Summer, 1990 Volume 25, Number 2

FOB WEB HONOB’S SAKE. There are cases where a, hrothflr must interfere in his sister’s affairs. An acid commentary on the Great Census War o f 1890 and the rivalries which have colored the history of St. Paul and Minneapolis. See page 4. RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Executive Director Daniel J. Hoisington Editor Virginia Brainard Kunz

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS CONTENTS Gregory K. Page Chairman o f the Board 3 Letters William S. Fallon President . 4 An Excess of Zeal and Boosterism— Richard Lee Few Holds Barred in Twin Cities Rivalries First Vice President Virginia Brainard Kunz Anne Cowie Wilson Second Vice President 9 The Mississippi at St. Paul— Robert Hess Playground on the City’s Door Step Secretary Thomas B. Mega James P. Wicker Treasurer 12-13 Mapping Minnesota: 1697 to 1857 John Costello, Joanne Englund, Deborah 19 Lillie and Ida at the Fair Gelbach, Joan Grzywinski, Lorraine Hammerly, Craig Jilk, John M. Lindley, Karen Bluhm Frank Marzitelli, Dr. Thomas B. Mega, Richard T. Murphy, Sr., Marvin Pertzik, 20 Book Reviews Douglas Skor, Robert O. Straughn, Stephen Urion, Gary Woeltge, Laurie Zenner. 21 A Matter of Time EDITORIAL BOARD 23 What’s Historic About This Site? John M. Lindley, chairman; Thomas H. Ramsey County’s ‘Poor Farm’ Barn- Boyd, Thomas C. Buckley, Charlton Dietz, Remnant of a Rural Past Craig Jilk, Thomas J. Kelley, Dr. Thomas B. Mega. Publication of Ramsey County History is supported RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISSIONERS in part by a grant from the Grotto Foundation Commissioner Hal Norgard, chairman and a gift from Clara M. Claussen and Frieda H. Claussen Commissioner Diane Ahrens in memory of Henry H. Cowie, Jr. Commissioner John Finley Commissioner Ruby Hunt Commissioner Duane McCarty Commissioner Don Salverda Commissioner Warren Schaber Terry Schütten, executive director, Ramsey A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS County Ramsey County History is published quarterly by the Ramsey County Historical Society, n May, 1988, the Board of Directors of the Ramsey County 323 Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth Street, I Historical society decided that they should develop a plan to St. Paul, Minn. 55102. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright, 1990, Ramsey County Historical broaden the appeal of Ramsey County History, redesign it, expand its Society. ISSN Number 0485-9758. All rights coverage of the history of the county, and publish the magazine four reserved. No part of this publication may be times each year. reprinted or otherwise reproduced without written permission from the publisher. In bringing change to the look of Ramsey County History, the Design by: Don Leeper, Stanton Publication Editorial Board has tried to make sure that the strengths in content Services; Little & Company and features of its predecessors have not been abandoned. Thus we On the cover: The United States census of 1890 sparked virtual warfare in the unceasing have the good fortune to be able to publish carefully researched and rivalry between Minneapolis and St. Paul. well written articles on a wide range of topics associated with the This cartoon was published in the St. Paul News for June 28, 1890. colorful history of Ramsey County. And we have added new features, such as “A Matter of Time” and “What’s Historic About This Site?”. Acknowledgements: All photographs used in this issue of Ramsey County History, as well Throughout this process, the goal always has remained to produce as the maps on pages 12 and 13 are from the the best possible magazine on the history of Ramsey County with the audio-visual and the map collections of the Minnesota Historical Society. widest appeal within the resources available. The Editorial Board believes this new format meets those objectives. We hope you agree. —John L. Lindley, chairman, Editorial Board

