
and the 1890s, when the city's population nearly tripled, Grand
Avenue served as the backbone of western suburban expansion.
Grand Avenue is
not a neighborhood in the strict sense of the word. One of Saint
Paul's most popular shopping districts, this street is a mixture
of multiple-family units and small scale commercial establishments.
Most of the existing buildings date from the 1920s when the excellent
streetcar service attracted a large number of apartment developers
and other promoters.
The
commercial base of the street grew slowly and consistently until
the 1960s. Always a street of small businesses, Grand Avenue suffered
from the competition provided by suburban shopping centers and the
decline in the population of the inner neighborhoods. In the mid-1960s,
a series of disturbances on Selby Avenue all but destroyed the viability
of that commercial strip, and many observers of Grand forecast a
similar fate for it. Several of the old line businesses, such as
the car dealerships, had either gone out of business or relocated.
The buildings on the street, now nearly a half-century old, were
thought to be obsolete. Shoppers complained of a lack of parking
and a fear of street crime. But the street did not die.
In the early 1970s,
new and young entrepreneurs located businesses on the avenue, taking
advantage of the low rent and exploiting the decorative potential
of the old buildings. These people began to promote Grand Avenue
as a complement to the historic neighborhoods. Many of the older
businesses have gone, but their places have been taken by a wide
variety of new establishments.
Saint Anthony Park
Saint Anthony Park
was laid out as a politically independent railroad suburb in 1883,
but was annexed by Saint Paul in 1887. The area was designed by
Horace Cleveland, a Chicago landscape architect who had planned
several suburban developments in the northeastern part of the United
States, as well as Minneapolis' parkway system. Cleveland's designs
exemplified "garden suburb" planning, with gently curving streets,
open parks and houses set among groves of trees.
Although designed as
a village in 1883, Saint Anthony Park did not begin to grow until
after 1885 when a railroad line was laid through the area dividing
it into two sections. Advertised as having beautifully wooded grounds,
graded streets, a public park, two railroad stations, and its own
school, it was touted as one of the most desirable residential locales
in the inter-urban area between Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Located
three and one-half miles from the Minneapolis Union Depot and six
and one-half miles from the Union Depot in Saint Paul, Saint Anthony
Park residents could enjoy the amenities of both cities while living
in the country. It was significant to note that the features that
attracted suburbanites in the 1880s were exactly the same as those
that would attract people to suburbs a century later.
The greatest impetus
to the growth of Saint Anthony Park was not the railroad, however,
but the establishment of the University of Minnesota campus in the
1880s. In 1881, the university had purchased the Bass farm or the
site of its agricultural campus. After a rocky beginning, the campus
was put on firm financial footing in 1887. Many of the staff and
students at the St. Paul campus lived in Saint Anthony Park, therefore
the residential district did not develop only as a garden suburb
with a large commuting population as was envisioned by its founders.
Before 1900, the Saint
Anthony Park Company, a real estate speculation firm, was instrumental
in the development of the area. Its president, Charles Pratt, was
a religious man and refused to allow the sale of liquor in this
part of the city; a tradition that persists. Gradually the neighborhood
was built up by individuals who purchased lots and constructed homes
to their own requirements. As a result, the area has a variety of
house styles and sizes in contrast to the modern suburban development
where the speculator builds the houses.
As the population of
Saint Anthony Park increased, merchants realized it would be an
excellent location for a commercial district, and shops were built
along Como Avenue, which was also the route of the streetcar line.
These commercial activities remain, and today a distinctive cluster
of shops serves residents and visitors alike. In addition, as the
twentieth century progressed, several industrial establishments
were located along the railroad tracks that divide Saint Anthony
Park into its northern and southern districts.
North Saint Anthony
Park, or Saint Anthony proper, is one of the most popular residential
areas in the Twin Cities. The steady growth of the university has
drawn students and faculty to this quiet, wooded neighborhood. Residents
have restored most of the older homes.
In 1928, the University
of Minnesota regents set aside a portion of their campus, University
Grove, as a housing area where tenured faculty and staff could build
their own homes. This land is still owned by the university and
leased to the faculty or staff member. Homeowners were required
to engage an architect and the plans of each house had to meet a
set of specifications established by the university. When any houses
were sold they could be purchased only by another tenured faculty
or staff member. Politically a part of Falcon Heights but functionally
part of Saint Paul, University Grove exhibits the range of single-family
architectural styles popular from 1920 to the present - a "showcase
of architectural modernism."
