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Cherokee Investment Services, BankCherokee and Securities America are separate companies. - Not FDIC Insured - No Bank Guarantees - May Lose Value - Not Insured By Any Government Agency - Not Bank Deposits Welcome to the 13th Annual West End Neighbors’ Garden and History Tour Guidelines for enjoyment and safety on our tour: per the CDC and MN Department of Health • All gardens are to be viewed from the sidewalk and not entered unless invited. • Masks and social distancing required. Eight Uppertown Gardens on an 1883 Map1 • Interiors of homes are not on the tour; restrooms 1 218 Goodrich Avenue: page 28 and refreshments are not 2 183 Goodrich Avenue: page 43 provided. 3 178 Goodrich Avenue: page 11 • Pets and insect repellents are 4 112 Leech Street: page 13 & 66 not permitted. 5 169 Goodrich Avenue: page 66 • Tours are today only, 6 151 Goodrich Avenue: page 11 10 a.m.–2 p.m. 7 156 McBoal Street: page 67 8 170 McBoal Street: page 21 We Live in Amazing West End Neighborhoods As you wander these neighborhoods, perhaps Uppertown Gardens from the High Bridge.1894 photo by William G Wall of MNHS. you wonder how the neighborhoods themselves came to be? Each year the gardens motivate us to wonder as well. They reflect a unique pattern of development, cultural roots as well as entrepreneurial spirit. As with garden tours of the past twelve years, we’ve attempted to bring to light not only each neighborhood’s uniqueness but also residential homes, businesses, and communities that were their product, told in stories that may seem disconnected but have built an identity that its residents cherish. This capstone history extends from Jefferson Avenue to Rice Park, an area that included John Irvine’s original claim of 300 acres at the Upper Landing. Parallel to the Mississippi River, the plateau of West End is arguably the founding center of not only Fort Road/West Seventh Street but also the Township/City of Saint Paul and Terrirory/State of Minnesota. This year, West End Neighbors’ Garden Tour celebrates eight gardens in a few lovely bluff-blocks of Uppertown. In the 1860s, it bridged wealthier developments of Irvine Park and even West Seventh Street to immigrant farms farther west. The concentrated area is easily walkable; let your footsteps and imagination wander back to the Nineteeth Century origins--to those who gardened and built their homes in this neighborhood. | 1 West End Neighbors Historically our West End community of countrymen had already preceded him and the neighborhoods has been built with diverse neighborhood he vacated was promptly filled by “new’ constituencies. immigrants.“2 As documented in our first six histories, the stretch The West End experience reflected the national of Fort Road/West Seventh Street, from Fort Snelling experience. Foreign-born populations increased to the Upper Landing, was an unpopulated forested exponentially until the First World War, 1914–18. marsh above the bluffs. Its geology or “lay of the land” “Two powerful forces have been at work since that set the stage of its history. Native Americans traded time, however, which have changed the complexion along its waterways for centuries before the arrival of cities as regards foreign-born population. One of Europeans in the mid-1600s. For nearly 200 years force was the World War, which prior to 1920 drew afterward, the fur trade dominated commerce with a stream of foreigners of military age back to their European American traders. native countries to enter war service. The second With the advent of American control, the first was the restriction of immigration following the war, “claims” were made by French-Canadian refugees with the consequent radical decrease in the number from Fort Snelling. They were soon displaced by of new arrivals… Another recent influence which entrepreneurs from New England, then by waves of undoubtedly had its effect on the shift in foreign- German, Slavic, and Italian immigrants among others. born population was the devaluation of the American They built their homes, businesses, and organizations dollar. By reason of this, many immigrants returned through common languages and cultures, with a desire to their native countries where they could maintain to succeed and Old World talent. Not only were there themselves in greater security or where they could care corner stores but also corner churches. for their dependents remaining on native soil to greater “Until recent years, the history of the immigrant in advantage.”3 German immigrant language, culture, America followed a more or less stereotyped routine. and prominence also suffered as a consequence of Upon taking up his residence in a strange city, he Germany’s role and defeat in both the World Wars. first sought a colony of his own nationality-usually Small businesses lined the arteries of the West End in the poorer districts of the city. He read a foreign- that supported nineteenth and twentieth century language newspaper, attended church in which the lives. Riverside commerce and employment included services were given in his native tongue and identified transportation (stage coach, steamship, railroad, himself as closely as possible with his own ethnic highway); meat, dairy, and brewery industries; group. As his material fortunes increased, however, entertainment venues, etc. that continue into the and he learned the common language, his tendency twenty-first century. Since the well-to-do only briefly was to establish himself and his family in better called the West End home in the later 1800s, working surroundings. Accordingly, he moved to a district of class stability remained even as demographics changed higher residential values where his more prosperous within its boundaries. The settlers that founded the West End have a wonderful history that exemplifies the Great Melting Pot, the national metaphor of cultural fusion of its immigrant groups. This capstone history is their story as well as the origin story of Irvine Park and the Upper Landing, of Fort Road/ West Seventh, of the Town/City of Saint Paul, and of the Territory/ State of Minnesota. 2 | WEST END NEIGHBORS Métis/French Canadian Settlement 1800: A Tale of Two Towns and Twin Ports; Lower and Upper Landings “… there were two distinct towns, Upper and Lower, and there was almost as much rivalry and prejudice between them as exists today between St. Paul and our sister city (Minneapolis). Lower town was nestled away in the hills near the foot of Jackson street, while Upper town began at the upper steamboat landing and had its center near the Seven Corners.”4 The riverfront of the City of Saint Paul in the mid- and settlement of Minnesota. Prominent place names 1800’s would be unrecognizable to us today. Before throughout Minnesota recognize their descendants the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters, before Plympton drove and contributions. settlers off Fort Snelling’s military reservation, the land In 1805, after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, had no inhabitants. There were two breaks in the bluffs Lieutenant Zebulon Pike explored the Northwest along the river that would become the Lower and Territory and negotiated an agreement with the Upper Landings. The lower was an outlet for Phelan Dakota to acquire land—even though he had no and Trout Creeks; the upper drained the bluffs above. authority to do so. The areas included 100,00 acres at Ten miles of forested bluffs lined the Mississippi Bdote including the West End, as well as 51,000 acres River between Bdote, the confluence of the Minnesota at the St. Croix River. and Mississippi Rivers, south to the first Dakota Resolution of the War of 1812 between the U.S. Village of Kaposia next to Wakan Tipi/Carver’s Cave and England defined the Canadian-U.S. border. below Dayton’s Bluff/Mounds Park. The plateaus above A series of American forts governed the area, the bluffs were marshland with many streams feeding regulated trade, mediated between native tribes, the Mississippi. Outside of Dakota ownership the area and restricted settlement until permitted by treaties. lacked “legal” property borders that could facilitate Initially called Fort St. Anthony, Fort Snelling was built property sale and transfer to those outside of native between 1820 and 1825 at Bdote. Its garrison included communities. soldiers’ families and slaves and attracted a diverse In the 1600s, French explorers, traders, and population of Dakota and Ojibwe natives, traders, as missionaries came to the Midwest via Canada and well as settlers who began to establish farms in support the Great Lakes. Not only did the native hunter- of the growing American presence. This diverse gatherer way of life change with “Western” trade population would soon be evicted and forced to settle goods, but the impact of intermarriage extended the area of the Upper and Lower Landings and “found” beyond genetics. Their offspring, the Métis, would the City of Saint Paul.