2 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY A Matter of Time

1850 140 Years Ago Pleasure Seekers in Its Cabins.” Then a which owns the C.B. & Northern, also tornado that cut a swath through Gervais, are large holders of Great Northern ►Water Street in St. Paul, the editor of Snail, Turtle and Kohlman lakes almost stock.” the Minnesota Pioneer observed in July wiped out Little Canada. ►A trio of reporters set out to explore of 1850, “like the equinoctial line, is rath­ ►The National Education Association the prevalence of opium dens in St. Paul er imaginary, being principally in the held its 34th annual session at the Peo­ and the Minnesota Supreme Court decid­ channel of the river at the foot of the ple’s Church in St. Paul. Papers included ed that a man couldn’t divorce his wife on bluff.” The first actual street in town par­ “Examinations as Tests for Promotion” the grounds that she is a kleptomaniac. allel to the river, he pointed out for those and “The Effects of Kindergarten Train­ ►Frances Willard of the Women’s who wondered, is Bench Street on the ing on Primary Work.” Archbishop John Christian Temperance Union lectured in bluff and the next, parallel to the river, is Ireland’s address attracted an immense St. Paul on the sanctity of the home, Third Street. audience. He favored public schools but along with a program on “The Moral Val- ►Benj. F. Irvine had problems of his insisted on separate religious instruction. ue of Art Education.” own. In a published notice he said that his The Reverend Dr. Rufus C. Burleson, wife, Teresa J. “refuses henceforth to President of Baylor University, Waco, 1915 75 Years Ago live with me and has left my bed and Texas, advocated corporal punishment board . . . and I therefore forbid all ►Things were quiet around St. Paul dur­ in the colleges “as a means of grace and persons from harboring or trusting her on ing the mid-summer of 1915. The Fourth a method of preventure from riot and my account, as I shall [honor] no debts of of July ushered in the summer season and wrong-doing.” Baylor’s president for her contracting. . . . brought on a spate of social news head­ thirty-nine years, Burleson said he’d had ►St. Anthony and St. Paul citizens lined “Country Homes and Lakes to no student strikes or riots during his gathered at 10 a.m. July 4 for a celebra­ Claim Society.” Mr. and Mrs. Roger S. tenure. tion at St. Anthony Falls. Festivities in­ Kennedy, Jr., were visiting Mrs. Kenne­ ►Elsewhere, the hotel, pavilion and cluded music by the Sixth Regimental dy’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Clarence H. boat house at Lake Elmo were destroyed Band, reading of the Declaration of Inde­ Johnston, at Casco Point, Lake Min­ by fire, a $45,000 loss. Roomers and pendence, an oration “replete with origi­ netonka, and Mary Livingston of Sum­ boarders, “the wealthy of St. Paul,” lost nal thought and powerful illustration” by mit Avenue and Cable, Wisconsin, $10,000 to $15,000 in jewelry, clothing, W. H. Welch, Esq., dinner at the St. planned to join her mother, Mrs. Craw­ furniture and fishing tackle. Charles Hotel, a steamboat excursion ford Livingston, at their summer home. ►Business reporters suggested a future and a ball. ►The Willis-Overland Company an­ alliance between the Great Northern and ►Sergeant E. K. Thomas of Fort Snell- nounced plans to build a $250,000 west- Chicago, Burlington and Northern rail­ ing raffled off “two very superb paint­ roads. The Pioneer Press pointed out that ings” of the celebrated Sioux warrior, “heavy holders of stock in the C.B.& Q. The Lake Gervais tornado, usually re­ Wah-ah-cor-dah, and a Sioux woman ferred to as a cyclone, July 13, 1890, as known as We-no-na. seen from St. Paul. ►The steamboat, Anthony Wayne, with seventy ladies and gentlemen, ascended the St. Peter (Minnesota) river, “mean­ dering a boundless extent of plains” and proving that the river was navigable for light draught steamboats for 150 miles. 1890 100 Years Ago ►July was a month of disasters. On July 15 the vessel, Sea Wing, capsized off Lake City during a storm on Lake Pepin. It became, in the words of the headline writer, a “Floating Sepulcher for the

