Minnesota Gardens: An Illustrated History ...And More Books Page 33 Fall, 1996 Volume 31, Number 3 Fires, Hurricanes, Diamonds, Elephants St. Paul Companies’ Colorful History Page 3

Shadowed by an approaching thunderstorm, this is the pioneer community of St. Paul as it looked in 1853. The painting is a portion of the St. Paul Compa­ nies’panorama that has been reproduced for the insert in this issue. Designed for the company's entrance hall by Twin Cities artist Ken Moylan and painted by muralist Mike Bolen, it was photographed for Ramsey County History by George Heinrich. For a new history of the company, see page 3. RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Executive Director Priscilla Famham Editor Virginia Brainard Kunz

RAMSEY COUNTY Volume 31, Number 3 Fall, 1996 HISTORICAL SOCIETY BOARD OF DIRECTORS Joanne A. Englund Chairman o f the Board John M. Lindley President CONTENTS Laurie Zennef First Vice President 3 Fires, Hurricanes, Diamonds, Elephants Judge Margaret M. Marrinan Second Vice President St. Paul Companies’ Colorful History Richard A. Wilhoit Virginia Brainard Kunz Secretary James Russell Insert: A Panorama of St. Paul in 1853 Treasurer Arthur Baumeister, Jr., Alexandra Bjorklund, 33 B ooks Andrew Boss, Thomas Boyd, Mark Minnesota Gardens: An Illustrated History Eisenschenk, Howard Guthmann, John Harens, Marshall Hatfield, Liz Johnson, George A. Susan Davis Price Mairs, Mary Bigelow McMillan, Laurie Also in Print: Murphy, Richard T. Murphy, Sr., Thomond O’Brien, Robert Olsen, Vicenta Scarlett, The four-volume “emigrant” series by Vilhelm Moberg. Evangeline Schroeder, Charles Williams, Jr., The Rotary Club of Saint Paul, 1910-1995 Anne Cowie Wilson. by John M. Turcotte EDITORIAL BOARD The French Pioneers of Minnesota by Henry Scholberg. John M. Lindley, chairman; Thomas H. Boyd, Thomas C. Buckley, Pat Hart, The Grand Portage Story by Carolyn Gilman, Laurie M. Murphy, Vicenta Scarlett. with research by Alan Woolworth HONORARY ADVISORY BOARD Elmer L. Andersen, Olivia I. Dodge, Charlton Publication of Ramsey County History is supported Dietz, William Finney, Clarence Frame, Otis in part by a gift from Clara M. Claussen and Frieda H. Claussen Godfrey, Jr., Ronald Hachey, Robert S. Hess, Ronald M. Hubbs, Fred T. Lanners, Jr., Don in memory of Henry H. Cowie, Jr., and by a contribution Larson, George Latimer, David Marsden, from Reuel D. Harmon. Joseph S. Micaleff, Robert B. Mirick, Samuel H. Morgan, Marvin J. Pertzik, J. Jerome Plunkett, James Reagan, Solly Robins. A Message from the Editorial Board Rosalie E. Wahl, Donald D. Wozniak.

RAMSEY COUNTY COMMISIONERS hanks to the suggestion of Ramsey County Historical Society board mem­ Commissioner Hal Norgard, chairman Tber Thomond O’Brien, this issue of Ramsey County History carries a most Commissioner Susan Haigh unusual feature: a full-color fold-out reproduction of the mural in the entrance Commissioner John Finley Commissioner Rafael Ortega hall of The St. Paul Companies. This mural depicts St. Paul and the surrounding Commissioner Richard O’Connor Commissioner Brenda Thomas area in 1853, the year when the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company Commissioner Richard Wedell opened for business. Terry Schütten, manager, Ramsey County The panoramic reproduction accompanies a fascinating history of The St. Paul Companies from its origins in 1853 to the present day, which has been Ramsey County History is published quarterly by the Ramsey County Historical Society, 323 written by Virginia Brainard Kunz. This history shows the complex interaction Landmark Center, 75 W. Fifth Street, St. Paul, between the people who led The St. Paul Companies, the local community, and Minn. 55102 (612-222-0706). Printed in U.S.A. Copyright, 1996, Ramsey County His­ the wider world of American business over the past 140 some years. torical Society. ISSN Number 0485-9758. All With the Fall issue we hope our readers will not only enjoy learning more rights reserved. No part of this publication about St. Paul’s oldest business corporation, but also tear out the mural from the may be reprinted or otherwise reproduced without written permission from the pub­ center of this magazine and display it as a keepsake of an earlier time in our lisher. The Society assumes no responsibility local history. In November RCHS will open a photo exhibit tracing The St. Paul for statements made by contributors. Companies’ history in our exhibit area on the first floor of Landmark Center. Typesetting and layout by Stanton Publica­ tion Services, Inc.; text printing by Sexton John M. Lindley, Chair, Editorial Board Printing, Inc.

2 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Fires, Hurricanes, Diamonds, Elephants The Colorful History of St. Paul Companies Minnesota’s Oldest Business Corporation

Virginia Brainard Kunz

MINNESOTA TERRITORY mate was universally believed to be newspaper, advised settlers to “bring was barely three months old, its capital a semi-arctic a large part of the year; its along tents and bedding. .. as it is utterly “little hamlet of bark-roofed cabins” strag­ population little more than 1,000; and the impossible to hire a building in any part gling along a magnificent eighty-foot bluff land west of the Mississippi, not yet open of the village, although builders are at arising from the Mississippi, when to settlement, was inhabited by bands of work in every direction completing Alexander Wilkin stepped off a steamboat Dakota, Winnebago, and Ojibwe. houses.” Indeed, by April piles of lumber that docked at St. Paul in June, 1849. With the passage of the law creating and building materials were lying about Four years later he would found, with the Territory of Minnesota in the spring the streets “everywhere in admirable sixteen other far-sighted entrepreneurs, of 1849, settlers poured into St. Paul as confusion.” Houses and hotels went up in the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance soon as the ice was out of the river. The a few days’ time. (The quality of con­ Company, Minnesota’s oldest business boom was on. Steamboat after steamboat struction was something else again. corporation, and become its first presi­ disgorged the newcomers at the levee at Many were firetraps.) dent. It was a bold move. Minnesota in the foot of Jackson Street. Food and Such chaos naturally generated its those years was on the near edge of a lodging were scarcely to be found. The own problems. Law and order were a frontier that spread to the Pacific. Its cli- Minnesota Pioneer, the Territory’s first sometime thing. As historian J. Fletcher

St. Paul in 1857, four years after the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company was founded. This shows the Catholic School on Market Street (far left); the long, low Market House beyond it; the Territorial and first state Capitol, with its dome and four columns (center, back), and Central Presbyterian Church to the right of the Capitol. B. S. Upton photo from the Minnesota Historical Society.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 3 United States Infantry, he was sent with The records are silent as to what drew his regiment to Mexico where they be­ Wilkin and his fellow risk-takers to the came part of General Zachary Taylor’s insurance business, but it is likely that command. common sense suggested a favorable After war ended, Wilkin resisted the juncture of circumstances. The commu­ lure of the California gold fields and de­ nity’s first fire, in 1850, burned down the cided on the newly-minted Territory of small frame chapel, known as the First Minnesota instead. Prudently, he paved Presbyterian Church, that faced Rice the way by lining up support for an ap­ Park. In the next several years, Territorial pointment as secretary of the Territory. newpapers were laced with accounts of Letters on his behalf went to President increasingly serious fires, as well as re­ Taylor’s vice president, Millard Fill­ ports that many of the buildings were not more, and to Thomas Ewing, secretary of insured. what is now the Department of the Inte­ Settlers who did have insurance rior. Fillmore appointed him to the posi­ bought it through local representatives of tion in 1851 when he became president eastern companies, but there was a prob­ after Taylor died in office. Wilkin’s lem with communication. When stage­ brother, Wescott, also settled in Min­ coaches and steamboats ran only during nesota and became a distinguished St. the warm months and the river was Alexander Wilkin Paul judge. frozen over all winter, a hapless property Alexander Wilkin apparently plunged owner could wait months to settle a Williams wrote, “The rush of immigra­ wholeheartedly into the life of his new claim. Over and above all that was the tion and the fast habits induced by the community. Like many of those other in­ undeniable fact that eastern companies— speculative era brought to our city num­ trepid entrepreneurs who saw opportu­ ’’foreign” companies, in effect—drained bers of thieves, gamblers and other nity written across the face of the new money from the Territory. abandoned characters. For several Territory, he wore several hats. He was a Wilkin, who was practicing law in St. weeks during the summer, crime was rampant.” There was at least one shoot­ out in the streets. They were energetic men with imagination On the other hand, a wide-open terri­ tory on the verge of settlement beckoned and vitality: merchants, hankers, fur traders, enterprising men, and sometimes women, too. As Williams also noted, lumbermen, dealers in real estate. Six of them “the ‘elements of empire here were plas­ were lawyers. .. tic yet and warm,’ and needed only the right men to mould them into a prosper­ ous State.” Wilkin was one of those men. federal marshal, a publisher, and a land Paul in addition to his various other en­ He was almost thirty years old when he developer. He reportedly at one time terprises, saw the need for a local insur­ arrived in St. Paul. He was bom into a owned half of what is now downtown St. ance company. He joined with his fellow prominent family in Goshen, New York, Paul. Known as the “Little Captain,” he businessmen to become the incorporators graduated from Yale University, and be­ was gregarious, a popular bachelor, and in 1853 of the St. Paul Fire and Marine came a lawyer. When the Mexican War he loved parties. He never married but, Insurance Company. broke out in 1846, a military career beck­ judging from his private letters, he must The list of those incorporators rings oned. His grandfather, James Wilkin, had have been something of a “ladies man.” with the names of the city’s pioneer lead­ enlisted in the Revolutionary Army at the In 1856 he organized the Pioneer ers. While some were in at the dawn of age of sixteen and was a general in the Guards, the first militia company to be white settlement, most arrived with the War of 1812. Alexander Wilkin appar­ formed in the Territory, and their drills creation of the Territory. They were ener­ ently yearned to test his own courage and and parades and military balls, often with getic men with imagination and vitality: ability to lead. He was fearless, although military bands and officers from Fort merchants, bankers, fur traders, lumber­ he was so small physically—five feet one Snelling, became part of the social fabric men, dealers in real estate. Six of them inch in height and weighing around 100 of the pioneer village. When the Civil were lawyers, and nearly all were at one pounds—that he had trouble drawing his War broke out in 1861, the Guards, under time or another Territorial officers or leg­ sword. Wilkin’s leadership, became Company A islators or city councilmen. Wilkin recmited a company of volun­ of the famous First Minnesota Infantry Alexander Ramsey is perhaps the teers from the counties around Goshen. Regiment that would fight so gallantly best remembered, and certainly served Commissioned a captain in the Tenth two years later at Gettysburg. the longest of any of the company’s in-

4 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY corporators. A Pennsylvania lawyer who was appointed the first governor of the Territory by President Taylor, he came to Minnesota in 1849 to embark upon a dis­ tinguished career. He would serve as the state’s second governor, mayor of St. Paul, United States senator, and Secre­ tary of War under President Rutherford B. Hayes. He led the organization of the Republican party in St. Paul in 1855. As Minnesota’s governor, he was in Wash­ ington on April 13, 1861, when word arived of the surrender of Fort Sumter. He was the first state officer to offer troops for the defense of the Union— the First Minnesota Regiment, the regiment Wilkin would join with his Pioneer Guards. Henry M. Rice was the earliest of the incorporators to arrive in the Minnesota region. He landed at Fort Snelling in 1839, at a time when the handful of cabins at the site of the future St. Paul was known as Pig’s Eye, so-named for the in­ famous whiskey seller, Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant, who had established a saloon there. Rice rose rapidly from sutler at the Fort to the American Fur Company’s agent in charge of trade with the Win­ Third Street (now Kellogg Boulevard), looking west from Cedar aroundl865-1874. Fire and Marine built its first headquarters at Third and Jackson in 1870 at a cost of $66,000. V/. H. nebago and Ojibwe bands, and he helped Illingworth photo from the Minnesota Historical Society. negotiate the treaties by which the Native Americans of the region ceded land to the federal government. He was the Terri­ known cause in 1854. He was only thirty- ported buffalo for resale, a venture that tory’s second delegate to Congress and two. He had lived just long enough to see was less than profitable. Far more suc­ the state’s first United States senator. His his brother arrive in St. Paul with the cessful was the popular yearbook he statue representing Minnesota stands in Great Railroad Excursion of 1854 that wrote and published in 1852. He was Statuary Hall in the national Capitol. He commemorated the completion of the Minnesota’s representative to the 1853 once owned the land on which the future Chicago and Rock Island Railroad’s line World’s Fair in New York and he took St. Paul Companies’ Home Office now to the Mississippi. with him a display of grains, minerals, stands, and he donated to the city the Levi Sloan also died that year. He, and furs. He became a brevet brigadier square that became Rice Park. too, was only thirty-two. Sloan was a general during the Civil War. In 1877 he Charles D. Fillmore was President grocer who settled in St. Paul in 1849 and was appointed United States Commis­ Fillmore’s younger half- brother. He ar­ maintained a trading post in Crow Wing sioner of Agriculture in the Hayes admin­ rived in St. Paul in 1852 and, with County. He was elected to the Territorial istration. Charles H. Parker, opened a land office legislature in 1853 and served through William L. Ames shared Le Due’s in­ in Parker’s banking office in the Farring­ 1854, the year the legislature met for the terest in agriculture. His father was the ton building near Seven Comers. Adver­ first time in the new Capitol. manufacturer of the Ames shovel and his tising that their office was “for the prose­ William G. Le Due, another lawyer, brothers helped build the Union Pacific cution of all business in any manner was as famous in his day as Governor Railroad. Ames himself owned a 300- growing out of transactions in real estate Ramsey. One of the most enterprising of acre farm near Lake Phalen where he in the Territory of Minnesota,” they sig­ the company’s organizers, he opened a raised prize-winning shorthorn cattle. naled that they were in fact real estate stationery and book store and, honing his Many Minnesota cattle today are descen­ speculators at a time when the Territory promotional skills, asked the famous dants of his herd. Ames was president of was on the brink of the great real estate singer, Jenny Lind, to bring him a supply the short-lived Home Insurance Com­ boom of the 1850s. Unfortunately, Fill­ of fine stationery and books when she pany, an organizer of the St. Paul Cham­ more died an untimely death from an un­ came to St. Paul for a concert. He im­ ber of Commerce, and an incorporator of