The initial plan for
University Grove was developed in 1929 by the firm of Morell and
Nichols with consulting architects and landscape architects. The
plan was based on the turn-of-the-century concept of large blocks
with open spaces in the center and pathways connecting each residence
with this common open space. However, the narrowness of the sites
and the existing street patterns did not allow the "natural" layout
of streets, as in Saint Anthony Park.
Located to the south
of University Grove on Scudder Street near Blake Avenue are some
of the finest older houses in Saint Anthony Park. Notice as you
go along Scudder that new and old houses are mixed together, the
mix on this street tending toward new housing. Also notice the additions
to some of the houses and the intrusion of two-story apartment buildings.
At the corner of Scudder and Langford is a fine collection of Queen
Anne houses; three are particularly worth study. 2203 was designed
by architect W. A. Hunt for Governor Andrew R. McGill and built
in 1888 by W. P. Hemenway. It was extremely modified in 1930 when
the wrap-around porch on the first floor, the second-story porch
and the carriage house were removed. The house is a typical Queen
Anne style asymmetrical design with a two-story tower sided in clapboard,
as is the rest of the house. Two adjacent houses, 2201 Scudder (1895)
and 2205 Scudder (1887), are variations of the Queen Anne style.
Pay particular attention to 2201 and the old hitching ring still
standing in front of it. The location of these houses on the brow
of the knoll protects them from the deleterious influence of the
apartment houses across the street.
Territorial Road in South
Saint Anthony Park is the last fragment of the road that ran from
the confluence of the Saint Croix and Mississippi rivers at Point
Douglas through the villages of Cottage Grove and Red Rock, through
Saint Paul and on to the Falls of Saint Anthony and up the Mississippi
to Fort Ripley. The rout parallels that of the Red River oxcart
trail, which lies further south. For many years a center of trucking,
this general path has been the primary connection between Saint
Paul and Minneapolis from the days of carts to railroads to trucks.
Merriam Park
In 1882, Merriam Park
was designed as a garden suburb to compete with Saint Anthony Park.
Originally it had a slight advantage over Saint Anthony because
it was closer to the downtowns of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Lying
across Territorial Road on the slope of a picturesque hill overlooking
the river gorge, Merriam Park was a twelve-minute train trip from
either city. Like most suburban developers, Colonel H. John Merriam
planned the suburb to be a home for the wealthy, although he did
not build a suburb in the picturesque style of Cleveland's Saint
Anthony. Deed restrictions provided that no house could be built
for less than $1500.
The land just to the
west and the south of the center of Merriam Park has long been controlled
by the Catholic church. In 1887, a Catholic industrial school was
built on the grounds of what is now the College of Saint Thomas,
near the junction of Cleveland and Summit avenues. The Saint Thomas
Aquinas Seminary was established in 1885, the same year as the incorporation
of Merriam Park and the rest of the Midway area into the city of
Saint Paul. (Special legislation exempted Merriam Park from paying
off existing indebtedness to the city and prohibited saloons and
liquor sales within four miles of Merriam Park.) Two years later,
in 1887, Archbishop John Ireland laid the foundation for the Cathedral
of Saint Paul near the corner of Laurel and Cleveland. Although
the foundation was constructed, the project was abandoned in favor
of the present location.
In 1891, the hopes
of promoters reached a fever pitch when the Minnesota Legislature
decided to build a new state Capitol. While Merriam was a banker
and businessman, his son, William Merriam, was Governor of Minnesota
from 1889 to 1893, so there is some reason to think that Merriam
actually expected that the state Capitol would be located in his
subdivision. Governor William Merriam offered the state a twenty-acre
site on what is now the Town and Country Golf Course. (Built in
1888, Town and Country Club, together with its golf course, is one
of the oldest country clubs in continuous operation in the United
States.) This site was favored by residents of the Midway and many
people in Minneapolis, as well.
