St. Paul’s historic Landmark Center was completed in 1902. Originally, the building served as the United States Post Office, Court House, and Custom House. It was designed by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, who served as Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department in 1891-92. The exterior is pink granite ashlar with a hipped red tile roof, steeply pitched to shed St. Paul’s snows and enlivened by numerous turrets, gables and dormers with steeply peaked roofs; cylindrical corner towers with conical turrets occupy almost every change of projection. There are two massive towers, one of which houses a clock. The interior features a five-story courtyard with skylight and rooms with 20-foot ceilings, appointed with marble and carved mahogany and oak finishes.
The old courthouse played host to an elaborate cast of characters. John Dillinger’s girlfriend Mary Evelyn “Billie” Frechette, Alvin Karpis, “Doc” Barker and other members of the Barker-Karpis gang were tried in the building when it served as a federal courthouse. Judges Walter Henry Sanborn and John B. Sanborn, Jr. kept their chambers here while they served on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun worked in the building as a law clerk to the younger Sanborn from 1932-33. Landmark Center was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and reopened to the public after a comprehensive renovation 1978.