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 5 built a hotel, then a home in the country­ for the Territory’s speculators..John Far­ side beyond “St. Paul Proper.” He was rington, who also was a fur trader, built treasurer of Ramsey County and a mem­ the first brick store in St. Paul, a building ber of the City Council. at Third and Exchange Streets where Fire William Pitt Murray was a lawyer and Marine’s incorporators first met. who, lured to Minnesota by an article in George Farrington was a banker and a an eastern newspaper, celebrated his ar­ silent partner in the St. Paul Daily News. rival in St. Paul after an arduous journey Both men were active in civic affairs, westward by boiling a buzzard for two George as a representative to the Territo­ days, then eating it, pretending it was rial legislature and a member of the City turkey. He immediately began to practice Council, and John as a member of the law, and he entered politics. He served Board of Public Works and United States throughout eleven Territorial and state deputy collector for the area. legislative sessions; he helped lay the John R. Irvine was another early ar­ foundation for Minnesota’s public school rival in St. Paul, but at first not to stay. In system; and he wrote the first City Char­ the winter of 1843, he packed a sleigh ter. He was a city attorney and a United with groceries and headed upriver from States district attorney. Peering into the Prairie du Chien to St. Paul to look over a future, he was instrumental in extending region a friend had described as the “El­ St. Paul’s city limits to enfold its rapidly dorado of the Northwest.” He sold his expanding population. goods, bought some land, returned home, Charles W. W. Borup, physician, fur packed up his family, and came north to trader, and banker, established the first stay. A blacksmith, a banker, and a store­ Scandinavian consulate in Minnesota. keeper, he prospered first by logging off Bom into a prominent Danish family in the centuries-old trees on his claim at Copenhagen, he was chief agent for the Seven Comers and selling the lumber to The Farrington building at Third and American Fur Company at LaPointe on the rapidly growing populace, then by Exchange Streets where Alexander Wilkin Madeline Island during the 1830s. He shrewd real estate ventures. He built had his rooms. Fire and Marine’s incorpo­ mills and warehouses along the river. rators first met here. Unless otherwise came to St. Paul in 1848 and built an ele­ noted, photographs for this article are from gant country villa in Lowertown that be­ Like other company incorporators, he the archives of The St. Paul Companies. came a social center for the elite of the was a Territorial legislator and he gave a city. A fine musician, he and his violin, parcel of land to the city that is now accompanied by his family on two grand Irvine Park. pianos, led musical soirees. In 1852 he Socrates Nelson was a fur trader, the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad that and his brother-in-law, Charles H. Oakes, lumberman, and Stillwater merchant. He James J. Hill would one day build into established Bomp and Oakes, St. Paul’s was a member of the committee that the Great Northern. first legitimate banking house. drafted the original petition to Congress A romantic legend surrounds the name Isaac Atwater was another lawyer. calling for the organization of Minnesota of Auguste L. Larpenteur, another early He graduated from Yale in 1844, then as a Territory. Later on he served two arrival. The story is that Larpenteur’s came to Minnesota for reasons of health. years as a state senator. Much of Stillwa­ grandfather had been a friend and admirer That he lived to the age of seventy-four ter today stands on land Nelson once pur­ of Napoleon Bonaparte and he and other was indeed fortunate, but might be a mis­ chased from the government. Nelson, Frenchmen, not knowing their “beloved leading commentary on Minnesota’s not- Wisconsin, across the Mississippi from hero” was in exile on St. Helena, had very-well-founded reputation as a haven Reed’s Landing, is named for him and come to America in search of him. Be that for sufferers from many ills. Atwater the trading post he once located there. as it may, Auguste Larpenteur arrived in served in the Territorial legislature, be­ David B. Loomis was also a lumber­ St. Paul in 1843 to find only five families came an associate justice of the state man and Nelson’s partner in a Bayport in the frontier hamlet. Undaunted, he Supreme Court and one of the first re­ sawmill. He owned a logging business in opened a dry goods store which in the gents of the University of Minnesota. He St. Croix Falls and a sawmill at Areola. course of time became Freeman, Larpen­ was editor of the St. Anthony Express and At one time he was in charge of the St. teur and Company. He drove the first is remembered today for his history of Croix boom.* He once had to fight off a spike when the town was surveyed and Minneapolis, which he wrote near the mob attacking a warehouse where he was was present at the first town meeting. In end of his life. working, then watch through the night be- 1846 he acted as the settlement’s deputy The Farrington brothers, John and postmaster, designing a small leather case George W., were Irish immigrants who * A line of floating timbers and the sawlogs the with sixteen pigeon holes for the mail. He dealt in real estate, a major preoccupation timbers enclosed.

6 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY rine Insurance Company.” Ronald M. Hubbs, the retired chairman of The St. Paul Companies, noted in a short history he wrote in 1988 for Ramsey County His­ tory that in all subsequent proceedings that was the name used. The confusion can be laid at the door of Joseph R. Brown, chief clerk of the legislature’s House of Representatives, who evidently neglected to make the needed corrections in the body of the bill. As Hubbs ob­ served, “It must have been one of Joe Brown’s difficult days.” Brown had been chosen for the post because he seemed to have a better grip on legislative proceedings than anyone Steamboats docked at the Lower Landing (now Lambert’s Landing) in 1859. In 1855, St. Paul else. He was, Hubbs wrote, “a man of Fire and Marine took in $80.47 in marine insurance premiums on cargo; later the company many vocations, among which were began insuring the boats themselves. When an Iowa agent once asked what “Marine” meant in drummer boy and soldier, newspaper the company’s name, he was told “anything that moved. ” Minnesota Historical Society photo. publisher, Territorial printer, fur trader, farmer, lumberman, justice of the peace, side the body of the warehouse owner. He bill passed and was signed by Governor and legislator.” was president of the Territorial council Ramsey on March 5, 1853, the date on Company ads in 1853 stuck to the and a member of the Territorial and state which the company attained its corporate name “St. Paul Fire and Marine Insur­ legislatures. He served during the Civil existence. It wasn’t easily won. The Ter­ ance Company” but after that, “St. Paul War as a lieutenant, then captain, in the ritorial legislature, in those middle years Mutual Insurance Company” was used. Second Minnesota Infantry Regiment. of the 1850s, was ferociously partisan. The confusion was finally cleared up Lorenzo A. Babcock, yet another Sixty-four ballots were cast to elect a with the company’s reorganization nine lawyer, was the Territory’s first attorney speaker acceptable to both Whigs (soon years later. general. He practiced law in a log cabin to be Republicans) and Democrats. The In 1854 the company established its in St. Paul in 1849 and 1850. As a Terri­ struggle may have affected the vote to in­ headquarters in Wilkin’s office on Third torial legislator, he represented Ramsey corporate Fire and Marine. The bill Street near Washington Street (coinci­ County in 1852; later he lived for a time barely passed, 9 to 8. Nevertheless, the dentally, two blocks away from the pre­ in Sauk Rapids before moving back to St. state’s first business corporation had sent and permanent location of the com­ Paul in 1857. He was secretary of the been launched. pany’s Home Office on land Wilkin once Constitutional Convention as Minnesota prepared for statehood. The incorporators met throughout the Why marine insurance hy a company in a winter of 1853 in rooms Wilkin occupied mid-continent land-locked region? above Charles Fillmore’s store in John Farrington’s building. Wilkin, then in his third term as secretary of the Territory, There was, however, a slight problem. owned). On February 1, 1854, Fire and was unanimously elected president; Mur­ The bill was so casually drafted that for Marine opened its cash book and pre­ ray, vice president, and George Farring­ the first twelve years of the corporation’s pared for business. ton, secretary. Parker, although not an in­ life, great confusion reigned over its To satisfy legal requirements, capital corporator, was named treasurer. One of name. Farrington’s bill listed it as the St. was needed and the incorporators them­ the early entries in an old account book Paul Mutual Insurance Company, per­ selves undertook to provide it. Wilkin, lists some meeting expenses: office haps because the company originally was Ames, Irvine, Borup, Sloan, Fillmore, At­ stove, $5.25; lamps, $5; oil for lamps, to operate on both a “mutual” basis, water, Ramsey, and the Farrington broth­ $1.25. where policyholders would share in prof­ ers each took out $10,000 policies on In the first step toward organizing Fire its and losses, if any, and a “stock” basis their property, but their spurt of opti- and Marine, William Pitt Murray wrote where they would not. Besides that, in misim was premature. Most of the prop­ out a bill of incorporation (the only hand­ the body of the Act, “St.” was spelled out erty wasn’t worth that much, and in fact, written bill that session) and George Far­ as “Saint,” and the “and” was missing some of the men didn’t even own as much rington introduced it in the 1853 session from the company name. Later the name property as they were insuring. The appli­ of the fourth Territorial legislature. The was amended to “St. Paul Fire and Ma­ cations were rejected and resubmitted for

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 7 a more reasonable $5,000 each. prompt, distinct and intelligent answer to on April 22, 1855, in a St. Anthony bak­ According to its charter, the company the many enquiries which he must know ery spread to an adjacent row of offices would insure against loss or damage by will be propounded to him by the members and destroyed everything in its path. The fire only. It also would insure “all de­ of the farming community to whom our sys­ loss was estimated at $3,000. In paying scriptions of boats and vessels” and their tem is particularly addressed. [He is] espe­ promptly, the company set the standard it freight and cargoes “against the perils of cially cautioned against the system of false­ would follow when confronted with the marine and inland navigations.” hood, misrepresentation and imposition, two great fires in American history: Why marine insurance by a company practiced by many insurance agents. Noth­ Chicago and San Francisco. in a mid-continent land-locked region? ing of the kind will be allowed by agents of The Daily Minnesotian observed that: The Mississippi and its tributaries this Company. In these ticklish times for insurance compa­ formed the Territory’s lifeline. Furs car­ In the meantime, St. Paul’s City Coun­ nies and insurors, it is gratifying to be able to ried on the squealing Red River carts that cil was taking a hard look at the principal note the prompt payment of any fire losses. rumbled into downtown St. Paul were cause of policy payouts—the fires that Our readers will recollect the fire sometime shipped out to the East Coast and to Eu­ broke out with dismaying frequency in a since in St. Anthony. . . It was the first loss rope. British troops fighting in the town built essentially of flimsy frame [Fire and Marine] had met with since its Crimea were supplied with some of those structures. The glamorous, luxurious Sin- charter; and though sixty days is allowed by furs and with pemmican, a high energy tomine Hotel, planned as a St. Paul show­ law in which to make a payment . . . the frontier food made of dried buffalo meat case, burned down on a chilly November Company waived their privilege of delay mixed with tallow and, sometimes, wild night in 1854, before it even had opened. and promptly paid over the amount of dam­ berries. In response, the Pioneer Hook and Ladder age. This looks as if the Company had a sub­ Risk-taking was circumscribed early. Company was organized, chiefly with stantial and healthy basis. Among the limitations: no one could in­ money from the citizenry to pay for lad­ sure property for more than two-thirds of ders, buckets, ropes, and axes. Fire and When the company’s first year closed, its value. Rates for five-year policies Marine contributed $25; the City Council $1,170.08 had been taken in; by the au­ ranged from 3/4 of a percent to 3 percent generously gave up $200. tumn of 1859, 209 policies had been and more for each $100. Seemingly reluctant to put any money recorded. Start-up costs had been re­ The first policy issued, on February into a well-organized fire department, couped and other bills paid, all the way 11, 1854, was a mutual policy purchased the Council finally bowed to the in­ from newspaper advertising to ice for the by Robert A. Smith, Territorial librarian evitable and authorized a $3,000 bond office. and Governor Willis A. Gorman’s pri­ issue for the purpose of purchasing a fire Then a slow-down set in. The com­ vate secretary. Smith paid $5 in cash and engine. It also instructed the city sur­ pany had been successful thus far despite offered a $10 note for an $800 policy veyor to estimate the cost of installing the unstable times in which it had been covering his home and furniture. Gorman three reservoirs. cast. The 1850s in America was a turbu­ bought the company’s first stock policy, The next year Fire and Marine suf­ lent era, a time of great but unsettling in- insuring the newly-built Territorial Capi­ fered its first fire loss. A blaze that started tol, its furniture and government goods for $2,000. Other early policyholders in­ cluded Ramsey and Wilkin, but also Cen­ tral Presbyterian Church and such early settlers and business leaders as E. S. Goodrich, John S. Prince, Judge Moses Sherburne, Franklin Steele, A. M. Frid­ ley, and Otto Ferber. Things seemed to be going well. In the first year of operation, the company took in $300 in fire insurance and $80.40 in marine insurance premiums. Agents were appointed: Isaac Atwater at St. An­ thony; S.J.R. McMillan at Stillwater; and Charles E. Flandrau, who would become an associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, at St. Peter. A letter from President Wilkin informed the men that an agent. .. One of these buildings at the comer of Third and Jackson Streets housed the company’s of­ . . . must be ready at all times to give a fice after its reorganization in 1865. Minnesota Historical Society photo.

8 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY some of them with money raised by sell­ ing the office furniture for $103.50, and THE ______the books were closed. The company SAINT PAUL showed a net profit and a balance of $83.47. Fire and Marine Insurance Company, It was just in time. On August 24, o r T B S C R T o r MINT PACI* MINS. 1857, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust BY THIS POLICYOF INSURAlSrOE, Company of New York failed, precipitat­ Jn tëonrâiéaiùm ...... —..—/Sffit&tU, ing the memorable financial revulsion Sir nrmtj. Sr iterad w/rktrf û XtiSÿ ao¿nrw¿JptJ, DO INSUEE known to history as the Panic of 1857. All but three of St. Paul’s banks col­

AGAINST {.OSS GajQASU&E BY FIBE, TO THE AMOUNT OF lapsed. Mortgages were foreclosed, con­ struction projects halted, and the money supply dried up. A barter system was es­ W5L! J H Í MNP.S^/ abiura*. Cf.------—A,.--...... tablished. Newspapers called for re­ ...... (íir~x.JÍstz*< *< K ^rTf *^*y 'rT ft/ trenchment as “an absolute necessity of éJ íX jy/ 2^.<¡,rfc.£ A !¿ P r tf...í f u / á » ...... A d o í.... the day.” Panicked Easterners headed for "orZ^£- 'X/rfí'.aSj C^rri^f ...'AS.jé& tí. ... */ home. Across the country, forty-seven .' S /¿ ^ tA ....'' ____ mutual insurance companies closed, tak­ l'C íu X s ing with them more than $2 million of

