Nonbasic Commercial Development - Anoka: Downtown at its peak during the late railroad era.
Downtown Anoka, 1896. Notice the wooden sidewalks and smooth dirt roads. Anoka was on the up. |
By the 1880s, the adolescent CBD began to take on the formal urban grid pattern. At its height, during the later stages of the Railroad Era (ca. 1890-1920), downtown Anoka housed a competitive lower-order commercial marketplace, complete with multiple grocery stores, dairies, hardware stores, dry goods stores, drug stores, stables, as well as multiple saloons and restaurants. No neighboring town or community could compete with the strength and diversity of its marketplace. Anoka was the “shopping center” of the immediate region. The transportation network dominated rail and unpaved hard-to-traverse wagon trails made the establishment of a competing commercial center essentially impossible. Downtown Minneapolis was far larger and had many more services and amenities to offer, however the trip was too inconvenient for every day shopping and business transactions. Before the end of the 19th century, the commercial wealth from industrial activity became apparent in the downtown’s landscape. Downtown boasted a permanent brick courthouse, its own branch of the National Bank, an upscale hotel, and an opera house. Middle-class and upper-middle class neighborhoods developed adjacent to downtown and along the river. |
"Woment Crusadors" protest against an Anoka Saloon, 1878 |
Anoka hardware store, 1888 |
