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Crises and Panics and Mergers and Failures St. Paul's Banks and How

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Crises and Panics and Mergers and Failures St. Paul's Banks and How RAMSEY COUNTY A Memoir: Jimmy Griffin Remembers His Years on the Force A Publication o f the Ramsey County Historical Society Page 13 Volume 36, Number 4 Crises and Panics and Mergers and Failures St. Paul’s Banks and How They Survived 75 Years KC ■ R M iéÊ&i&SiÉÊk wSm The Merchants Bank building under construction at 333 North Robert Street in 1914. Photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. See article beginning on page 4. RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Executive Director Priscilla Famham Editor Virginia Brainard Kunz RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY Volume 36, Number 4 Winter, 2002 BOARD OF DIRECTORS Howard M. Guthmann Chair CONTENTS James Russell 3 Letters President 4 Crises and Panics and Mergers and Failures Marlene Marschall First Vice President St. Paul’s Banks and How They Survived Ronald J. Zweber Their First 75 Years Second Vice President G. Richard Slade Richard A. Wilhoit Secretary 13 A Memoir Peter K. Butler Jimmy Griffin, St. Paul’s First Black Deputy Treasurer Police Chief, Remembers His Years on the Force Charles L. Bathke, W. Andrew Boss, Peter K. Butler, Norbert Conzemius, Anne Cowie, Char­ Jimmy Griffin with Kwame JC McDonald lotte H. Drake, Joanne A. Englund, Robert F. 19 Tubal Cain in New Brighton Garland, John M. Harens, Scott Hutton, Judith Frost Lewis, John M. Lindley, George A. Mairs, The Harris Forge and Rolling Mill Company Richard T. Murphy, Sr., Richard Nicholson, Leo J. Harris Linda Owen, Marvin J. Pertzik, Glenn Wiessner, Laurie Zenner, Ronald J. Zweber. 24 Who Was the Charles E. Flandrau Who Built That House? EDITORIAL BOARD 25 Books John M. Lindley, chair; James B. Bell, Henry Blodgett, Thomas H. Boyd, Thomas C. Buckley, Mark Eisenschenk, Pat Hart, Thomas J. Kelley, Publication of Ramsey County History is supported in part by a gift from Tom Mega, Laurie Murphy, Richard H. Nichol­ Clara M. Claussen and Frieda H. Claussen in memory of Henry H. Cowie, Jr. son, Paul R. Nelson, G. Richard Slade. and by a contribution from the late Reuel D. Harmon HONORARY ADVISORY BOARD Elmer L. Andersen, Olivia I. Dodge, Charlton Dietz, William Finney, William Fallon, Otis Godfrey, Jr., Robert S. Hess, D. W. “Don” Larson, George Latimer, Joseph S. Micallef, Robert Mirick, Marvin J. Pertzik, J. Jerome Plunkett, James Reagan, Rosalie E. Wahl, Donald D. Wozniak. A Message from the Editorial Board n this issue Richard Slade, a former St. Paul bank executive who’s also an historian of Twin RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ICities banking, examines the first seventy-five years of St. Paul’s banks. Slade’s primary focus Commissioner James McDonough, chairman is on the events and maneuvers during the 1920s that led to the formation in early 1929 of the Commissioner Susan Haigh “Minnesota Twins”—Northwest Bancorporation in Minneapolis and the First Bank Stock Group Commissioner Tony Bennett in St. Paul. During the decade of the 1920s, Minnesota banking experienced significant problems Commissioner Rafael Ortega Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt that led to numerous bank failures before the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange in the fall Commissioner Janice Rettman of 1929. As Slade explains, Minnesota’s banking problems of the 1920s produced a “combina­ Commissioner Jan Wiessner tion of enlightened self-interest and fear” that gave rise to the idea of creating a bank holding Paul Kirkwold, manager, Ramsey County company as an institutional bulwark against the growing economical and financial uncertainties of the times. Ramsey County History is published quar­ The Ramsey County Historical Society is also pleased to reprint in this issue an excerpt from terly by the Ramsey County Historical Jimmy Griffin: A Son o f Rondo, A Memoir. In the selection reproduced here, Griffin recounts Society, 323 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth some of his experiences as an African American rejoining the St. Paul police force in 1946, fol­ Street, St. Paul, Minn. 55102 (651-222- lowing his wartime service in the U.S. Navy. This firsthand account tells without editorializing of 0701). Printed in U.S.A. Copyright, 2002, Ramsey County Historical Society. ISSN the racism of that era, Griffin’s effectiveness as an officer and his unflinching determination to Number 0485-9758. AU rights reserved. No make his way on the force on the merits of his performance on the job. part of this publication may be reprinted This issue concludes with another piece of family history from Leo Harris, a local lawyer and or otherwise reproduced without written historian. In a carefully researched account of his family’s iron business, the Harris Forge and