..... ___ !______■■ turn r ffye^C ^X iS d S i^...... ^T Æ À A i^e^ffftrilS ^ policyholders’ money. Wilkin may not have been in St. Paul A ^H ¡.....&C07-t*Ur ?(5 *3 *>J ^ 7 ¿ ¿ í/, . when the speculation bubble burst. An .. inveterate traveler, he managed three ¿> . ^ Jídj¿iur&LA¿¿.. JT : ...... -...... -.... — “"• —...... trips to Europe between 1855 and 1858, " AfAÜMt til llinh TwsiUsto Loa or SaasfO, • * * * y «ocar by Fir* to the property afooiM ,jM ^ioM 41n ttb ^n m UjjRrrt, »or the istO M t^ ^ M m x x tà I» the property, EXCEPT u hereafter oro Tided ; fro« the —S.— ¿ S ...CyLtT.§t& & CeTL*& rw?A\^Ç-^ and at a time when steam had barely re­ day «T___^ ______Eighteen Hundred nod Sixty.. 4r C fc 4 L /A l U o'clock noon lo th e...... & r 2$¿C

required by tbit Conpooy »holl hove bren received ot the oBee of tie Company in Seiet Poni, oad the Ion »bell bore been «titfeotorily trip. The Crimean War was raging when oacertoined end prored, es reqelred by the provlaiona of this policy. Wilkin left St. Paul in 1855. With his fas­ J Bat thto C oapen »hell set be beM UiMe by vbtM c# ihU PaUey ce a y leeeoel tMteof MU the eeteel peyaent ef the pneetea, ace Br hoe eeeeed bj lavtsleo. le n mo- 1 1 tk*, iM,MleoBnMtka,BUitefTeriMneSpeetr, ear Bela» Mend hjHsbtaleO0* eipWoee el eey U ei «atea fln n sM , *ad thw Be the h a er deeust by Sie 1 I i.lj i mi fu m j li------s ------r --r~ * ------I— ------»-— > - * m o m the prepvtr ben B a m MteS «Bathe Sie 1 a * «atea by *edel S cination with the military, he reportedly 4 esoMBt0 >■rMos<0 IBe Folter « h m geepetrStr, phoephem , »«Itpetto eephthe, t a t e t aaph*a*, tupadoe,hetMag SnM,«M t|B « re d .« e le » «ertheU* m « 5 petretean, ee toy etbtr ertktee aelftet te IrpI rMrktteee ere SrpoOMd, (tend er keyti atr If reta d cal a terfh ette, 0» b r u n e io tantIH a eroeetlng a»e berrete • S le ell ere depoetted, etored or kept a the j r a lwe, wilhea a a t tm wrtBa« a thh Fette, 1 pee Be te a eetetos Ban the æ e< open Ujh*to heme ce whew «e rte » t intended to visit Sebastopol for “a look at 1 eieMSe,aheS»al»headlBf eerrevl«e4 wtth need «»4 ateteeUel Wob# a trteh ehlaeey», a I« cooaqaaa of eay ante« a SerleMeo Bea the I» the field of war operations by the Allies.” Letters home refer repeatedly to plans to travel to the Crimea, but no letter exists The earliest policy on file at the company. Dated May 20, 1865, it was issued to Ramaley and confirming that he actually reached the Giesen of St. Paul and provided $500 coverage against fire loss. The premium was $5 a year. war zone. Williams was convinced that he had. Some years later, he wrote: treasurer, came to grief in 1855 when he dustrial expansion; the areas of virgin During the Crimean War, Captain Wilkin, suspended payment and assigned his soil farmers and planters had once found incited by his taste for military life and the property to his creditors. The St. Paul theirs for the taking were shrinking; un- study of military science, visited Europe and Daily Pioneer commented wryly: surmountable conflicting interests were made quite a tour of inspection among the shaking North and South. Some of that According to the representation of the as­ camps of the Allied army, and also of the turbulence was beginning to wash up signee, Mr. Parker has been guilty of no par­ Russians, as well as fortifications of the lat­ against the outpost at the head of naviga­ ticular dereliction beyond that pursued by ter in Sebastopol. The experience which he tion on the upper Mississippi. many western bankers—that of using funds gained by his study of the organizations and Looking back years later, J. Fletcher of the depositors for the purpose of specula­ peculiarities of the finest armies in Europe, Williams described as appalling the tion. We are aware that in this Mr. Parker was subsequently of great use to him and of “mad, crazy reckless spirit of speculation has had illustrious precedents! value to his country. which characterized those times . . . per­ haps in no city of America was the real Perhaps because of this, but just as Williams had the advantage of hind­ estate mania, and reckless trading, and likely because they sensed the gathering sight. His History of the City of St. Paul speculation, so wild and extravagant as in economic storm, Fire and Marine’s offi­ to 1875 was written after Wilkin’s illus­ St. Paul. It could not last, and must soon cers and directors decided, on November trious Civil War record was in place. bring its own punishment in general ruin. 10,1856, “not to issue any more policies Given his interest in the military, it’s not Indeed, the storm was near at hand.” for the present.” Despite a severe cash surprising that Wilkin was caught up in Charles Parker, Fire and Marine’s flow problem, accounts were settled, the great conflict. Captain of a company

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 9 secured by notes or securities, with pay­ ment in thirty days. On April 5,1865, the men who constituted the board of the reor­ ganized St. Paul Fire and Marine Insur­ ance Company met. Besides Murray and the Farrington brothers, they were David Day, John Nicols, John L. Merriam, John S. Prince, Horace Thompson, Peter Berkey, Elias F. Drake, William Lee, W. F. Davidson, and J. C. Burbank. The directors needed a new president to take the place of Alexander Wilkin. They turned to James Crawford Burbank, one of the most colorful men in this sig­ nal period in Minnesota history. Burbank was bom in Ludlow, Vermont, in 1822 and came to St. Paul in 1850. He had been a school teacher and a farmer but he thought the express business looked The company’s first Home Office building at Third and Jackson. This was the building with the promising out on the frontier. Starting in steam gauge and speaking tubes. Minnesota Historical Society photo. 1851 with no capital whatsoever, he walked his route from St. Paul to Galena, of the First Minnesota Infantry Regiment company had been inactive for nine years, Illinois, during the winters carrying ex­ when he left St. Paul in 1861, soon a its charter remained intact and it was time press messages in his pockets; during the major in the Second Minnesota Infantry for a fresh start. Three of the original in­ summers he traveled the Mississippi by Regiment, he distinguished himself at the corporators were on hand to help with a steamboat, working his way as a clerk. first Battle of Bull Run and the Battle of reorganization —William Pitt Murray Progress was swift. He was awarded a Mill Springs in Kentucky. Within a year and John and George Farrington. contract to haul mail from St. Paul to he had risen to the rank of colonel of the On March 2, 1865, the legislature Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He bought a Ninth Minnesota Infantry Regiment. amended the incorporation Act of 1853, wharf boat, moored it at the Upper Land­ After serving during the final days of the struck the word “Mutual” from the origi­ ing at the foot of Chestnut Street, and Dakota Conflict in 1862, the regiment nal Act, firmly establishing the company converted it into a general wholesale, re­ was ordered south to eventually join as the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance tail, and commission store, advertising General Samuel Sturgis’s army on an ill- Company, and made it a stock company that he would handle everything from a fated expedition into Mississippi. Wilkin only. It was an auspicious year to begin harmonica to a steamboat engine and, led the regiment during a hazardous again. Minnesota had been a state since eventually, a McCormick reaper. He in­ sixty-mile retreat after the Battle of Gun- 1858; there were 210 miles of railroad, troduced fresh oysters into Minnesota. town in June, 1864. The following month and steamboats and railroads were land­ he was in command of a brigade at the ing immigrants by the thousands at the Battle of Tupelo. As he was placing two Lower Landing (now Lambert’s Land­ of his regiments in position against the ing) at the foot of Jackson Street. They Confederate forces, he was shot through were part of two great movements in the heart. He was the highest ranking of­ American history: the push westward by ficer from Minnesota to lose his life in the native-born Americans and the immi­ the war. A statue of the “Little Captain” gration of millions of Europeans escap­ was placed in the rotunda of the state ing from bitter conditions abroad. The Capitol in 1910. state in the mid-1860s was on the verge of a thirty-year expansion during which Fire and Marine’s long slumber ended in its population would increase by more 1865, a month before Lee’s surrender at than a million. Appomattox. In some respects the hiatus On March 14, 1865, new directors was a natural consequence of the national named to fill vacancies caused by deaths upheavel. Most of Fire and Marine’s or resignations adopted the legislature’s founders were away from St. Paul serving amendment to the Act of 1853. Capital Jam es Crawford Burbank in 1861. Kenneth in the Civil War and there was no money was set at $800,000, at $100 per share, but M. Wright photo from the Minnesota Histori­ to speak of in the state. But although the only $15 a share was cash. The rest was c a l Society.

10 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY He organized the Northwestern Ex­ there in 1870 at a cost of $66,000. It was a was largely his capital that started the St. press Company, then the Minnesota massive four-story brick structure with its Paul and Sioux City Railroad. He per­ Stage Company. Known by 1860 as Bur­ basement tucked into the bluff that sloped haps is best-remembered as the man who bank, Blakely and Merriam, the firm mo­ down to the river. The first three floors in 1863 built the Italian villa on Summit nopolized the stage business in Min­ and basement were built of blue lime­ Avenue that is known today as the Bur- nesota with its 1,300 miles of staging and stone elaborately trimmed. The fourth bank-Livingston-Griggs House. Listed some 300 miles of pony routes. Bur­ floor with its mansard roof was slate and on the National Register of Historic bank’s transportation lines reached into iron. And it was “entirely fire proof.” The Places, the two-story mansion with attic, Canada. He put steamboats on the Red St. Paul Daily Press commented that, basement, and stables cost Burbank River of the North to haul passengers and $22,000. Williams said of him: . . . in addition to its elegant fittings it con­ freight to Fort Garry, near what is now tains a steam gauge and speaking tubes His career presents a striking instance of Winnipeg. As an agent for the Hudson which enable the president to have the oper­ what energy and integrity will accom­ Bay Company, he had the right connec­ ations of the steam heating machinery in the plish—starting life a poor boy, and at pre­ tions to push Fire and Marine’s business basement as much under his eyes as though sent one of the wealthiest and most honored into a foreign country for the first time in he were the actual engineer. men in our state. its history. On November 3, 1866, the newspaper The Nor’-Wester announced During his presidency, Burbank ex­ the company’s entrance into the Red panded company operations into twenty- * River settlement, which at the time had nine states and Canada, beginning with neither a bank, nor a railroad, nor a tele­ Missouri in 1869. The St. Paul, as the Burbank still had five vital years ahead of graph office. Not even a lawyer. Even so, company would be known from then on, him as president of The St. Paul when Burbank had sent a young man, R. C. began to insure the cargoes of river craft. Charles H. Bigelow was elected secretary Burdick, north to write fire insurance for In 1871 the directors approved the writ­ and part-time bookkeeper of the firm in that community of 300 souls. Burdick as­ ing of insurance on steamboat hulls—the 1871. Bigelow was just in time to help sured them through the newspaper that: same year Lloyds of London was orga­ the struggling company face its first nized in its present form. major crisis: massive losses stemming This is a bona fide company, the Directors Burbank remained active until his from the Great Chicago Fire of October and Stockholders of which are many of them death in 1876 at the age of fifty-four. He 8, 1871, one of the worst fires in the his­ personally known to the settlers and busi­ was the first president of the St. Paul tory of the world. ness men of Red River, as men of first class Chamber of Commerce; he was president While revisionist historians have dis­ business capacity, and well known integrity, of the Minnesota Telegraph Company; it counted the folklore of Mrs. O’Leary and who would not willingly or knowingly em­ bark in an fictitious or humbug enterprise. Burbank was a part-time president until 1867. On July 7,1867, the company paid its first dividend—$1.50 a share. That year Burbank became its full-time president. His salary was $3,000 a year. He was particularly well-connected in St. Paul to other men who played leading roles in the history Burbank helped make. His brother, H. C. Burbank, ran the Burbank enterprises in the St. Cloud re­ gion; his sister married John L. Merriam and their son, William R. Merriam, be­ came governor of Minnesota; his cousin, Amherst H. Wilder, joined the company in 1859 and made the fortune he and his family left to charity as a major Fire and Marine stockholder, as well as a partner in Burbank’s many other ventures. Burbank threw himself into the job of building Fire and Marine. In 1869 the company spent $22,000 for land at the comer of Jackson and Third Streets and Testimonial from grateful policyholders whose claims were paid in full after the Great Chicago erected its first Home Office building Fire of 1871.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 11 her restless cow, it’s unquestionably true fair profits the money now called for, and that Chicago was a disaster awaiting its make our Company a permanent and envi­ place in history. The summer of 1871 able reputation. was hot and unusually dry. By early fall In all, 201 insurance companies and the city’s 340,000 residents had begun to one foreign company suffered losses; realize the threat fire posed for their city some eighty paid as little as four cents on of thousands of wood buildings, bridges, the dollar; and fifty went out of business sidewalks, and streets lying parched in entirely. the sun. Twenty-seven fires broke out Fire and Marine absorbed the loss, but during the first-week of October, exhaust­ at the expense of a steep drop to ing the city’s firefighters and damaging $167,750 in company assets. Bigelow, equipment. fearing that another reorganization On the evening of October 8, a fire loomed, took over the task of raising the started in a shed belonging to Patrick money to keep the company going. Poli­ O’Leary and his wife, whose cow, so the cyholders were no longer allowed to pay story goes, had kicked over a lantern. One their premiums on the installment plan. mishap after another haunted this tragedy. The company needed all the money it The fire was spotted early but the alarm could find. Assessments—$10 at first, went to the wrong station, while a nearby Charles H. Bigelow. another $5 later—were levied on every engine company stood idle until too late share of stock. No dividends were paid to be of much help. Within two hours, the that year, for the first and only time in the fire had burned out of control, leaving a Bigelow was bom in 1835 in Easton, company’s history. These measures re­ state of panic behind it. Entire city blocks New York, the son of Anson Bigelow, turned the company’s cash capital to crumbled. More than three square miles whose English forebears settled in Mass­ $400,000. A little more than a year later, with 17,450 buildings were destroyed, achusetts in the seventeenth century, and Fire and Marine was strong enough to 275 people died, and some 90,000 people Eliza Moores, whose first ancestor in pay out $20,000 in claims after the were homeless. Damage was estimated at American arrived on the “Mayflower.” Boston fire of 1872 wiped out some six $196 million. “In his veins flowed the blood of the acres of the business district. The fire The St. Paul had begun writing insur­ rigid Puritan and the pious Pilgrim,” a broke out just two weeks after the com­ ance in Illinois a year earlier and its losses memorialist would write of him on his pany began selling insurance there. added up to $140,000, more than 165 per­ death in 1911. When he was seventeen The Spectator, an insurance trade pub­ cent of all premiums the company had and unhappy with the prospect of farm­ lication, reported the company’s assets as collected the previous year. At a hurriedly ing as an occupation, he journeyed to $532,629, with only $5,000 in loss liabil­ called special meeting, the company’s di­ nearby Troy and went to work first for ity, and commented that: rectors, perhaps mindful of the St. An­ dry goods merchants Gunnison and thony bakery fire in 1855, voted unani­ In truth, few of the large fire companies pre­ Stewart, then for Earl & Wilson, manu­ mously “to pay its losses in Chicago sent a cleaner balance sheet or one so free facturers of “E & W” shirts and collars. promptly.” Burbank and Bigelow left for from dubious features. The St. Paul is doing At the age of twenty-one, he became a Chicago to personally supervise the claim an active business in a legitimate, careful partner in Maulin & Bigelow, another settlements which were paid in full. Thus manner and deserves the confidence so gen­ collar manufacturer. The St. Paul joined the prestigious ranks erally accorded by the insuring public. It is a Bigelow married while in Troy and, in of firms known as “sound” insurance credit to the city and a very useful institution a gesture that was typical of his time, companies, with the benefits that would to the public at large and to perplexed prop­ bought a house for his bride, then remod­ bring. As Burbank, with the prescience of erty-owners in particular. eled and furnished it without consulting a good businessman, explained in a letter her. However, finding it awaiting her at to a shareholder: With Charles H. Bigelow’s selection the end of their wedding trip, Alida as Fire and Marine’s third president after Bigelow found it enchanting. She de­ A prompt response to these calls will enable Burbank’s death in 1876, the Bigelow era scribed it years later: the officers to place the St. Paul Fire and in The St. Paul’s history was launched. It Marine in the front rank, and second to no would span seventy-five years. Bigelow As we came to the house we found it all company in the country. Many companies was an eminently logical choice to head lighted up, and a little Irish maid opened the are bankrupt, and others will struggle along Fire and Marine. Not quite thirty years door. I wish I could put into words my im­ for a short time but soon be compelled to old when he arrived in St. Paul in 1864, pressions received at that open door. The suspend, resulting to us in a largely in­ he brought with him more than ten years soft lights, the furniture in perfect taste, the creased business at PAYING RATES, of solid business experience back home lovely carpets, the piano, the writing desk, which in a few years will return to us with in New York state. the lace curtains and last of all the dining