The offer was accompanied by
an anonymously published book, entitled The Federal City, which
proposed the unification of Saint Paul and Minneapolis with the
state Capitol, the cathedral and a centralized railroad depot all
located in Merriam Park. The writer and developers of Merriam Park
could not imagine why the Twin Cities should exist as two separate
cities when their stupendous site was available as the state's government
and religious centers. They believed that this area would become
a truly dynamic city center, far from the noise, congestion and
pollution of the industrial and transportation districts surrounding
the old city centers.
In 1893, the legislature
did select a new Capitol location - the present site north of downtown.
Merriam Park was the runner-up. That decision sounded the death
knell for Merriam Park's grandiose plans. The developers reconciled
themselves to the fact that the only extensive non-residential development
would be a small local commercial district.
By 1903, the area
immediately surrounding Merriam Park and one block south of Marshall
Avenue was completely built up. The rest of the district was built
up by 1916. The community remained very stable until the construction
of Interstate Highway 94, which divided Iris Park from Merriam Park
and obliterated the old Merriam Park, commercial district and the
site of the original railroad station that served commuters from
that area. Although the streetscape of Iris Park on Iris Lake has
changed tremendously due to the intrusion of industrial and commercial
uses during the past century, the curved streets still remind us
of the former residential neighborhoods. The bottom of Iris Lake
is now black-topped and has water in it only after a run off; the
lake imagined by the district founders was never to be.
The homes facing the lake are
of a variety of styles, most variations of a simple square house
plan. The older houses all date from the 1890s to the period just
before World War I. Most have been re-sided or have undergone significant
other changes since they were first built. At the corner of Lynnhurst
and Iris Place, one can see the mixture of functions that have come
to characterize this area. There were nursing homes, residential
care units and single-family houses, as well as multi-family units.
The vintage brick structure,
the Crosby Block, on the corner of Saint Anthony and Feronia evokes
an echo of what the commercial district would have looked like in
1900. This building has been greatly modified and now provides homes
for several households.
Nearby, commuters caught their
trains to either Saint Paul or Minneapolis. As we cross over the
freeway going south on Prior Avenue, we go over the old commercial
district. The Telstar Building on the south side of the freeway,
with its modern pink brick siding, is a vestige of the old commercial
district. The street has been greatly widened, which also changes
the character of the neighborhood considerably. To the east are
houses that have undergone considerable renovation and modification.
To the west, is Longfellow School and Merriam Park Community Center,
which provide a strong focus to this community.
At the junction of Prior
and Carroll are a set of houses that typify the kind of building
that took place in this area at the turn of the century. Looking
down Carroll and Prior one can see six or seven different styles
of houses. Most of the original siding has been replaced or covered
over with asbestos or other kinds of siding, however, and large
shade trees have been removed and the gardens changed considerably.
On the north side of Carroll is a particularly good example of the
Queen Anne style, complete with its tall turret. On the right, in
the distance, we can see the impressive spire of Saint Mark's Catholic
Church, which dominates this community. In fact, many people refer
to Merriam Park as Saint Mark's parish.
Although the promoters of Merriam
Park did not achieve their original objective of establishing a
genteel upper-class suburb on the banks of the Mississippi River
gorge, Merriam Park over the years has developed into one of the
city's many middle-class neighborhoods, noted for its strong churches
and active neighborhood organizations.
Macalester Park
The smallest of the western
suburbs built on the edge of Saint Paul was Macalester Park. The
history of this neighborhood is tightly wound up with the evolution
of Macalester College. In 1881, the trustees of Macalester College
bought the farm of Thomas Holyoke. This farm was a quarter section
in size and was bordered by Snelling, Fairview, Saint Clair and
Summit avenues. The trustees paid a good price for it - $150 an
acre - and gave forty acres to Macalester College for a campus.
In 1883 the remaining portion of the farm was then platted as Macalester
Park Addition.
During the following ten years
the promoters sold lots and a small number of houses were built.
They also planted elms along the winding avenues and established
a tradition of maintaining large groves of oak trees in the area.
Macalester Park is exceptional in Saint Paul. Its winding streets,
odd-lot sizes and mixture of housing set it apart from the gridiron
pattern neighborhoods that characterized most Midwestern cities
in the early twentieth century. Contrary to popular mythology, the
curved streets here did not result from the paving over of muddy
cattle trails, and the elegant house designed by Cass Gilbert and
James Knox Taylor located on the corner of Princeton and Cambridge,
famous for its stable and tower, is neither the old farmhouse nor
a converted hunting lodge.
