Sun on the Selby Theater
Built in 1911 this old place at 989 Selby was St. Paul’s first theater designed for motion pictures. The building was listed as the Selby Theatre in the 1915 St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press Almanac. In 1918 the city granted R. J. Howden a license to “Conduct a Motion Picture Theater” in the [...]
The Spangenberg Residence Then and Now
Built in 1864, the yellow limestone walls of the Frederick Spangenberg House’l came from banks of the Mississippi River. The rocks were hauled up on a sled by oxen. Frederick Spangenberg was a German immigrant dairy farmer. His 80-acre farm become the best part of Saint Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. The house was occupied [...]
The Church of the Assumption Then and Now
The Church of the Assumption was founded by Bishop Joseph Cretin in 1856. The original church, known as the Feast of the Assumption was just north of the present site. The congregation, made up of immigrants from Germany outgrew their original building, and work began on the new church in 1871. The Romanesque [...]
The Youngest Old Building in Minneapolis
The Young Quinlan Building was designed by Magney and Tusler with Frederick Ackerman. Miss Quinlan spared no expense when building her elegant five-story building at the corner of Nicollet Mall and Ninth Street. She sought out an architect that would design her “home” with an Old World atmosphere. The building’s dedication ceremony and open [...]
Suffering MWSA Suffragettes
From 1881 to 1920, the Minnesota Woman Suffrage Association (MWSA) struggled to secure women’s right to vote. The association’s members organized marches, wrote petitions and letters, gathered signatures, gave speeches, and published pamphlets in an effort to force the Minnesota legislature to recognize their right to vote. Between 1893 amendment, the movement placed women’s [...]
The Tower.
The Tower is almost always considered an ill omen and usually follows The Devil around in the decks that contain it. The card was used in a variety early European printed tarot. Many designs depicted nude or scantily clad people fleeing burning buildings and lightning. The Tower’s imagery is probably a reference the Tower of [...]
The Pantages
The Minneapolis Pantages Theater opened as a vaudeville house in 1916. The original, Beaux-Arts style building, designed by the Minneapolis architectural firm of Kees and Colburn was originaly operated by Winnipeg theater tycoon, Alexander Pantages’ entertainment consortia. At the height of his empire, the Greek immigrant owned and operated 84 theaters in the United States [...]
Back When Minneapolis Was A Big City
Minneapolis was a bigger place when these postcards came out. The population of Minnesota’s largest city has declined by almost 140,000 souls since climbing to a peak of 521,718 in 1950. In the middle of the last century, approximately 70.0% of the metropolitan area’s population was concentrated in the city limits of St. Paul [...]
There is only one in Minneapolis…
There’s only one girl in Minneapolis and two or three in Saint Paul I knew a girl in Robbinsdale, but she was too tall There’s only one girl in Minneapolis I don’t know any in Golden Valley There’s one out in Edina, my sister Sally There’s only one in Minneapolis She’s all I need to [...]
The Loeb Arcade
The four story Loeb Building at 7 5th street was built by Samuel Loeb in 1915. The building was designed by Chicago architect Henry Ottenhiemer. The Loeb’s three story shopping arcade arcade had room for 90 shops inside a curving skylit gallery clad in gleaming terra-cotta tiles. In 1920 the building was remodeled [...]
Chicago and Franklin Then and Now
Looking at these photos, it’s hard to believe how much has changed on this busy corner in South Minneapolis. I don’t remember when the Chef Cafe finally went under, but I’ll never forget watching the great Timothy Kerr and his doppelgänger devouring those wings every fifteen minutes, after midnight on Channel 23. In my opinion, [...]
Swell Shopping at Southdale
Groundbreaking for Southdale took place in 1954. 800 construction workers were used to build the two-story, 800,000 ft shopping mall. When it was completed two years later at a cost of cost twenty million dollars, the mall had 5,200 parking spaces and room for 72 tenants. Southdale was developed by the Dayton’s and their [...]
The Church of Saint Agnes Then and Now
The third church built on this site since 1887, The Church of Saint Agnes was completed in 1912. The style of the church was familiar to people who came from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire and southern Germany. The architect, George Ries, and the pastor, Father John Solnce, with the board of trustees chose as [...]
Getting with the Program at Lake Harriet
After his amazing Pagoada Pavilion burned to the ground in 1903, The Park Board decided to give architect, Harry W. Jones another try. This time his pavilion was designed in the Classic Revival style. Affectionately known as “The Pavilion”, the facility featured two levels with changing rooms, a restaurant and lower level refreshment [...]
Parking Lots, Skyways and Nicollet Mall
After half of downtown was razed in the early 1960′s, efforts were made to help Minneapolis compete with the growing suburbs for retail dollars. It was hoped that acres of surface parking created by urban renewal would appeal to shoppers, but just in case that didn’t bring them in, the city took a chance [...]