12 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY in 1909 at 485 Portland Avenue. He became a director of the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad that Egberg and Horace Thompson, J. C. and Henry Bur­ bank, Amherst H. Wilder, John L. Mer- riam, Elias Drake and others were build­ ing. His daughter Emma would marry Drake’s son Harry. Bigelow’s first years as Fire and Marine’s president were diffi­ cult. St. Paul and the country were recov­ ering from still another frightening eco­ nomic crisis, the Panic of 1873, set off by the failure of Eastern financier Jay Cooke whose company had invested heavily in Northern Pacific Railway stock. In the five-year depression that followed, 3 mil­ lion were unemployed and business fail­ ures totaled $500 million. Early in his presidency, Bigelow gloomily surveyed the “unfavorable and demoralized” state of the insurance indus­ Charles H. Bigelow at his desk in 1864, with company directors Amherst H. Wilder (left) try, depressed by the Chicago fire. Intense and Captain Peter Berkey (right). competition for business was leading to an insurance price war, he told his directors. room paneled in green and oak, a table sleigh to St. Paul in the dead of winter He pointed out that the company couldn’t spread for two and a dainty supper waiting. I was arduous. As Alida Bigelow de­ operate profitably if it followed the indus­ had known of the house, but the extensive scribed it: try in offering extremely low rates. On the alterations, and of real elegance, for the other hand, if The St. Paul’s rates were The horses were changed every fifteen miles times, were to me a complete surprise. higher than those of others, it would be and while the change was made we could get hard-pressed to remain in business. out and stretch our tired limbs . . . It was a In Troy Bigelow contracted diphtheria, Bigelow, in his careful judgment, fa­ dark cold winter night when we entered the an illness that left him with lifelong health vored the low rates; he counseled ex­ International Hotel (on the northeast comer problems and changed his life, as did an­ treme caution in selection of risks, and he of Jackson and Fourth Streets). other event that hastened that change and recommended dropping unprofitable foreshadowed his future career. A raging As did Alexander Wilkin and James C. agencies. The directors accepted his pro­ fire in Troy in 1862 destroyed 300 homes, Burbank before him, Bigelow entered posals, and the company survived. including the Bigelows’. “We found only fully into the life of his adopted city. With Under Bigelow’s guidance, The St. a heap of ashes, the location recognizable Paul moved into an innovative expansion by the stone steps,” Alida Bigelow wrote of its products. The board of directors ap­ later. “Every keepsake and souvenir of Hail policies didn ’t proved the writing of cyclone insurance my girlhood days and our earliest married in 1882. In a bold step in 1883, Fire and life was lost.” leave any room for Marine became the first American stock Bigelow sold his share of his business company to offer hail insurance on grow­ to George 0. Cluett and Brothers, a firm sentiment. ing crops, and to profit from it. Hail in­ that eventually became Cluett and surance wasn’t new; profiting from it Peabody, a famous shirt manufacturing several partners, he bought out an agricul­ was. Bigelow’s eye was caught by some company. He had been advised to move tural warehouse and the agricultural de­ German hail insurance policies an em­ on to “salubrious” Minnesota, the partment of hardware dealers Cheritree ployee had brought into the office. W. J. “Mecca for invalids from all parts of the and Farwell and formed a company to sell Sonnen, who worked for the company country.” After exploring business possi­ agricultural implements. When it merged from 1877 to 1927 and eventually be­ bilities in the Chicago area and forming a later into the St. Paul Harvester Works, he came manager of the company’s Chicago partnership with his brother in the lumber drove the first self-binder Harvester put office, described in a memoir his own business, Bigelow, his wife, their three- into the field. He built a house on College part in producing a hail policy: year-old Emma and their baby George Avenue, near the site today of the Min­ pressed on to Minnesota. The journey by nesota History Center, where he lived It happened like this: Many letters came to rail to La Crosse, then by horse-drawn until his final move, to a house he built [the company’s] farm department written in

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 13 German. I was the only one in the small [of­ by hand and “everything had to be copied watch. He left for his office at precisely the fice] force who could read, write, and trans­ three times as we had no carbon paper,” same time every morning; every noon he late them. About this time our special agent Sonnen recalled. “When the ‘Typewrit­ was picked up by his horse and carriage at for Minnesota, W. C. Bredenhagen, brought ing Machine’ came on it was a curiosity 11:45; after a light lunch, he napped for ex­ to the office some hail contracts issued by and at first was used only for correspon­ actly 29Zz minutes before returning to the the German government, and to familiarize dence by company officials. Similarly, office. myself with insurance terms and expres­ the first telephone was a marvel of the In 1886 Bigelow wrote an anguished sions I translated part of one policy. Mr. time. Think of talking to anyone in the letter to his board of directors: Bigelow saw it, became interested and had city limits who had a similar installation me complete it. Later, when we entered the without leaving the office.” I have served the Company during 15 of the field of hail insurance, many of the clauses The office staff was small, Sonnen re­ best years of my life for a salary which has and terms used in the German policies were membered. John McClure was the entire about half supported my family. I believe copied verbatim. Marine department and R. A. Overpeck that the same effort made and responsibility the Farm department. C. B. Gilbert, later taken in almost any mercantile business Bigelow’s interest in hail coverage led company secretary, did the mapping— would have brought me many times the in­ him to talk with German insurers during nine sheets only for the city of St. Paul. come. During [this] time, I have had a num­ a trip to Europe, and when he returned W. S. Timberlake was company treasurer ber of offers of $10,000 salary and also of home he announced that Fire and Marine and cashier, W. G. Strickland the “man business connections with some of the best would issue its own policies, the first de­ on the street.” As Sonnen noted, signed just for farmers. Premiums of houses in St. Paul, but my pride has been to make this Company a complete success, $823.35 were paid during the first year, Those were the days before electric street­ which I think has been done, and I have de­ but within five years income from crop- cars, or even bicycles. Nearly everyone rode clined all offers for that reason. hail insurance had jumped to more than to the office either on horseback or in the $150,000. Bigelow seems to have viewed high wheeled buggy of the time. Our Presi­ He then summarized The St. Paul’s this with mixed feelings, however. Look­ dent came in his carriage with coachman, growth during the past fifteen years: in­ ing back in 1900 he wrote: which was in keeping with his position. vestments increasing to $1 million; in­ come up from $113,000 in 1870 to We have pursued [the crop-hail business] His own duties, Sonnen recalled, “did $755,653 in 1885, $140,000 of that in for many years with indifferent success and not seem too many, but I entered and filed 1885 alone; a net surplus from nothing, will probably continue it. Farmers need the all daily reports, made out all expiration he emphasized, to $291,711, besides 10 insurance very much, and we are willing to notices, all the classification figures, fig­ percent dividends; and he underlined an assume the responsibility where we can be ured the reinsurance reserve and managed official ten-year report noting that no of so much benefit to them. to be through at the usual closing time at 5 company doing an agency business in o’clock; Saturdays at 3.” Office hours Hail policies didn’t allow any room the U. S. shows so low [a] ratio o f ex­ began at 8:30 a.m. for sentiment. In 1903 a policy provided pense to income. Rather bleakly he ex­ There seems to have been a dress that in the event of a loss requiring an ap­ plained that: praiser . . the assured shall select one code: who shall not be a neighbor having hail The position I hold, as such, brings no op­ During those days no professional gentle­ insurance.” The company continued to portunity for making anything beyond my man would appear in the afternoons without offer coverage until 1981. Known as a salary. I understand that $10,000 is consid­ a high hat, long tail coat, gloves, etc., and we “percentage policy,” it was the principal ered a minimum salary for [a] like position of the ordinary force felt a thrill of pride form of hail insurance offered throughout [in the East]. I cannot continue for the pay I when our officers came in after dinner prop­ the country. have been getting but desire $7,500. It will erly appareled. At noon no gentleman was Sonnen left behind an interesting de­ be remembered that I voluntarily reduced expected to go home, have dinner with his scription of life at the office near the end my salary 20 percent for a number of years family, change his clothes, and be back in of die nineteenth century. “Fifty years (after it had been raised to $5,000) when the less than an hour and a half. ago,” he wrote in 1927, “the Home Of­ results of the business seemed to require it. fice was in the old stone building on the Bigelow was a commanding taskmas­ southwest comer of Third and Jackson ter, strong, forceful and possessed of Bigelow got his raise. Streets where a part of the second floor great integrity. Carl B. Drake, Jr., his Policies during his time represent an furnished enough room for its needs.” great grandson who in his time would arcane art, as Ronald M. Hubbs pointed Other tenants were a bank, offices, also head the company, remembered that out in his 1988 article for this publica­ and on the top floor “the then famous his family knew him as, tion. “A farm policy of 1887,” he wrote, Bryant & Stratton Business College from “insisted in event of loss that the assured which I had just graduated.” All policies, . . . a very precise person who lived a very deliver sworn proof, affidavits of ‘two reports, entries, and letters were written precise schedule that he timed with his gold disinterested and respectable men’, [a]

14 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY certificate of the nearest magistrate and a gram. Nearly 100 insurance companies earlier to the National Board of Fire Un­ swearing all around that the assured had were forced to close their doors, but The derwriters was brought home. Ninety been without ‘evil practice’.” St. Paul continued to prosper. percent of the city’s buildings were ram­ A policy would exclude a fire loss “if By the tum-of-the-century, the com­ shackle wooden firetraps. San Francisco, you kept without the company’s permis­ pany’s premiums were running more the report declared, “violated all under­ sion any quantity of fireworks, phospho­ than $1.8 million a year; assets were writing traditions and precedents by not rus, saltpeter, turpentine, spirit gas, crude $2.6 million. For the thirty years ending burning up. The Fire Department cannot coal or earth oils of petroleum.” in 1901, the company had shown an in­ be relied upon indefinitely to stave off As for smoking, the company made terest income of 6.78 percent and an in­ the inevitable.” known its opinion in three sentences: surance underwriting profit of 4.6 per­ The extent of the catastrophe quickly became apparent. The quake had severed water mains; gas lines developed leaks; Back in St. Paul, Bigelow watched in horror broken electric poles snapped lines that sparked and ignited fires. Toppled chim­ as the area of disaster was mapped on a wall neys still burning from breakfast fires set off other fires. When fire fighters rushed in the company’s office. to the scene, they found they had no water. The city was cut off from the “We are advised after inspection, that cent. In May, 1897, the company’s world. No telephone, telegraph, railroad, [the owners] permit their employees to charter was revised to include insurance or ferry service was operating. smoke in their store during business against hail, tornado, cyclone, and wind As the fires spread, two heroic Fire and hours. We cannot permit this. A number storm losses. Marine employees, Ed Prank and Phil of disastrous fires have been traced to Then came the great disaster that Heuer, somehow kept ahead of them. Ar­ that cause and we will thank you to ad­ would virtually wipe out all the painstak­ riving early at the company’s office the vise the gentlemen that that practice must ingly acquired surplus of the past morning of the earthquake, they rescued be entirely prohibited.” decades. On April 18, 1906, in the early vital records and maps, moving three After electricity burst upon the city, a hours of a calm, clear morning, residents times, each time one jump ahead of the new hazard lay heavily upon what seems of San Francisco were shaken out of bed flames, then learned that their latest sanctu­ to have been a relatively innocent age. by a violent tremor and a frightening ary was about to be dynamited. Two more An 1894 circular warned agents that, roar. Damage from the earthquake itself moves and three days later they reached “The use of current from trolley wires or wasn’t extensive. Buildings jarred loose Oakland, the records intact, and set up a street railway rails is the source of nu­ were poorly built to begin with, but the table to begin processing payments. merous fires, and where it shall come to reality of an engineer’s report months Back in St. Paul, Bigelow watched in your knowledge that electricity is so used in any risk insured in this company, we will ask you to promptly advance the rate on both building and contents, not less than one percent. . . “ Company correspondence sometimes yielded interesting reading. One was a lesson in brevity: “Replying to yours of the 3rd instant, we would answer for your first inquiry—No—and this is the com­ plete answer to the rest of them.” Fire and Marine weathered difficult times again when the Panic of 1893, touched off by the failure of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, ush­ ered in a four-year depression. Thou­ sands of businesses, including a quarter of the nation’s railroads, went bankrupt. There were riots in Chicago. Coxey’s army of 500 desperate, jobless men marched on Washington petitioning— unsuccessfully, as it turned out—for a multi-million dollar public works pro­ San Francisco on April 23, 1906, looking east on California Street from Powell Street.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 15 horror as the area of disaster was mapped on a wall in the company’s office. Others present remembered that tears filled his eyes. With great effort he had raised the company to financial health from near ruin. It had required all of the thirty-five years since 1871, the year of the Chicago fire, to build a million-dollar surplus for the company. Nearly all of that would be needed to meet this new obligation. The losses were so enormous that no one ever has been able to do more than guess at the total. Some estimates reached $1 billion. Five square miles in the heart of the city, 520 city blocks, 28,000 buildings; and more than $350 million in property were destroyed; 452 people died. Fire insurance losses alone stood at $164 million; The St. Paul’s were $1,267,000. Once again the company immediately determined to pay all claims promptly

and in full. Only five days after the disas­ The second Home Office building as it looked shortly after it was completed in 1909 at Fifth ter, Fire and Marine sent the following and Washington, a site the company still occupies today. ‘The temple,”as it was sometimes letter of assurance to its agents: affectionately labeled, stands on land once owned by Alexander Wilkin.

We have delayed notifying you of our loss in San Francisco until definite advice was re­ ceived as to the boundaries of the fire area. ite structure with its classic simplicity * We are now assured that our loss will ap­ was as much a symbol of the new century proximate One Million Dollars. It may run a as the ornate 1871 building had been of Frederic Russell Bigelow, the fourth of little above that, but we know that our sur­ the old. With its marble entrance flanked Charles and Alida Bigelow’s six chil­ plus, after providing for this enormous loss, by two columns, it sometimes was affec­ dren, succeeded his father as president of will be not less than THREE HUNDRED tionately referred to as “the temple.” The Fire and Marine after his death in 1911, THOUSAND DOLLARS ... We assure you company moved in on January 5,1909. but he actually had been in charge of the that the St. Paul will not only pay in full but In June, 1906, Charles H. Bigelow un­ company during his father’s five declin­ will continue business with the substantial derwent a serious operation and he never ing years. surplus above stated, and be prepared in the fully recovered. He died on July 31, He was a forceful, compassionate, future as in the past to meet every claim pre­ 1911. His friends and employees knew colorful, dynamic, blustery, sometimes sented promptly. him as a reserved man, more so at work impulsive man. A. B. Jackson, one of his than at home. Gardening was a pleasure. successors as president, one described The St. Paul was standing with thirty- He once built a washing machine for his him as, wife, and he knew how to stitch a seam. one other insurance companies in reject­ . . . one of those rugged individuals who was ing a proposal to pay only 75 percent of a He loved travel for himself and his fam­ so typical in the development of the North­ ily. House of Hope Presbyterian Church policy’s value. At that point Fire and Ma­ west. He had tremendous energy, a great was an important focus for his life, and rine became known as a “dollar for dollar” sense of humor under a rather blunt appear­ he was a committed supporter. company, and business poured in. The net ance, an interest in new things and progress, In leading Fire and Marine through its surplus by the end of the year stood at and an ability to get at the roots of a problem formative years, Bigelow displayed de­ $869,000, a drop of about half-a-million. that was almost uncanny. [We] learned early termination and courage. He had guided that any material presented for his consider­ it carefully and wisely through two of the Sometime before the San Francisco ation had to be factual and complete. If not, great catastrophes in American history, earthquake, Fire and Marine’s directors he was too likely to destroy it entirely with and he built its assets from half-a-million had purchased land on the comer of Fifth one penetrating observation. and Washington Streets, and work began to more than $7 million. Premiums in on a new Home Office building there in 1906, his last active year, had reached Always fascinated by his father’s sto­ the fall of 1906. The $175,000 gray gran­ $3.6 million ries of marine disasters, Frederic Bigelow