Patterned on the design
of Shaker Heights near Cleveland, Macalester Park is different from
Saint Anthony Park or Merriam Park because it was one of the first
electric streetcar suburbs in the northwest. The streetcar enabled
the middle class to travel to the edge of the city and avail themselves
of recreational opportunities in this bucolic setting: "On holidays
and Sundays, and the long summer evenings, the [street] cars are
crowded with lovers of nature, eager to escape for a little while
from the brick walls and paved streets to breath the pure air of
the country and to wander under green boughs along wooded paths.
It is a very orderly crowd, for there are no amusements - no games
and no saloons - at the end of the route to attract the rough elements
of the city's population." (Northwest Magazine, April 1890)
In 1889, Bishop Ireland
and Thomas Cochrane (one of the founders of Macalester College)
had contracted with the Saint Paul City Railroad Company to build
and equip an extension of the Grand Avenue line from Victoria Street
to Cretin Avenue, serving Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Thomas
College. The promoters of this part of the city agreed to pay the
streetcar line a bonus of $250,000 if it was completed within six
months. Macalester College granted the streetcar company a right-of-way
through its campus and contributed $6,500 to the construction fund.
The new electric line was completed on schedule, and an editorial
in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (February 1890) hailed the technological
improvement, but cautioned readers to be wary when buying land along
the tracks.
Cochrane and others had
hoped that their streetcar-based suburb would boom in response to
the accessible natural environment and the presence of the college.
Naming streets after famous schools, such as Cambridge, Princeton,
Dartmouth, and Amherst, the promoters hoped to attract a large number
of middle-class intellectuals to Macalester Park, providing a large
endowment for Macalester College from lot sales.
Despite the beauty
of the landscape and the presence of the streetcar, the area did
not grow as the original syndicate had projected. Instead, the neighborhood
developed gradually as single houses and occasional duplexes were
built.
The mixture of
houses in Macalester Park, popularly known as Tangle Town, is best
seen along Cambridge Avenue between Grand and Princeton. At the
corner of Lincoln and Cambridge is a 1920s duplex; to the northwest
is an eclectic cube style house built in 1909. Kitty-corner across
the street is another house of the eclectic cube style dating from
1906 and on the southwest corner is a 1920s bungalow (63 Cambridge).
Next to the bungalow is a somewhat newer eclectic cube dating from
around 1914-15. Then at 92 Cambridge we have a newer house with
a distinctive roofline, dating from the 1920s. At 98 Cambridge is
another house in the eclectic cube style. 99 Cambridge is a Dutch
Colonial with extensive grounds and pricket fence. At 105 Cambridge
we see some newer houses dating from the 1920s. At 123 Cambridge
we come to one of the oldest houses in the neighborhood, dating
from the 1890s. Look behind it and you will see a very distinctive
stable. It is worth a short trip down the alley to look at this
interesting structure. On the other side of Cambridge, at 130, there
is an eclectic cube, followed by several 1920s bungalows. The Queen
Anne house at the corner, mentioned earlier, is one of the best
in the neighborhood. It has an exquisite wrought iron fence and
fine stable barn, as well as an excellently tended garden. Notice,
also, the carriage step bearing the name of earlier inhabitants,
the Summers.
At the five-corner intersection,
turning right on Princeton, we see somewhat newer houses. In this
area we get the flavor of the gradual development of Macalester
Park. Fine Federal Revival style houses can be seen along this street,
as well as some excellent Colonial Revival houses, particularly
1743 Princeton.
The oldest building in
the area, visible from Grand Avenue across Macalester College's
mall, is Old Main. Visitors are always welcome on the campus, especially
Mac Alums!
In Conclusion
Saint Paul's residential neighborhoods
did not just happen accidentally. They were born out of the hopes
and dreams of promoters. The Hill District was not the first of
these neighborhoods, although it became the most prestigious. Close
to downtown yet safely removed by geography from the encroachment
of industry and commerce, the Hill District spans the period from
the horsecar to the streetcar, just as developments farther from
the center of Saint Paul depended on transportation for their success.
We've looked at four developments
that represent the major westward expansion of the city from the
post-Civil War period to World War I. Extending outward in other
directions, similar neighborhoods can be discovered - the mark of
a city's development left on the landscape.
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