The Mysterious Baseball Park Minneapolis and Other Photos

Home , Baseball park, Nicollet Park, Target Field

The Mysterious ‘‘Base Ball Park Minneapolis’’ and Other Photos

Kristin M. Anderson Reading the Visual Evidence Christopher W. Kimball

hotographs of nineteenth- its surroundings, and, in one case, both baseball and football, fulfilling Pcentury Twin Cities ballparks are solve a mystery. its builders’ desire to create a multi few in number. Although they appear The earliest ballpark in the group purpose sports facility for the city. regularly in decorative and nostalgic is St. Paul’s Athletic Park, designed The only known photograph of the contexts at places like Target Field by Cass Gilbert and James Knox ballpark is part of a panoramic image and Butler Square in Minneapolis, Taylor and built in 1888. St. Paul’s dated “circa 1890” in the Minnesota these images have never been rigor- professional minor league teams Historical Society’s photo catalog ously analyzed. Early ballpark photos called Athletic Park home from 1888 and now broken into three parts. St. are rare resources, valuable tools for until 1892. Charles Comiskey used Paul’s Athletic Park is the earliest understanding the history of base- the park for Sunday games in 1895 Twin Cities ballpark for which there ball facilities, their design and use. and 1896, when playing at his regu- is a surviving photograph, although, Digital enlargements of four such lar grounds near Dale Street and as it turns out, this image is not the pictures—one from St. Paul and University Avenue caused legal dif- oldest Twin Cities ballpark picture.1 three from Minneapolis—allow us ficulties. During the 1890s and well to date each image more precisely, beyond, Athletic Park was home to above: The mystery photo, long thought recover details about the facility and semi-pro, amateur, and school teams, to be Nicollet Park circa 1900

Spring 2012 15 Vinegar works grandstand eisenmenger mansion

St. Paul Athletic Park (center foreground) in a panorama of the flooded Mississippi River valley, 1893. The State Street bridge bisects this information-rich image, visually separating the rail cars from the ice house, its roof and cupola visible here. The vinegar works is at the terminus of the State Street bridge. Ruins of the Eisenmenger mansion loom on the bluff across from the flooded ballpark. More rail cars, some houses, and the Crescent Creamery, partly under water, are at the far right.

These grounds were located on In this picture of the baseball by its seating structures and 12-foot- the west-side flats, an area south of park, there is no baseball game. En- high outfield fences.2 downtown St. Paul that was at—and larging the photo shows, instead, a While the ballpark was not al- sometimes below—the level of the few gawkers climbing on the empty tered much in its early years, the Mississippi River. The picture seems stands to survey the flood scene. surroundings began to evolve shortly to have been taken to show the mas- Little about the ballpark’s appear- after Athletic Park was built, and sive flooding in the river valley. Floods ance provides clues to pinpoint the some of these changes help date were fairly common in this low-lying date of the photo. The original Gil- the photograph. For instance, the part of St. Paul, and the vantage point bert and Taylor design, published in foreground includes many train on the bluffs above the ballpark gives the St. Paul Daily Globe, included tracks, present at the site before a panoramic view of both banks, a covered grandstand and bleacher the ballpark was built and increas- looking northeast. The unknown sections to seat about 3,000 people. ing in number through the next few photographer anchored the image by This photograph shows that nothing decades. (Although fewer, tracks are placing this familiar landmark—at had changed from that 1888 con- still present at the site today.) The least to nineteenth-century St. Paul figuration. Athletic Park remained rail cars provide a few clues about eyes—in the foreground. a simple wooden ballpark, enclosed the picture’s date, too. These tracks were owned by the railroad known for many years as the Chicago Great Kristin Anderson is a professor of art at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, and Christo- Western. Founded by St. Paul pher Kimball is president and professor of history at California Lutheran University tycoon A. B. Stickney in 1885, the in Thousand Oaks. They are at work on a book, Contested Terrain: An Architectural and Urban History of Twin Cities Ballparks. Their article on 1910s renovations at line was first called the Minnesota Nicollet Park and Lexington Park appeared in the Fall 2003 issue of this magazine. and Northwestern. In 1887 it became the Chicago, St. Paul and Kansas

16 Minnesota History ice house state street bridge crescent creamery rail cars houses on bluff

tor and sometime meat merchant John F. Eisenmenger. Designed by St. Paul architect Walter Ife, this huge home was noted for its fine materials and details; its construction lasted from July 1890 through Gilbert and Taylor’s grandstand, “a model of comfort” the following summer. Unfortu- according to the St. Paul Daily Globe nately, the new mansion burned on August 14, 1892, just a year after it City, and then, in July 1892, the Chi- tracks that went to the nearby South was occupied. The photo, when en- cago Great Western. Unlike changes St. Paul Union Stockyards—the ice larged, shows that even though the in name and corporate identity house belonged to the railroad and home’s peaked copper-and-slate roof today, this business evolution did probably served the refrigerated rail was gone and the sky was visible not necessitate repainting the rolling cars, some of which are visible in the through many parts of the building, stock. As late as 1901, all three com- foreground.4 most of the walls and one of the four pany names could be seen on various The most interesting building is chimneys remained standing. Photo- rail cars.3 in the distance, straight across the graphs from the mid-1890s show There are a number of buildings Mississippi from the ballpark. By that the building later suffered addi- around the ballpark. Some, like the aligning the large building silhou- tional damage. It was left as a disin- vinegar works to the left and the etted against the skyline in the back- tegrating ruin for a decade until houses on the bluff at the far right, ground with the ballpark in the everything but the porte-cochere was predate Athletic Park. This is also foreground, it is possible to identify dismantled in February 1902. That true for the Crescent Creamery’s the precise spot it occupied: It stood remnant became a decorative ele- dairy-farming operation to the right near the site of numerous Indian ment in the newly created Indian of the ballpark and below the bluffs. mounds on top of the bluffs, an area Mounds Park, and the remainder More helpful in dating the photo that would became a city park. In the of the brick and stone was taken is the ice house near the ballpark’s 1890s, however, this district was dot- across the city to Como Park, where right-field corner, built during ted with a few large houses, and this the materials were used to construct February 1892. Set along the tracks— one belonged to real estate specula- buildings and decorative walls.5