16 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Insurance was needed, an early circu­ lar declared, “BECAUSE—most of the perils to which an automobile is subject are NOT under the control of the owner no matter how careful he may be.” The outbreak of World War I in Eu­ rope affected Fire and Marine directly through its ocean marine insurance, even though America would not be drawn into the conflict for another three years. Be­ tween 1914 and 1918 the company made payments totaling more than $4 million on 260 vessels damaged or destroyed in submarine warfare or other action. For one hectic week when German Zep­ pelins began to bomb London, the com­ pany wrote policies insuring against damage from the raids. The St. Paul was the only insurer to do so, since British companies weren’t chartered to write that type of insurance. Although the The marble statue of “Mercury,”purchased by Frederic Bigelow to celebrate establishment of British government soon stepped in with the St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company in 1925, in the place of honor it occupied in the lobby of the old Home Office building. rates half those of Fire and Marine’s, the company continued a modest business in London. apparently never considered any other ca­ Marine department. He roamed the terri­ With the United States’ entry into the reer. He was bom in St. Paul in 1870. An tories covered by the company’s agents. war in 1917, fifty company employees evidently spirited, boisterous child, he He became assistant secretary and vice volunteered or were drafted into service. was responsible for a family disaster that president. When his father died, he was At home, women coped with food short­ mirrored the calamity visited upon his ready to lead the company. ages and signed on with the Red Cross parents back in Troy. At the age of five he Early in F. R. Bigelow’s administra­ to knit one pair of socks each week for was playing with matches in a closet in tion a pension fund was established for its ten weeks. the Bigelow home on College Avenue 125 employees. The company had hired Frederic Bigelow already had experi­ and accidently sent clothing on fire. The its first “female employee,” Jane H. Perry, enced firsthand the perils of warfare. Carl house burned to the ground. While his in 1905, when she was thirty-seven. Bom B. Drake, Jr., his great nephew, remem­ family sheltered in temporary quarters, in Balleymoney, Ireland, she worked for bered the story this forceful, dynamic, Charles Bigelow rebuilt it on the same the company for the next thirty-four site. years, primarily as F. R. Bigelow’s secre­ Frederic Bigelow joined Fire and Ma­ tary, before retiring in 1939. rine in 1891 after graduating from Automobile liability insurance was Williams College in Massachusetts added to the company charter around where he was a star athlete. Like nearly 1900 to “insure against any loss or hazard all of the presidents who would succeed incident to the owner-ship or operation of him, Bigelow started at the bottom. As motor or other vehicles.” The company, the story goes, his father brought him to however, was mindful of the fire hazard the office one day and turned him over to and advised motorists that, the chief clerk who set him to slitting L open the mail. His advancement was Perhaps the greatest number of losses are swift. By the end of the day, he had caused by fire. Whenever a vehicle is actu­ moved on to addressing and stuffing a ated by its own power, this danger is ever L mailing to the company’s 2,000 agents, present. If the machine is an electric, it may without benefit of typewriter, carbon be ignited by a short circuit; if gasoline pro­ paper, or copying machine. He finished pelled, it is subject to all the hazards arising the job two weeks later. from the use of gasoline. These perils are not He became a clerk next, then book­ always to be avoided, even by the most care­ keeper, later secretary in charge of the ful driving. Frederic R. Bigelow

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 17 sometimes impetuous man told of how he dealing with risks on the high seas, lakes, extricated his family from Europe at the rivers, and harbors leading to losses of beginning of the war in 1914: life, cargo, or property. The most ancient of all forms of insurance, the Chinese and He had suggested before the outbreak of war the Rhodesians knew it thousands of that his wife and their two teen-age daugh­ years ago. The Lombards of Italy domi­ ters spend a year studying languages in Italy nated it in the Middle Ages, while fire in­ and France. When the war started, he was surance originated in England after the concerned about their safety. He tried locat­ Great Fire of London in 1666. ing them through the state department, but Until the early 1920s, Fire and Marine he heard nothing. So he finally decided to go had dealt almost exclusively in natural over to Europe, find them himself, and take disaster insurance. Now the liability field them to one of the ports of exit the U. S. em­ was expanding. Inland marine insurance, An early ad for auto insurance. The St. Paul is thought to be the second insurer in the bassy had set up. He withdrew several thou­ covering risks connected with transport­ United States to offer such coverage. sand dollars in gold, and he described later ing goods inland, but also insuring per­ how he put on his money belt. He was a big, sonal property, was just starting and heavy-set man. He found his family in Bigelow immediately pushed Fire and France, and he bribed his way out of the Marine into the field. country with gold pieces in that money belt. Laws at the time prevented “fire” and They all reached an embarkation point “marine” companies from writing liabil­ where he put them on a boat and brought ity insurance, so Bigelow led the com­ them home. They were among the last pany into incorporating the St. Paul Mer­ Jutomobile Americans to get out of Europe. It was a cury Insurance Company in 1925 to write hair-raising experience. both disaster and liability insurance. The next year Mercury Indemnity Company jfnsonmce The end of the war left European in­ was created as Fire and Marine’s liability surance companies so decimated by their arm. To celebrate the additions, Bigelow St.PaulF ire andM arine crushing wartime losses that a group of bought a marble statue of Mercury and Insurance Co. American insurers met to discuss ex­ installed it in the lobby of the Home Of­ St.Paul,Minn. panding their overseas markets. It was a fice in St. Paul. Capital and/fat Surplus, Jan .!, 2 9 1 3 ' Over 0 3 ,3 00,000.00 time, as A. B. Jackson once observed, The company’s first all-risk inland ma­ when there was a strong movement to rine policy was the Jewelers’ Block, sold “follow the flag with shipping, banking, in 1925 to insure jewely in transit. It was and insurance.” The companies decided an opening into coverage considerably to pool their interests and form the Amer­ more exotic than crop-hail insurance. The ican Foreign Insurance Association St. Paul found itself insuring some of the (AFLA) with a membership of twenty world’s most precious stones. In 1935 the companies and a combined capital of company insured the fabulous 726-carat $135 million. Fire and Marine was a Jonker diamond, the fourth largest in the charter member; Frederic Bigelow world and valued at more than $1 million. served on its first board of trustees. As Hubbs wrote in 1988: Through this association, The St. Paul Legend has it that heavy security was began to operate all over the world. arranged for the Jonker diamond when it ar­ AFIA members soon discovered that rived in New York, but even so, the arrival F ir e marketing insurance in foreign countries date and place were a well-known “secret.” M a rin e required considerable adaptation to lan­ Nothing happened. All of this was a sham. T h e ft guage and cultural differences. One man­ The real jewel arrived on the steamship Roo­ ager operating in India imposed a strict sevelt in a shoe box-size container stuffed American work schedule, firing every with cotton and insured by Fire and Marine. worker who came to work late. When he There was no excitement. Just an ordinary found himself the last man in the office, parcel delivered to the waiting addressee. he bowed to the inevitability of adopting

Auto insurance brochure, published in 1913. Indian work hours. Coverage continued while the dia­ The end of World War I ushered in mond was exhibited at the Natural His­ “all risk” insurance. Fire and Marine had tory Museum in New York and at jewelry been an ocean marine insurer since 1876, stores around the country. For a “Million

18 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY weeks after the Stock Market Crash on October 29,1929, and with Fire and Ma­ rine’s net surplus at $18.9 million, the di­ rectors announced a special stock divi­ dend of $1.25 and a bonus of a month’s salary for each employee. The nation’s faltering economy, how­ ever, gradually made itself felt in St. Paul as the 1930s and the Great Depression gathered steam. Millions lost their jobs and couldn’t meet their mortgage pay­ ments; businesses folded; villages were bankrupt; insured buildings deteriorated; fraudulent claims rose; kidnappings flourished. Bank robberies were so wide­ spread that bankers took to keeping their empty vaults open to discourage would- be Dillingers. Early in the lawless thir­ ties, the London market refused to con­ tinue to underwrite bank bonds, so St. Paul Mercury Indemnity stepped in and became the underwriter for almost all the banks in the Midwest. Many of those Jane Perry (far left), the company’s first female employee, with some of other women who banks were looted at least once during had joined The St. Paul’s staff by 1921 when this photograph was taken. that decade. It was, as Carl Drake, Jr., ob­ served, typical of The St. Paul to ender Dollar Dinner” sponsored by jewelers as ganization, the United States Aircraft In­ markets others had abandoned. a promotion, all items on the menu were surance Group (USAIG). Walking into the Fire and Marine weathered the storm. made of jewels. Fire and Marine insured crowded meeting in February of that year, No employees were laid off, no salaries them for $1 million. It insured one of five he announced, “I like you boys and I hope were cut, and stockholders never missed authentic Stradivarius violas in the that you will find a place in your group for a dividend. Moreover, the directors man­ United States and a sappphire carving of The St. Paul.” That spring an agreement aged to contribute $79,000 to relief funds President Lincoln weighing 1,318 carats was reached and the company became a during the depths of the depression. and valued at $300,000. member, responsible for insuring part of Bigelow served on the board of the Na­ Not all such items were as glittery. A all USAIG business. tional Citizens’ Committee for Welfare live chicken used in a movie premier The 1920s and 1930s were difficult and Relief Mobilization. was, its sign said, “insured for $1,000” decades for Fire and Marine, and every­ Some of the company’s sturdiness against death by lion bite, and The St. one else. Under the infamous O’Connor during this intensely troubled period can Paul provided the policy. It did so for a System, St. Paul became a haven for be attributed to a highly successful in­ shipment of four elephants, two gibbons, gangsters who were allowed to remain in vestment policy. Instead of loading its fifty-two Mynah birds, one bear, five town undisturbed, provided they re­ portfolio with high-return stocks, the lemurs, 300 monkeys, and eleven frained from their usual methods of rais­ company poured money into Class “B” pythons enroute from Bangkok to San ing money. Of course the system broke securities which were chiefly municipal Francisco. Such coverage wasn’t new. In down. Prohibition had become law; not and railroad bonds yielding lower but 1906 Fire and Marine had insured ten of wildly popular, it was therefore widely safer dividends. When the Crash came, King Edward VII’s race horses while in flouted and led to bootlegging and other not one of these bonds collapsed. The transit to and from England, and during a forms of gangster-controlled lawlessness. policy reflected the wisdom of the experi­ three-month stay in Canada and the Still, The St. Paul was doing well. In enced St. Paul businessmen who served United States. On the more serious side, 1927 the company’s net surplus was on the company’s board. In 1935 they in­ The St. Paul wrote a check for $3.8 mil­ $13.7 million; by 1928, almost $15.5 cluded Bigelow himself, who also was a lion during World War II when the na­ million. That year the board of directors director of First National Bank of St. tion’s largest stockpile of crude rubber authorized construction of an addition to Paul; S. M. Archer, president of Archer- was destroyed by fire. the Home Office at Fifth and Washing­ Daniels-Midland; Charles H. Bigelow, In 1929 F.R. Bigelow pioneered in ton. After twenty years in its “temple,” Jr., president of Farwell, Ozman, Kirk drawing Fire and Marine into insuring air­ the company’s 430 employees needed- and Company, and F. R. Bigelow’s older craft after attending a meeting of a new or­ more space. On December 5, 1929, just brother; Homer P. Clark, president of

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 19 West Publishing Company; Charles Don­ years of First National Bank’s board, nelly, president of Northern Pacific Rail­ while also serving as Fire and Marine’s way; and Watson Davidson and H. R. president, a dual role the law permitted Irvine, lumber and real estate men. at that time. He was a director of the In 1938 Frederic Bigelow decided to Ninth District Federal Reserve Bank. In retire as president and become chairman 1941 he was named to the Distribution of the board. When he assumed the presi­ Committee of the just-established Saint dency in 1911, company assets were Paul Foundation. around $8 million, with premiums of al­ Education was one of Bigelow’s vital most $5.6 million; when he retired, assets interests. He helped his wife Alice estab­ had grown to $39.6 million, premiums lish Summit School. He followed his were over $12 million, and capital and brother Charles as president of the Maca- surplus had reached $27 million. For an­ lester College board of trustees, and other eight years he would remain ac­ someone once said, “It was worth going tively involved with the company and his to a boardmeeting just to listen to the much-loved community. He died on Sep­ Bigelow brothers argue.” Strongly op­ tember 8,1946, at the age of seventy-six. posed to ending a year in deficit, he would Bigelow married twice. His first wife, lock the door of the board room and Alice Fraser, whom he married in 1908, refuse to let anyone leave until each was bom in Canada, graduated from trustee had contributed enough money to McGill University there and from Rad- balance the budget. Charles F. Codere cliffe College in Massachusetts. They had Bigelow’s commitment to the welfare three children. Five years after her death of St. Paul would flower in the establish­ Codere was a proudly self-educated in 1927, he married Virginia Dousman, ment of the F. R. Bigelow Foundation man. He once said he didn’t believe he who had been a childhood sweetheart. after his death. Within the company he even finished grade school. He was bom Their marriage linked the Bigelow family led for so many years, that commitment in Montreal, Quebec, in 1886. His father with the earliest history of Minnesota and would reinforce a culture that had been was a French innkeeper; his mother’s an­ the Northwest. Her grandfather was the present since J. C. Burbank’s day—a cestry was English. When he was fifteen, renowned Hercules Dousman who arrived concern for the stability of the commu­ he went to work as an errand boy for the at Prairie du Chien in 1826 to establish an nity in which The St. Paul’s people lived Montreal insurance agency Evans and American Fur Company post. He married and worked and reared their families. Johnson at $100 a year, and he never left Jane Rolette, whose son from a previous the business. He was in Edmonton, marriage was Joseph Jean Rolette, the col­ * Canada—the “end of the line,” he once orful figure in early St. Paul history who said— working for McGeorge, McIntosh stole the bill that would have transferred Charles F. Codere succeeded F. R. and Chauvin when Fire and Marine’s the state capital to St. Peter. Virginia Bigelow as the company’s fifth president secretary A. W. Perry arrived to scout out Dousman’s father was Hercules Dousman in 1938 and as chairman of the board the prospects of expanding the com­ II; her mother, Nina Sturgis, the daughter after Bigelow’s death eight years later. pany’s Canadian connection. The Ed­ of General Samuel Davis Sturgis, veteran The two men were scarcely alike; monton firm, with Codere in tow, became of the Mexican War, the Civil War, and Bigelow bombastic and gregarious, their local agents in 1908. That year the Indian campaigns of the late nine­ Codere quiet and reserved, but both were Codere was named Fire and Marine’s in­ teenth century, and the same General Stur­ brilliant men and strong leaders and their spector of operations and chief agent for gis whom Alexander Wilkin served under relationship flourished throughout the western Canada. He was twenty-two. during the Battle of Guntown in 1864. long years they worked together. In his He liked to tell the story about how he Frederic Bigelow was deeply com­ last statement to the board as president, became the company’s agent in Canada. mitted to the city’s welfare, as were the Bigelow said of his successor: He was alone in his office when a members of his family. He was one of telegram from F. R. Bigelow arrived ad­ the organizers in 1920 of the St. Paul Mr. Codere and I have sat in the same room dressed to the agency partners. Bigelow Community Chest (now the United for seventeen years; during that period I was seeking permission to talk with Way), served on its board until his death, have been watching him, fully conscious Codere about joining Fire and Marine and was president for a time. He was that some day the Company would need an­ and opening an office in Winnipeg. Since chairman of the St. Paul Board of Publip other executive. There is no reservation the partners were away, Codere wrote Welfare; president of the Amherst H. whatever in my feeling that Mr. Codere will back granting permission for “Mr. Wilder Charity and a lifelong member of conduct the Company with all the success Bigelow to talk to Mr. Codere” and its board; he was a director of the St. the vicissitudes confronting all business signed it for the partners. Paul YMCA. He was chairman for ten these days will permit. From his headquarters in Winnipeg,