permission from the publisher. The Soci­ Rolling Mill Company, in New Brighton in the 1880s and ’90s, Harris gives us a glimpse of the ety assumes no responsibility for statements efforts of a small manufacturing firm to prosper in a rural community on the fringe of St. Paul. made by contributors. Fax 651-223-8539; Despite careful management and a ready market for its iron bar, fire twice destroyed the firm’s e-mail address [email protected].; web site plant and in 1893 doomed the business, bringing hard times to the Harris family and the commu­ address www.rchs.com nity of New Brighton. John M. Lindley, Chair, Editorial Board 2 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Tubal Cain in New Brighton The Harris Forge and Rolling Mill Company1 Leo J. Harris hey were a family of entrepreneurs. tion, was hired to assist in establishing iron. The premises included a total of six Marks Harris (1847-1921) and and operating the new business. acres of land; the main building (380 feet Abraham Harris (1861-1937) emi­ long by 160 feet wide) covered approxi­ T Site for the Mill grated, along with three other brothers mately one acre. A 200-horsepower engine and two sisters, from Russian Poland. Minneapolis investors Thomas Lowry supplied the power. Streets were, finally, Living briefly in Chicago and then in and Charles Pillsbury were among others being graded and along the avenue east Dubuque, Iowa, they finally had settled who acquired 1,000 acres of land in New of the mill houses for the workers were in Minneapolis by the middle 1880s. Brighton in 1887. They organized two planned. Their initial business activity, located at large beef packing houses at the site, and By April of 1891 the rolling mill was 329 Tenth Avenue South, was simply the new Belt Line Railroad was built to near to completion, and there were nearly listed as “junk.”2 An older brother, connect the stockyards with the Min­ fifty carpenters at work on the buildings.7 Moses Harris, remained in Chicago, and nesota Transfer Railroad and the Great Water was an important commodity in founded The Chicago House Wrecking Northern and Northern Pacific.4 This de­ the production of iron. The mills would Company, the world’s largest national velopment provided the impetus for other use fifty gallons of water every minute, wrecker of world’s fairs and expositions. businesses to locate in New Brighton, in day and night—30,000 gallons every ten This Illinois company was also the seller, western Ramsey County. hours. To obtain this water, artesian wells through mail order catalogues, of pre­ The company found ample space for were drilled, and at the time had reached owned building materials.3 operations within the present-day bound­ 300 feet, but with inadequate flow. The Why Abraham and Marks Harris, and aries of New Brighton. Its site was at the company was therefore thinking about their brother-in-law, Abraham Goldman, northeast comer of the intersection of running pipes to Rice Creek, a distance of County Road H and Long Lake Road. At were to conceive of and start an iron about 1,200 feet, and pumping additional the time, however, the location was rolling mill in a northern Twin City sub­ water from there for supplementary uses.8 known far more simply: “located on a urb is not known to surviving family The rolling mill had, by the spring of members, nor is it documented else­ spur of the belt line, about a mile north of 1892, three sources of water: Rice Creek, where. And how these immigrant broth­ the Minneapolis Stock Yards.”5 By the artesian wells, and a system of ers were able to finance building of the wagon, the rolling mill was reached by smaller wells to rely upon in an emer­ rolling mill is also an unanswered ques­ traveling north on Long Lake road. gency. The lake, north of the mill, which tion. However, within a short period of went dry the previous summer, was time (1891-1893) they organized and op­ Building the Facility rapidly filling up with wastewater from erated the Harris Forge and Rolling Mill An early article in the Twin City Live the mill.9 The rolling mill, finally, used Company (the “Company” or the “rolling Stock Reporter provides information an electric motor for pumping water from mill”), a concern which at its height em­ about the construction of the mill.6 The ployed more than 200 workmen, an enor­ framework of the principal building was Rice Creek.10 mous number of employees at the time. heavy timbers; the north half of the build­ The mill was enclosed by a high board This is the story of how that business was ing had a high, arched roof which was fence. As the company had much valu­ established, flourished, and, in the space well arranged for ventilation. The roof able property lying about the works, this of barely two years, twice burned to the was covered with corrugated iron. Water was done to protect the same as well as ground before it forever closed its doors.
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