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 21 em distributing center in the Midway, pealed to the Nazis for help to save his lips, Wisconsin; and the charming Can­ and Bingham and Norton, successors to kingdom, tried to abdicate. A Pioneer terbury Downs race track. the Central Automobile Agency, opened Press editorial labeled him an “oppor­ The firm is currently responsible for “one of the largest garages in the North­ tunist” who backed the wrong side. the new Minnesota History Center in St. west” at Grand and Victoria avenues. It ►The first German and Italian prisoners Paul, giving us the prospect of two of the cost $25,000. of war began arriving in Canada but more great celebrations of the human spirit ris­ ►25,000 people attended the Fourth of than 1,000 died when a German U-boat ing in one structure. July celebration at Como Park, and in sank the British steamer, Arandora Little Canada, A Voyageur’s Europe, a Russian submarine torpedoed Starr, off the Irish west coast. Vision. a German warship of the Deutschland ►Back in St. Paul, merchants and thea­ class at the entrance to Danzig Bay. ter operators began collecting new taxes Gareth D. Heibert, editor. ►A German note defending the torpedo­ levied by the federal government as part Stillwater: The Croixside Press, ing of the Luisitania on May 12 was pub­ of the national defense program. Inc., 1989. lished on the front page of the July 10 Pi­ Twenty-five-cent theater tickets rose to he Little Canada Historical Society, oneer Press. 28 cents and 40-cent tickets to 44 cents. Tunder the guidance of Johanna ►In Glen Cove, Long Island, Frank ► Major Bowes brought his Anniversary Meath, has produced a handsome history Holt attempted to assassinate J. P. Mor­ Unit to the RKO Orpheum theater in con­ of their community and its development: gan but succeeded only in wounding him. junction with “Twenty Mule Team,” the story of “Petit Canada.” This story is Holt was holding Morgan’s wife and chil­ Wallace Beery’s latest film. “Rececca,” told as the combination of many stories dren hostage and threatening to kill them with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Oliver, written by many authors. One of the with dynamite unless Morgan used his in­ was playing at the Strand. unique elements of the book is that fami­ fluence to stop the exportation of war mu­ ►Two members of St. Paul’s royal fam­ lies wrote their own chapters, bringing nitions. Vice President Thomas R. Mar­ ily (Winter Carnival royalty, that is) an immediacy and pride to their work. shall also received death threats. A bomb celebrated birthdays at the summer home For example, we learn about Paul and exploded in the reception room ofl" the of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Shiely at Pres­ Louis Bideau. Louis had nine children Senate chamber within a few feet of Mar­ cott, Wisconsin. They were Mrs. Shiely, and accepted Paul’s offer to move in with shall’s desk. Secret Service surveillance whose husband was King Boreas, and him in 1847. But, they didn’t get along of President Wilson was stepped up. Holt JosephL. Shiely, Jr. Others present were and Louis moved out to a barn, which he himself died in jail of a fractured skull. Mrs. W. J. Hickey and her husband, fixed up. Or the tale of Salvatore LoBai- His death, termed “a riddle,” was marked Winter Carnival Association president, do. As a boy, he visited Italy with his down as a suicide. and Mrs. Ernest Reiff and her husband, family. “You will know Grandma Vi­ 1940 50 Years Ago who was Vulcan. tale,” his father said. “She is a short lady ►At the Democratic Party convention Book Reviews from page 20 wearing black.” Many of the older wom­ held in July in Chicago, President knew almost everything about architec­ en, he said, ended up being short and Roosevelt announced that he would run ture and should control our own destiny.” wearing black and he hugged the wrong for a third term against Wendell Willkie. Hammel’s account, told from the per­ grandma. ►Newspaper columnist Joseph H. Ball spective of a family member, is filled The starting point for the story, described Minnesota Governor Harold with charming anecdotes like this one. though, must begin with Benjamin Ger- Stassen’s pivotal role in helping Willkie They put a human face on the grand scale vais, the founder of Little Canada. Gary win the Republican nomination in in which architecture works. Brueggeman authored the long chapter Philadelphia and praised Stassen’s “great Working in a historical society, I am on Gervais, who bought land along a keynote speech.” quick to recognize that buildings are one creek in 1844, apparently based on a ►The newspapers were full of war news of the most important common threads recommendation from local Indians. His from Europe. The Nazis sent a large fleet that join generations. The work of one brother, Pierre, moved there two years of German bombers to Rumania, generation lives on through hundreds of later. His grave is marked in St. John’s strengthening the feeling that the Reich years, proving true the advice of John cemetery. On a local level, it becomes was backing Rumania against further Ruskin: “Build as if it would last for­ clear that one man and his choices can Russian encroachments after the Russi­ ever.” have a significant effect on history. ans seized Bessarabia and Bukovina. At The work of Hammel Green and The Society is to be commended for its the same time, the Germans ordered Abrahamson has shaped life in the Twin hard work. The sections on local American and other diplomatic missions Cities for the last thirty-five years and churches, clubs, and civic organizations to leave newly-occupied Norway, Bel­ their work will last for many more. In make it a valuable tool for anyone want­ gium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. reviewing some of their projects, I was ing to learn about the community today. ►Jews were beaten and shot in a wave of struck by the inventiveness and beauty of But as historians, we know that any un­ anti-Semitism as street rioting broke out the St. Bede’s Priory, completed in 1967; derstanding must begin in the past. in Rumania. King Carol, who had ap­ the Phillips Plastic Headquarters in Phil­ —Daniel John Hoisington

22 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY The Minnesota Boat Club below the Wabasha Street bridge around 1890. The old club­ house was replaced just before World War I and the island, once known as Raspberry Is land, is now Navy Island. See story on Page 9.

NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION U.S. Postage PAID Published by the Ramsey County Historical Society St. Paul MN Permit #3989 323 Landmark Center 75 West Fifth Street Saint Paul, Minnesota 55102