20 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY he barnstormed Manitoba, Alberta, and board of directors in 1923 and in 1926 he insurers panicked. When The St. Paul Saskatchewan setting up agencies, some­ became vice president. During those years was asked if it would abandon the mar­ times before a town had been platted. He of the “roaring Twenties,” prohibition, ket, Codere ran up his flag: “Why, of was captured by a photographer in the and the widespread business failures, un­ course we shall continue writing war soon-to-be community of Kerr Robert, employment, and lawbreaking of the risks,” he said, “and, if necessary, the Saskatchewan, standing beside a tent 1930s, one of Codere’s primary responsi- Fire and Marine will take a larger line.” with a “St. Paul” sign on it. In 1911 he blities was the sound investment policy His sturdy patriotism and his confidence was given western Ontario, and in 1912 the company followed during the critical quieted the panic. the company detached British Columbia 1920s and 1930s. Lacking the tools of The Bowring Company of London, from its San Francisco office and as­ today’s investment analysts, he shopped the ocean marine syndicate manager that signed it to Codere. around for municipal bonds. Fire and Ma­ for more than fifty years had served as His self-education began as he sat rine funds helped build water systems, The St. Paul’s intermediary in that mar­ reading in hundreds of train stations and roads and streets, schoolhouses and court­ ket, suffered such extensive losses that in throughout endless hours criss-crossing houses, all over the country. Commercial 1939 and 1940 it owed The St. Paul some by rail the vast reaches of his Canadian bonds financed plant development and $600,000. Bigelow waived all of territory. He spent the long hours in hotel growing industrial needs. Bowring’s efforts at repayment, prefer­ rooms compiling notebooks to help him The depression began to evaporate at ring instead that the money be reinvested analyze and understand the policies in the end of the 1930s as the nation reluc­ in British war loans. use at the time. Now in the company tantly prepared for another war many The government’s War Damage Cor­ archives, the notebooks contain sample knew was coming. In 1940 Codere led poration soon took over the writing of policies, clipped out and pasted up, with Fire and Marine in offering turkey insur­ his written explanations of the policies ance. Delicate creatures and not smart and their exclusions. enough to possess much instinct for self- ‘ Why of course we He sold the insurance on growing preservation, turkeys had been consid­ crops that was Fire and Marine’s princi­ ered uninsurable. The venture was un­ shall continue pal business in Canada then, and he hired profitable at first, but farming techniques forty or fifty school teachers for summer improved, the dinner-table popularity of writing war risks, jobs as hail insurance adjusters at 25 cents turkeys soared, and the business gradu­ and if necessary, an hour. He taught them how to estimate ally became more lucrative. losses by taking handfuls of grain that had the Fire and Marine been knocked down by hail or wind to de­ On December 7, 1941, Howard F. termine the amount of damage per acre. Gearin, a Fire and Marine employee who will take a larger Codere traveled constantly. Essentially had enlisted in the United States navy, a man without a home, he once was called spotted a suspicious object in prohibited line/ to St. Paul by the company and put to bed waters off his station at Pearl Harbor, in a hotel. He had been on the road for Hawaii. It was the conning tower of a three-and-a-half months without a stop. Japanese submarine. He sounded the war risk insurance on ships and cargoes A cautious man in what was consid­ alarm. When the smoke of the Japanese and as an underwriting agent for the cor­ ered a risky business, Codere put off mar­ attack cleared, the nation was at war. poration, The St. Paul handled much of rying. However, he had met Mabelle Insurance companies were affected al­ the detail. Almost nine million policies Prosser, a young stenographer and one of most immediately. More insurance was were written during the war years, with four working in the Home Office in St. needed by manufacturers with war con­ premiums totaling close to a quarter of a Paul. In 1916 he married her and took her tracts who operated twenty-four hours a billion dollars. back to Winnipeg with him. They had day to meet deadlines. They bought large To meet the wartime needs of the two daughters. amounts of business-interruption insur­ army post exchanges (PXs) for a vast In 1920 F. R. Bigelow asked him to ance; they insured their vastly increased array of insurance, the company created come to St. Paul as his assistant. Perhaps amounts of equipment and products; and package policies that drew together all buoyed by his promotion, and relying on they tripled their workmen’s compensa­ coverages into a single policy. After the his own financial acumen, he borrowed tion coverage when their payrolls tripled. war, as the company created similar money to buy his first shares of Fire and In the dark days of Spring, 1942, sub­ packages for commercial risks, they be­ Marine stock. Years later a fellow share­ marine warfare became a nightmare for came so popular that a separate depart­ holder asked him “Where would you go the special hull syndicates that wrote in­ ment was set up to handle them. if you wanted to market this stock?” surance on ocean-going vessels. Under­ In St. Paul the company established a Codere replied, “I really don’t know. I’ve sea attacks by the German “wolfpacks” blood donor center in the Home Office; never sold a share of St. Paul stock.” intensified and losses mounted to $1 mil­ gave the city a fully equipped ambulance He was elected to Fire and Marine’s lion to 1.5 million in a single day. Some staffed by a medic; loaned employees to

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 21 understaffed and overworked govern­ ment offices; and sent typewriters off to do battle in ill- equipped bases overseas. A total of 339 men and women from The St. Paul served abroad. Not all of them came back.

C. F. Codere retired as president of Fire and Marine in 1948 and became chairman of the board. Throughout his ten years as president and the following fifteen years as chairman, he rarely missed a day at of­ fice. The St. Paul, he once said, was his life, but he had other interests as well. He was a great reader and a dedicated book collector. He assembled a fine library in his home, and he would bring books to the office for his employees to read. He was a quiet man, a thoughtful man, and he possessed a formidible memory and a human touch. He would tell an employee with a cold to go home because “I know you’ll feel better.” He never lost his shyness. He agreed to chair Summit School’s board of trustees as long as he didn’t have to appear in pub­ lic, and he never attended a graduation if he “had something for him.” He did. ceremony. legacy. It was, an observer noted, “one of He was a director of the Pullman the greatest succession plans St. Paul has Jackson reported for work at Fire and Marine right after graduation from Company, First Bank and First Trust ever seen.” Princeton, starting at the bottom as a Company of St. Paul, Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance Company, Otter Tail * clerk. He married a young woman from Power Company, First Bank Stock Cor­ Minneapolis, Margaret McDonald, and poration, and Miller Hospital. He was A. B. (Archie) Jackson succeeded they had four children. In 1929 Jackson became Codere’s assistant. He moved up chairman of the Finance Committee of Codere as Fire and Marine’s sixth presi­ the Minnesota Historical Society; a dent in 1948, and together they made the to vice president in 1943. trustee of the Hill Reference Library and post-war period one of expansion and the Protestant Home; and president of the progress. They had a substantial base Minnesota Club and the Somerset Club. from which to work. During the ten years Hamline University awarded this self- Codere was president, the company’s as­ taught executive an honorary Doctor of sets more than doubled, expanding from Laws degree in 1960. $41 million to $88 million; its surplus As an executor of F. R. Bigelow’s rose from $28 million to $42 million. will, Codere presided in 1946 over the Jackson, like Codere, was a life-long creation of the F. R. Bigelow Foundation, company man. His grandfather was John the charitable corporation to which Nicols, one of the directors who reorga­ Bigelow had bequeathed his estate. In the nized Fire and Marine in 1865. Another fifty years that have followed, the Foun­ grandfather, William J. Dean, also was a dation has provided millions of dollars to director, as was an uncle, W. J. Dean. help support programs designed to Archie Jackson grew up in St. Paul, at­ strengthen the community and its people. tended St. Paul Academy, and graduated Codere served as the Foundation’s chair­ from Princeton University in New Jersey man until his death on December 11, in 1922. 1963, at the age of seventy-seven. Jackson’s father, John Jackson, was a Codere left Fire and Marine, which he close friend of Frederic Bigelow’s and he had served for forty years, a special suggested to his son that he ask Bigelow

22 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Jackson was a gregarious man. ation and the Nuclear Energy Liability at 130 branch and field offices, the com­ Known as the “great communicator,” he Insurance Association. pany still had outgrown its St. Paul build­ thoroughly liked people. It would be his During this period, as the company ing—again. This time The St. Paul virtu­ task to move The St. Paul into the post­ was dealing with massive losses due to ally started over, completely rebuilding war era. He placed great emphasis on im­ deadly hurricanes buffeting the Eastern its headquarters on the same site at proving the company’s service to its pol­ seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico, the Washington and Fifth Streets and where icyholders. Under his direction, Fire and company under Jackson’s leadership de­ it would remain, reinforcing the com­ Marine acquired ten general agencies to veloped emergency teams to go directly pany’s commitment to the vitality of work directly with its independent agents into disaster areas. They were trained to downtown St. Paul. and, not incidentally, increase business. deal with the insured and settle claims After three years of construction, the He expanded the claims staff to give promptly. new $6 million facility opened for busi­ more efficient service. Because many of By this time, The St. Paul was offering ness in 1961. Some 15,000 people his employees were returning from every type of policy except life insur­ toured the building, and one of them wartime service, he initiated a manage­ ance, and life insurance was beginning to noted that it had “no executive hide­ ment training program to prepare people look attractive. As Codere explained it to aways.” for growing responsibilities in the com­ shareholders, “Agents find it increasingly plex new world. important to sell all forms of insurance When C. F. Codere signaled his wish in He became chairman of the American protection—property, casualty and life— 1963 to retire as chairman of the board, Insurance Association which represented in order to meet the needs of their cus­ Jackson stepped up to take his place. He many of the leading insurance companies tomers.” Besides, he added, selling life would serve until 1973, but remain on and served as a forum for the companies’ insurance would “protect and improve” the board for another year, rounding out officers. He presided over the celebration the company’s competitive position in a fifty-two year career with The St. Paul. of Fire and Marine’s 100th anniversary in the industry. He died on June 14, 1980, at the age of 1953 and, in an anniversary dinner ad­ In 1957 Jackson, Codere, and their eighty-one. dress, he looked back over the com­ colleagues cast about for a means of The list of Archie Jackson’s commu­ pany’s long history: entry. Since insurance law prohibited fire nity and professional involvements and casualty companies from offering would fill pages. He was internationally It has been relatively easy for those of us life insurance, Fire and Marine could ei­ known and respected in the insurance in­ now active in the operation of our Compa­ ther form a new company or acquire an dustry and he held offices in a number of nies to carry on with such a firm foundation existing one. They chose to acquire industry organizations. He was a founder under us. Last year our three Companies Western Life Insurance Company, of the Minnesota Insurance Information wrote premiums of $104.5 million, a figure founded in 1910 as Montana Life Insur­ Center. He was a longtime trustee of which would have undoubtedly shocked Mr. ance Company in Helena, Montana, a Macalester College and its board chair­ Bigelow and would have seemed beyond his city not unlike St. Paul in the 1850s. man from 1967 to 1971. In 1972 he re­ belief. . . There is scarcely an event or prob­ Montana’s state capital, Helena in 1910 ceived an honorary Doctor of Laws de­ lem in the insurance world today which does was still considered an untamed western gree from the college. not find the St. Paul group very much a part town and its occasional fistfights, shoot­ of it. These first 100 years have been hard ings, and skirmishes between cattlemen but, with it all, glorious years. May our fu­ and sheepherders made it a challenge to ture be as bright. sell life insurance there. However, West­ ern Life did more than survive. By 1955, In 1956 Jackson led the company into when The St. Paul acquired it, the com­ a future brightened by the dawning of the pany was doing business in eleven west­ computer age. The use of computers at ern states and had nearly $380 million of the time was a novelty among insurers, insurance-in-force, 520 workers in the just as typewriters were in the nineteenth field, another 145 in the Home Office, century. A growing staff of programmers and resources totaling $70 million, not was added to The St. Paul. including its $1.4 million headquarters A grimmer innovation was forced on building. In 1964, when Western’s main insurers in 1956. Recognizing the cata­ office moved to St. Paul, it had passed strophic implications of a nuclear acci­ the $1 billion mark of insurance in force. dent, Jackson realized that no one insur­ In the meantime, Fire and Marine was ance company could handle such a risk. taking a hard look at its own Home Of­ He helped organize two industry associa­ fice. The staff had more than doubled, tions to insure nuclear reactors: the Nu­ from 1,800 to 3,900 employees, and Western Life Insurance Company, founded clear Energy Property Insurance Associ­ while many of them were spread around in 1910 in Helena, Montana.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 23 He served on the boards of the Com­ frightening period of the Dakota Conflict they had one son. After Fire and Marine’s munity Chest (now United Way), the of 1862; his grandfather fought with the field agent in San Francisco began calling YMCA, Junior Achievement, St. Paul Le Sueur Tigers in the Battle of New on him, Hubbs joined the company in Arts and Science Council, the Hill Refer­ Ulm that year. His parents met at the 1936 as special agent in Oregon and ence Library, the Amherst H. Wilder Minnesota Normal School and Business Washington. He became agency superin­ Foundation, and the F. R. Bigelow Foun­ College and married in 1900 at Olivia tendent of the Pacific Department, then dation, which he chaired from 1964 to where his mother had begun teaching at general manager of the southern Califor­ 1973. The corporate boards on which he the age of sixteen. His father farmed near nia branch in San Francisco. However, at served included such major Midwest Dawson. the beginning of World War II he was firms as Gould, First National Bank of In 1902 his parents, with their horses called into service and an extraordinary St. Paul and First Bank System, North­ and cattle, moved to Oregon, riding much period in his life began. ern States Power Company, the Pullman of the way in the train’s cattle cars in In 1942 Hubbs was an infantry captain Company, and Northwestern Bell Tele­ order to care for their livestock. Ronald on duty at the Pentagon when he was as­ phone Company. Hubbs was bom there in 1908. His mem­ signed to the Military Intelligence Train­ Jackson loved the out-of-doors. In the ories of his young years reveal him as an ing Center in Maryland. Then he was or­ late 1920s, while camping with friends in ingenious, inventive, adventurous dered to the Command and General Staff the Quetico National Forest, he discov­ youngster. At the age of twelve, he and a School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. ered a lovely wilderness area on Lake friend established a “magazine,” hand­ As an intelligence officer, he was at­ Bumtside. The site eventually became setting the type and printing it in an “of­ tached to Eisenhower’s Supreme Head­ the St. Paul YMCA’s Camp Widjiwagan, fice” in a backyard chicken coop. quarters in London, and he would recall nationally known as one of the finest When he was fifteen he joined the Cit­ vividly some of his experiences during north woods camps in North America. izens Military Training Camp, a move the critical days leading up to the D-Day In 1960 Jackson was one of nine that led him into the Oregon National landings in Normandy: the Officers business executives who bought 254 Guard and a spine-tingling adventure. Mess, known as Willow Run because its acres of land surrounding Crosby lake in When he was seventeen, he was among size resembled the famed Detroit bomber the heart of St. Paul at a time when in­ ten members of the Silverton National plant, at the Grosvenor Hotel in London dustrial expansion threatened this large Guard unit who took part in a two-week where he met two of Ernest Heming­ urban woodland. The group held the search that ended in the capture of es­ way’s wives, past and future; the heart- land until the St. Paul Port Authority caped convicts from the Oregon State stopping period of the Normandy inva­ agreed to maintain it in its natural state Penitentiary at Salem. sion; his arrival in Berlin in 1945 where for recreational purposes. It is now Hubbs had decided early not to follow he took part in the official raising of the ■ Crosby Park. his father into the insurance business but American flag over the devastated Ger­ The Jacksons owned a farm near Still­ nevertheless,, after graduating from the man city and helped welcome President water where he liked to grow vegetables, University of Oregon in 1930, he went to Truman on his arrival at the Potsdam and a home in Florida where he made work for a local insurance agency. He Conference. Finally, that November, jam from the fruit trees on his property. married Margaret S. Jamie in 1935 and there was the arduous six-week journey Longtime employees remember how he in boxcars that crossed Germany and would leave little gifts, the fruits of his France and ended at Le Havre, the em­ labor, on their desks when he visited the 551 barkation point for the North Atlantic office after he retired. ■p crossing to the United States. He arrived home a colonel. He was awarded the Le­ * gion of Merit for performance of out­ Hps| standing service. When Ronald M. Hubbs was elected Fire 1*1 Hubbs returned to Fire and Marine’s and Marine’s seventh president on No­ southern California branch in Los Ange­ vember 5,1963, he ushered in a period of les, but two years later Archie Jackson decentralization, moving the company transferred him to St. Paul as his assis­ closer to its customers, and diversifica­ iB hg* i tant. In those days, the two men, presi­ tion, adding more companies to its mix in dent and assistant, sat facing each other, an expansion that gave birth to a new en­ their desks shoved together, front-to- tity and a new name. front, with a single telephone between Hubbs was bom in Silverton, Oregon, them. but his roots lay deep in Minnesota. His Fifteen years later Hubbs succeeded grandmother arrived in Minnesota in Jackson as president. One of his first 1856 and taught in Waseca County, hBBI H moves was to order a top-to-bottom maintaining her school throughout the Ronald M. Hubbs analysis of all staff, janitor through chair-

24 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY rolled on with more additions to The St. Paul. Added in 1968: Automated Data Services, In., a computerized accounting service; St. Paul Leasing Company that handled auto, commercial, and industrial equipment; Form 1040, Inc., an income tax preparation service; and St. Paul Eq­ uities (later named St. Paul Advisers, Inc.), a broker-dealer in mutual funds. The next year brought two more com­ panies. Postal Finance Company, a sixty- four-year-old consumer loan agency in Sioux City, Iowa, and one of the first to offer loans by mail, was added, along with its $50 million-plus in accounts re­ ceivable. And a real estate operation, later known as St. Paul Land Resources, Inc., was founded to acquire “raw” land for investment purposes. In 1970 St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company was created to mass-market personal lines insurance for Fire and Ma­ rine. Two years later, another new com­ pany, St. Paul Investment Management Company, was formed as an investment man, and an orienting of salaries by lev­ ing of insurance and processing of management firm. And in 1973 St. Paul els of responsibility. That the company’s claims. Life Insurance Company was established personnel policies were archaic wasn’t Under Hubbs, the years between 1965 to market life insurance through indepen­ surprising in an era when American cor­ and the mid-1970s were years of rapid dent agents who already were represent­ porations generally suffered from a lack expansion as the company became inter­ ing Fire and Marine in the property- of job descriptions and performance re­ ested in other businesses. Capital was liability business. views and employees had only a minimal plentiful in the 1960s, particularly for in­ When Archie Jackson retired that idea of what was expected of them. Over surance companies, and for Fire and Ma­ year as chairman of the board, Ronald an eighteen-month period, the com­ rine there was a need to find other areas Hubbs succeeded him. As chairman, pany’s pension and benefits policies were of operation that would improve its earn­ Hubbs also continued his active commu­ re-examined, including early retirement ings record. St. Paul Title Insurance Cor­ nity service. He has served on any num­ and profit-sharing. Salary ranges, job poration was formed after acquiring sev­ ber of corporate boards. He was chair­ classifications, and reviews were estab­ eral title companies, including such man, as were his predecessors, of the lished; levels of authority were defined, veterans as the Burton Abstract and Title F. R. Bigelow Foundation’s board of and management-by-objective initiated. Company, founded in 1866, and the Title trustees, and he initiated many of the Underlying it all was the importance of Guaranty and Trust Company, estab­ Foundation’s most innovative projects. communicating with every employee at lished in 1901. These included a series of adult literacy every level. By 1965-1967 it was clear to Fire and programs that culminated, in 1994, in the Decentralizing Fire and Marine’s op­ Marine’s management that to expand fur­ establishment of the Ronald M. Hubbs erations was another major thrust during ther would mean a complete reorganiza­ Center for Lifelong Learning on Univer­ Hubbs’s administration. A network that tion of the company. Therefore, in 1968 a sity Avenue near the state Capitol. The would grow to more than forty regional new entity under a new name was created Center, one-of-a-kind in the United offices was established. It began with as Fire and Marine became part of a gen­ States, provides an array of programs to San Francisco and included New York, eral holding company called The St. Paul help adults learn to read. Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles, Companies. The name, “St. Paul Fire and Hubbs’s interest in history is leg­ among other cities around the country. Marine Insurance Company,” remained endary, and he has written widely on Called Service Centers, each was headed with the property-liability subsidiary. Minnesota history and the life of Alexan­ by a vice president and staffed with a full Western Life Insurance Company and St. der Wilkin. He has been president of the complement of underwriters, risk man­ Paul Title Insurance Corporation became Minnesota Historical Society whose Ref­ agers, marketing, field, and claims peo­ subsidiaries of The St. Paul Companies. erence Room is named for him; a mem­ ple. The new system speeded up the writ­ The period of intense diversification ber of the National Historical Society, the

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 25 Twin Cities Civil War Round Table, and ing program created by Archie Jackson the Company of Military Historians. He was followed by some years as a field- has been a trustee of the Wilder Founda­ 1 man in Chicago and outstate Illinois. By tion, the James J. Hill Reference Library, Wf v - f&: iste 1951 Drake was back in St. Paul helping and the Minneapolis Society of Fine g i J I f . to handle Fire and Marine’s growing auto Arts. He has received three honorary insurance business. Next he was placed doctorates, from Carleton College, the in charge of the company’s fledgling University of St. Thomas, and William package insurance business, its three em­ Mitchell College of Law, where he also ployees and its $1 million in premiums. has been a trustee. The University of St. Known as Multicover, this was a new Thomas awarded him its highest honor: concept that grew out of the company’s the St. Thomas Aquinas Medal. In 1995 World War II experience in packaging he was elected to the International Insur­ insurance coverage for the army’s post ance Hall of Fame. exchanges (PXs). He is a member of the Sherlock Multicover is essentially a book of in­ Holmes Society of London and of the surance policies covering the physical Norwegian Explorers, a scion society of properties of a business—its building and the Baker Street Irregulars whose mem­ its contents, moving of cargo in auto and bers know that Sherlock Holmes still Carl B. Drake, Jr. truck operations, storing it in ware­ lives, tending bees in Sussex County, houses—and other hazards such as busi­ England. fices. Mr. Bigelow and Mr. Codere shared ness interruptions. To get the package an office. Archie Jackson and Ron Hubbs business going, Drake traveled around * shared another office. It was pretty unusual. the country talking to agents and field- men. Multicover proved to be a profitable Carl B. Drake, Jr., succeeded Hubbs as After graduating from Yale in 1941, enterprise. the eighth chief executive officer of The he went to work full-time for Fire and In 1958 Drake was promoted to assis­ St. Paul Companies in 1973. Drake had Marine in the automobile underwriting tant secretary and two years later to sec­ become Hubbs’s assistant in 1963; in department. The bombing of Pearl Har­ retary; in 1966 he became vice presi­ 1969, the year after The St. Paul Compa­ bor set off World War II short months dent; in 1968 executive vice president, nies was formed, he was named president later and he volunteered for a naval offi­ but his years as Hubbs’s assistant, he of St. Paul Fire and Marine. For the next cer training program. Sent to Columbia has said, stand out as the toughest job he few years, the route to the company’s University in New York City for training, ever had. It was, he recalled, far better chief executive office would lie through he remained there as a drill officer until training than any business school he the presidency of Fire and Marine. June, 1943, when he was assigned to a might have attended. Hubbs proved to Carl Drake was bom in St. Paul in newly-commissioned destroyer. The fol­ be a demanding boss who was unwilling 1919, the son of Carl B. Drake, Sr., a lowing Christmas, after negotiating the to settle for anything less than excel­ physician and the grandson of railroad Panama Canal, the ship arrived in lence in his own performance. He ex­ builder Elias Drake, and Louise Hadley, Hawaii. Its nine-ship squadron was as­ pected the same dedication from his as­ whose father was an attorney for Great signed to a large carrier task force that in­ sistant, who recalled that: Northern Railroad. He graduated from cluded the Lexington and the Saratoga St. Paul Academy, then went off to Yale. and operated, with their night fighter We had an unusual relationship. I was his The insurance business had begun to groups, in the western Pacific. assistant for ten years before he retired and beckon him, but in the meantime: In June, 1945, the squadron was sent he and I see eye-to-eye on most everything. back to San Francisco to be rebuilt. The We worked together for so long that we un­ I was looking for a summer job after my war in Europe had ended and fighting in derstand each other’s thinking on business. freshman year in college and, without telling the Pacific was drawing to a close. Sta­ It was a great experience for me and I anyone, I went down to Fire and Marine and tioned again in Hawaii in July, the learned a lot. applied. The first job I had was opening and squadron within weeks received emer­ delivering mail, like Great Uncle Frederic. I gency orders to proceed on to Japan as He learned to cope with surprises, worked the 7 o’clock morning shift and I part of the force that patrolled the en­ which was just as well. Six days after his took the bus in from White Bear. I did that trance to Tokyo Bay during the surrender election as Fire and Marine’s president, for most summers while I was in college. In ceremonies. he was greeted with the news that the those days there was no air conditioning. At war’s end, Drake held the rank of company had a $1.5 million insurance They had those giant windows open and lieutenant. He rejoined Fire and Marine claim on its hands after student disrup­ electric fans were all over the place. It was to work in the casualty department. A tions destroyed a university computer pretty informal. There were no private of- tour of duty in the company’s field train­ center in Canada. Fire and Marine, true to

26 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY company tradition, not only did not call a known bond issue the firm underwrote surance entirely, The St. Paul decided to halt to computer insurance sales but con­ was a water bond issue for Bemidji. That continue coverage of its currently insured tinued to actively pursue the business. year also, St. Paul Surplus Lines, provider 48,000 doctors and 1,500 hospitals and to Drake was concerned throughout his of a broader range of insurance cover­ adopt an old concept newly applied—a career with personnel issues, an interest ages, was added, and St. Paul Risk Ser­ “claims made” policy. This meant that that stemmed from memories of his first vices, Inc., which provided consulting the price of an insurance policy would be years with Fire and Marine when he and other services to self-insured institu­ based on the history of claims against the worked in what he felt was an uncertain tions, was another addition in 1978. company in a given state. It allowed the atmosphere with no job description, no As the 1970s began, the medical mal­ company to adjust its prices annually to objectives, no real training for the work practice crisis erupted, with an impact on meet changing conditions. In years to he was to do. He saw that the company The St. Paul that has been compared come, claims-made policies became the had a history of losing employees who, with the Great Chicago Fire and the San standard for the medical liability insur­ given more education and training, could Francisco earthquake and fire. In the five ance industry, and it placed The St. have been important to its future. years between 1970 and 1974, the com­ Paul’s malpractice insurance comfort­ A reflection of this concern was his pany’s losses in doctors and hospital lia­ ably in the black. expansion of the company’s investment bility claims were more than $55 mil­ Carl Drake retired as The St. Paul’s subsidiary in one of his first moves after lion. chief executive officer in 1984. He had becoming The St. Paul’s chief executive Medical malpractice coverage wasn’t succeeded Hubbs as chairman of the officer. Sound investments carefully nur­ new. The company began writing hospital board in 1977, and he also succeeded him tured by C. F. Codere helped the com­ liability insurance when World War II as chairman of the F. R. Bigelow Founda­ pany through the critical years of the erupted, and when the war ended, pursued tion’s board of trustees. Drake has been a 1930s depression. Forty years later, it in earnest. From 1945 to the early trustee of Macalester College, House of Drake saw the investment side of the 1960s, business was good. When the Hope Presbyterian Church, and St. Paul company as small, isolated, with unreal­ company began to promote individual Academy and Summit School; a director istic career paths and salaries, and scant medical liability coverage for physicians, of the St. Paul United Way, the St. Paul recognition for its few employees. In surgeons, nurses, dentists, and other med­ Area Chamber of Commerce, First Na­ short, he felt that it was under-rated at a ical professionals, The St. Paul became tional Bank of St. Paul, Honeywell, Inc., time when the investment business was one of the country’s largest writers of and Buckbee-Mears Company. He has booming all over the world. When the St. medical liability insurance. been president of the Minnesota Insur­ Paul Investment Management Company The “several bloody years” generated ance Information Center, president of the was formed in 1972 to specialize in han­ by the malpractice insurance crisis owed Insurance Federation of Minnesota, and dling investment portfolios of pension much to historic forces that were gather­ vice chairman of the American Insurance and profit sharing plans, Drake staffed it ing during the troubled 1960s: a growing Association. He was married in 1943 to with new people who were investment awareness by the public of their rights; a Frances Boynton and they had three chil­ specialists. One of them was Douglas W. consumer movement that showed people dren. After her death in 1975, he married (Doug) Leatherdale, who was hired as its how to satisfy complaints; medical ad­ Charlotte Hannaford, and his family now executive vice president, and who two vances that seemed to promise cures for includes three stepchildren. decades hence would become The St. every ailment; and a “Marcus Welby” One of Drake’s most enduring contri­ Paul’s chief executive officer. syndrome that conferred an aura of infal­ butions to his community came in the Drake was mindful as well of the in­ libility on the medical profession at the early 1980s when he served as chairman creasingly important roles women were same time as HMOs were diluting the of the board and chief fund-raiser for the playing in the corporate world. In 1982 personal relationship between doctor and glittering new Ordway Music Theatre the company was named the “1982 Twin patient. As more problems found solu­ that now graces Rice Park, across the Cities Corporation of the Year” by the tions in the courts where juries might street from The St. Paul’s Home Office. Minnesota Women’s Network for its award large settlements, society became The Ordway, Drake once said, “is proba­ commitment to the development of its more litigious. bly the single most important develop­ women employees. Faced with its losses, The St. Paul ment” for St. Paul in more than a cen­ In 1974 Drake supervised the acquisi­ concluded that it had to change the way it tury. tion of John Nuveen and Company, a na­ handled medical liability risks. Within tion-wide investment banking firm that the industry nation-wide, insurance pools * underwrites, trades, markets, and distrib­ were created to spread heavy losses utes securities. Based in Chicago, Nuveen among companies, and legal action pre­ Waverly G. Smith was named president had survived a rough beginning around vented insurers from completely discon­ of Fire and Marine in 1973, during the 1900 when most of the city’s investment tinuing malpractice insurance in any worst of the medical malpractice crisis, banking firms failed. Nuveen had a tenu­ state. and he was one of the architects of the ous Minnesota connection. The first Unwilling to abandon malpractice in­ eventual turn-around. He once said that,

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 27 the company to the world of advertising. He built and staffed a department that, under his leadership, began consumer ad­ vertising and produced materials for agents. It was his idea to promote The St. Paul as “the Quiet Company,” along with a drawing of a character with wings bear­ ing a wand capped by a dollar sign. To Smith’s everlasting frustration, his logo was promptly dubbed “the St. Paul Angel.” Smith guided the company through another major campaign: its pioneering effort to translate the arcane language of insurance policies into plain English, well before it was required by law. “The clear trend in our society,” he explained, “is towards the consumer expecting a reasonably complete understanding of what he or she is buying.” He moved up steadily: secretary of Fire and Marine, 1965; assistant vice president, 1967; vice president, 1968; ex­ I think it was our determination to stay in Smith had studied engineering for a ecutive vice president, 1969; then presi­ that business and our attitude toward the year at Duke University and he returned dent. problem that overcame a crisis for doctors, to Duke, but because university officials In 1978 when he became president hospitals, and the industry. had mislaid his records and couldn’t en­ and chief operating officer of The St. roll him, he cast about instead for work in He, too, had worked his way up engineering or electronics. The search through the company, but he originally was elusive. In the meantime, an uncle ... his logo was hadn’t intended to do so. He was bom in who was a contractor took him to a Durham, North Carolina, in 1924, and he bumed-out beauty salon and asked him to promptly dubbed was twenty-two years old in 1946 when estimate the damages. Smith’s guess was he completed a stint in the United States so close to the mark that he went to work ‘the St. Paul angel* marine corps as a radar technician. He as a claims adjuster for a Durham firm. was en route to join a fighter squadron With no knowledge whatsoever of the in­ when the war ended. surance business, he learned by reading Paul, he began to reverse course on the every closed claims file in the office and company’s diversification thrust, a every auto liability case in North Car­ process that would continue under his olina. successor, Robert J. Haugh. It was a time Three years later, in 1949, he joined to refocus the company on its traditional The St. Paul as a claims adjuster in Co­ identity and strength, the insurance busi­ lumbia, South Carolina. Within three ness, but Smith wouldn’t be there to months he was transferred to St. Louis as guide it. Health problems intervened as claims manager of the office there. At he was on his way to the chief execu­ this point, selling insurance began to ap­ tive’s chair. In 1981 he retired early at the peal to him more than adjusting claims, age of fifty-seven, and he died in 1991 so he asked for a transfer as a fieldman. after a long illness. He and his wife, He was sent to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Kathleen, had three children. In 1957 he was brought into St. Paul as a He had served on the boards of the general adjuster and head of the Fire Loss Saint Paul Area Chamber of Commerce, Department. Minnesota Public Television, the Bush Personable, gregarious, well-liked, Foundation, Carleton College, the Min­ with a trace of a southern accent, he was nesota Club, CHART (Center for Hu­ handed the challenge in 1960 of develop­ manism, Awareness and Resource Train­ Waverly G. Smith ing a marketing program that introduced ing), and General Mills. He had long

28 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY tion in 1985) followed. A year later, in 1983, the company bought Reinsurance Facilities Corporation (RFC), an interna­ tional brokerage, and the Swett & Craw­ ford Group, a leading excess and surplus brokerage based in Los Angeles. Consol­ idating the latter two created the largest wholesale insurance brokerage in the country. However, there were ups during the uncertain 1980s—The St. Paul posted record operating earnings in 1981 and 1982—and there were downs. Newly deregulated and faced with growing lia­ bility claims related to liquor, pollution, trucking, even fishing and day care cen­ ters, the property-liability business was in trouble by 1983. A year later, facing a $210 million net loss, Haugh told share­ holders that “Clearly, 1984 was a terrible Ouch! The St. Paul has been one of the largest underwriters of medical liability insurance for year.” doctors and hospitals. The Medical Services Division, cre­ ated in the early 1980s to pull together underwriting and marketing for the health care industry, posted a 30 percent been active in a number of insurance in­ as chairman and chief executive officer. growth, just in time to deal with another dustry organizations. And he was a three- He was a strong, forceful, driving ad­ medical malpractice insurance crisis. The mile-a-day outdoor jogger even in Min­ ministrator. With Drake and Smith (until cause this time was the skyrocketing ex­ nesota’s bitter winters. his retirement), Haugh was a key mem­ pense of malpractice coverage stemming ber of a leadership team that guided the from huge claim costs. Even so, The St. * company through the tumultuous 1980s Paul remained the nation’s largest and that saw Mount St. Helens erupt, hurri­ best-known underwriter of medical mal­ Robert J. Haugh’s years with The St. canes lash the Gulf and East Coasts and a practice insurance, with about 14 percent Paul dated back to 1948 and to Milwau­ stock market that skidded 508 points on kee, where he was bom in 1926. After “Black Monday” in 1987. graduating from Marquette University Haugh continued the policy of expand­ with a law degree in 1948, he joined the ing insurance operations and divesting the company as a claims adjuster in its Mil­ company of non-insurance subsidiaries. waukee office. Four years later he be­ By 1984 most of those acquisitions had came a claims manager and eight years been sold or discontinued. after that he moved to the Home Office in The first significant development of St. Paul as a general adjuster. the decade was the formation in 1981 of Drake remembered telling Hubbs that Atwater McMillan, a subsidiary that “Bob Haugh ought to be given more to writes large national accounts, surplus do than settle claims.” Like his predeces­ lines coverages, and specialty risk insur­ sors, Haugh’s trail upward led through ance. Renamed St. Paul Specialty Under­ Fire and Marine: head of the acccounting writing in 1988, it also provided consult­ department; assistant vice president and ing services for those needing specialized treasurer in 1969; vice president and trea­ insurance or self-insurance. surer in 1972; senior vice president in In January, 1982, Seaboard Surety 1976; president and chief operating offi­ Company, a provider of fidelity and cer in 1978. In 1981 he moved into The surety bonds, became The St. Paul’s first St. Paul Companies as executive vice acquisition under its new insurance-ori­ president and the following year he was ented strategy. The Excess and Treaty named its president and chief operating Management Corporation (renamed St. officer. In 1984 he succeeded Carl Drake Paul Reinsurance Management Corpora­ Robert J. Haugh

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 29 of the market, more than four times the He was a trustee of Marquette Univer­ share of its next largest competitor. sity, William Mitchell College of Law, Moreover, malpractice premiums have and the College of St. Catherine. He and been the company’s most profitable in­ his wife, Mary Jane, had three children. surance line. An international identity was estab­ * lished in 1988 when the company bought London-based Minet Holdings PLC, es­ Douglas Leatherdale was named presi­ tablishing The St. Paul as the seventh dent and chief operating officer in 1989 largest international insurance brokerage and succeeded Bob Haugh as chairman in the world. The company consolidated and chief executive officer in 1990. In its national and international brokerage being named to these posts, Leatherdale operations under Minet and formed demolished some stereotypes in the way Minet Specialty Management to handle the insurance industry, and The St. Paul its wholesale brokerage business in the in particular, “grows” its executives. United States. Included under Minet was Like C. F. Codere, he is a Canadian, but J. H. Minet Reinsurance Brokers, Ltd., he has maintained his Canadian citizen­ (Minet Re), a worldwide brokerage net­ ship (the better to manage family agricul­ work. London-based St. Paul Manage­ tural interests north of the border), and he Douglas W. Leatherdale ment, Ltd., a combination of several works in the United States on a green companies, was formed the same year to card. Leatherdale says candidly that he manage underwriting of world-wide rein- has never sold an insurance policy, paid a . surance and excess and surplus lines in- claim, or underwritten a risk, that he In 1968 he emigrated to Minnesota to ^ surance in the United States, and auto in­ didn’t go to the “right” schools, play golf, become associate executive secretary of surance in the United Kingdom or start at the bottom and work his way the board of pensions for the Lutheran Late in that crowded year of 1988, on up, and that he doesn’t even live in St. Church in America in Minneapolis. The August 3, ground was broken for a soar­ Paul or any of its suburbs. He lives on a cultural shock of moving into a small ing new seventeen-story, $70 million farm in Medina, on the far western corporation was somewhat startling, he Home Office building across the street reaches of Hennepin County where he once said, but it was part of his plan to from the headquarters the company dedi­ and his wife Louise raise Hanoverian become his own boss in a small company cated in 1961 and an extension of the site horses and where he begins his day in and establish a track record “of some­ The St. Paul has occupied since 1909. boots and jeans. thing I had done alone.” The lines of the new “north” building, Doug .Leatherdale joined The St. Paul In 1972, when he moved over to The topped by an aluminum “pyramid,” com­ in 1972 to form its new investment man­ St. Paul, the company was in the process plement two adjacent historic structures, agement company, St. Paul Investment of fortifying the investment side of its Assumption Church and Landmark Cen­ Management. He was its first chief exec­ business. A major turning point in ter. The five-story 1961 building, which utive officer. Then and now, he presents Leatherdale’s career took place on Sep­ had been renovated in 1930,1949,1960, the same sort of hard-driving, decisive, tember 30, 1974, “at 4:30 p.m.” That day and 1981 as the company struggled to creative leadership that characterized the Carl Drake asked him to become The St. keep pace with its growth, was renovated ten men who proceeded him in his post. Paul Companies’ chief investment officer. once again and reclad in materials that Leatherdale was bom December 6, He was named senior vice president of fi­ match the new building. The massive 1936, on an 800-acre crop and livestock nance in 1981 and executive vice presi­ project reinforced The St. Paul’s commit­ farm his English grandfather home­ dent of The St. Paul Companies in 1982, ment to downtown St. Paul. steaded near Morden, Manitoba. He was before becoming president and chief oper­ As the 1980s drew to a close, so did the first member of his farming family to ating officer seven years later. Over that Bob Haugh’s years with The St. Paul. He complete high school, not to mention col­ period, The St. Paul had posted a succes­ retired at sixty-five in 1990 and died just lege. His graduation from United College sion of exemplary years. As he said when a year later at the age of sixty-six. He had in Winnipeg in 1957 was followed later he assumed the chairmanship in 1990: by advanced management programs at been active throughout his career in the I am fortunate that I am coming into a new Harvard Business School and the Univer­ insurance industry’s leading organiza­ role at a time when the company is very sity of California. For the next eleven tions, and he had been a director of the St. strong, well positioned and has lots of op­ years, he worked as an investment ana­ Paul Chapter of the American Red Cross, portunities ahead. We’re coming off several lyst for Great West Life Assurance Com­ the Committee for Economic Develop­ years of very good earnings. We have a very pany in Winnipeg, establishing a career ment, the Conference Board, the Min­ strong balance sheet. We’re in very good that focused on the management of in­ nesota Private College Council, and the shape. Metropolitan Development Association. vestment portfolios and finance.

30 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY The St. Paul’s glittering new building on Sixth and Washington Streets, across the street from the block it has occupied since 1909 in downtown St. Paul.

RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY 31 That cushion helped see the company company has won national recognition and he has been instrumental in moving through the shaky period of 1992 and for its on-site day care (he has been a sin­ the company’s own philanthropy toward 1993 when Hurricane Andrew devastated gle parent himself) and for its fitness cen­ urban neighborhoods, education, non­ southern Florida. It allowed Leatherdale ters. He has been an advocate for open profit management and development, and to chart a course for The St. Paul toward and honest communication about the family self-sufficiency programs. He is a success in the twenty-first century. company, its policy, and its future. He director of the Minnesota Orchestral As­ In an industry that is fighting for also has been an advocate for the com­ sociation and the University of Min­ growth driven by too much capital chas­ pany’s headquarters city of St. Paul. nesota Foundation; a trustee of Carleton ing too few premium dollars, Leatherdale When he became chairman and chief ex­ College; and an overseer of the Carlson has forged a vision that is predicated on ecutive in 1990, The St. Paul, with its School of Management He is a member strong underwriting philosophy, a solid 2,710 employees in downtown St. Paul, of the Twin City Society of Security An­ financial footing and, importantly, focus its majestic new building, and its partici­ alysts and the Financial Executive Insti­ on the customer. The fundamentals of a pation in acquiring and restoring the ele­ tute. strong balance sheet and the pursuit of gant and historic Saint Paul Hotel nearby, Alexander Wilkin wouldn’t recognize carefully selected specialties are points was becoming more and more central to the company he and his fellow entrepre­ of distinction of The St. Paul with the future of downtown St. Paul. neurs set out to create 143 years ago Leatherdale at the helm. In his own right, Leatherdale was be­ when they saw opportunity awaiting Medical liability insurance continues ginning to emerge as one of St. Paul’s them in the pioneer settlement of St. to be one of the largest of The St. Paul’s visionary civic leaders, like those who Paul. specialties in the United States. Yet while preceded him. One of his signal achieve­ St. Paul Fire and Marine continues its tra­ ments may well be his pioneering effort on behalf of rejuvenating a frayed down­ dition of serving businesses in this coun­ SOURCES try, Leatherdale sees the future for growth town where his company has a $150 mil­ of the company across the seas. During lion stake in real estate. Early in 1996 he Material for this history has been drawn his tenure, The St. Paul has expanded its formed the “Capital City Partnership,” by from several other histories, long and international underwriting capabilities in tapping twenty- seven other Twin Cities short, which the St. Paul Companies has such far flung locations as South Africa, executives for their commitment to the published in past years; from news clip­ Latin America, and The Netherlands. At project and for several million dollars in pings and reports; and from several arti­ the same time, The St. Paul’s reinsurance seed money to get it going. At a time cles Ronald M. Hubbs wrote for this pub­ operations have moved forward in the when the city was still smarting from lication about the company and United States, Japan, and Germany. West Publishing’s move to Eagan, The Alexander Wilkin, its first president, in Irrespective of the geographic locus of St. Paul under Leatherdale’s leadership the late 1980s.The company’s extensive The St. Paul’s business, certain funda­ already had demonstrated its own com­ archives also were an important resource, mentals that were established more than a mitment to its historic base with its plans as was Carl B. Drake, Jr., who gener­ century ago continue to drive the com­ to move 300 employees from Blooming­ ously shared his memories of his family pany’s business. Even today the credo ton into the renovated Hamm building and his own years with The St. Paul. that best reflects Leatherdale’s leadership across the plaza from the Home Office. The author wishes to thank him, as view is that the insurance business is The company also has committed mil­ well as Karen L. Himle, vice president of built upon a promise to pay, and he views lions of dollars to the development of St. the St. Paul Companies; Barbara Rey­ that promise as inviolate—-just as the Paul’s riverfront and to a new building on nolds, senior manager, Corporate Com­ founders of The St. Paul saw their role the river for the Science Museum of Min­ munications; and Rich Arpi, company more than 140 years ago. nesota. A hockey player in high school, archivist, for their very considerable help At the same time, Leatherdale has Leatherdale hopes that a professional in making this newest of The St. Paul’s paid close attention to the thousands of hockey team can be enticed to play in a histories possible. people who make daily contributions to remodeled Civic Center. the company’s work. He has welcomed In the tradition of the company, he has Virginia Brainard Kunz is editor of Ram­ diversity among The St. Paul’s employ­ been active in the community. He headed sey County History and has written- ees (minorities make up 15 percent of the the completed $50 million endowment widely in the field of American, Min­ work force and women 30 percent). The campaign for the Minnesota Orchestra, nesota, and Ramsey County history.

32 RAMSEY COUNTY HISTORY Fort Spelling in 1853, from the St. Paul Companies’ panorama reproduced in this issue. The citadel on its bluff is framed by an approaching storm. See article beginning on page 3.

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

36724 ED. 1196