Spring 2012 17 and Fifth Street in downtown Min- neapolis. The park’s small size—less than a city block—necessitated not only 12-foot-high fences but also wire mesh extending another 25 feet or so above that wooden wall. Through this mesh and beyond the fences across Fifth Street, the ballpark’s neighborhood is visible, including nearby businesses and houses (and at least one spectator—maybe two—in the windows). Details of the park’s structure and operations are also visible. Fans accessed the bleachers from the back, walking under the grandstand, out a doorway, and up a set of stairs to the walkway along the Eisenmenger mansion (“For Sale” sign in window) about 1897, fence. This arrangement can be seen showing far more damage than in the earlier panorama in a drawing of the ballpark published in the Minneapolis Journal Given the evidence extracted and the grandstand circa 1892, ac- in May 1889, when the park opened. from the ballpark’s surroundings, cording to the Minnesota Historical Some trash has collected in the it is likely that the panorama was Society. There is also a cyanotype open space between the grandstand taken to document the late spring (so called because the image is blue) and the bleachers. It seems that flood in 1893 when, according to a labeled “Base Ball Park Minneapolis” the accumulated garbage includes newspaper account, “on the section and identified as Nicollet Park circa many scorecards like the ones held where the old ball park is located, nothing can be seen but a vast stretch of muddy fluid, dotted here The fans wear clothing more formal and there by a stunted tree, a fence, or a shanty.” The river had been ris- than we expect to see at today’s ing rapidly in the preceding week, ball games, even in the best seats. up three-and-a-half feet in four days. Worse flooding occurred in 1897, but the relatively intact condi- 1900. Careful examination of each, by some of the fans. The litter was tion of the Eisenmenger house and and of the group, reveals some fasci- likely left from an earlier game that the absence of any rail cars labeled nating details about 1890s baseball day for which clean-up had not yet Chicago Great Western would and creates a clearer view of the city’s occurred.8 indicate that this was the earlier baseball ownership and facilities The image also provides wonder- flood. As a result, we propose a date chronology.7 ful information about the crowd and around May 1, 1893, for this image.6 Designed by Minneapolis archi- its behavior. A fair amount of infor- tects Fremont Orff and George Orff, mality is visible—like cigar smoking Athletic Park included a wooden and nose-picking—along with spec- he three Minneapolis grandstand and two large sections tators not only in the bleachers but Timages tell a more complicated of bleachers. The bleachers photo also on the ground, on walls, and story. There are two very interest- was taken from the upper end of the on fences. The fans wear clothing ing and appealing crowd shots taken grandstand along the first base line more formal than we expect to see at Minneapolis Athletic Park, built and looked toward the park’s right- at today’s ball games, even in the in 1889: the bleachers circa 1890 field corner at First Avenue North best seats, and some have brought

18 Minnesota History had owned a one-third interest in the team since 1889, and in October 1890 he and his new partner, Grif- fin, bought the team and a sporting- goods store operated by the previous co-owner, Sam Morton. After this purchase, Hach and Griffin evi- dently undertook a major change in the park’s advertising schemes. They painted over ads on the fence for the Minneapolis Journal and a photographer, among others, and Grandstand and bleachers of Minneapolis’s Athletic Park, made sure that their businesses designed by architects Orff and Orff were represented with prominent ads in the scoreboard’s immediate sun protection: in addition to the As it turns out, the photograph vicinity, where fans would be look- ubiquitous headgear, umbrellas and can be dated precisely, based on the ing regularly. Their cross-promotion neck scarves are seen throughout the signs and other writing clustered included not only the sporting-goods crowd. Not present, however, are any in its right corner. Surrounding the store but also a bicycle school in the women. While representing a variety scoreboard are advertisements for of ages, the field-level and bleachers the various businesses of Henry L. Crowded bleachers at Minneapolis’s fans are all male. Hach and Andrew H. Griffin. Hach two-year-old Athletic Park, 1891

Spring 2012 19 old Panorama Building. Established While the players are barely in April 1891, it was closed by April 1892, when Griffin left Minneapolis visible, there are wonderful for Chicago to become the retail sales views of the well-dressed manager for baseball promoter and sports merchant A. G. Spalding. The crowd and its activities. bicycle-school sign makes it clear that the photograph was taken during the 1891 season.9 played with the bleachers view, it the park, showing its bleachers in Other historical and visual in- lacks the helpful scoreboard informa- May 1891 and the grandstand, date formation dates the photograph tion that pinpointed the first picture’s unknown. But what of the third even more precisely. The scoreboard date. The photographer was a few picture? An early owner of this cyan shows several games: while Minne- sections out from the grandstand’s otype inscribed it with “Base Ball apolis was trouncing Sioux City 9 to center, along the third base line, Park Minneapolis,” and the Minne- 0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, looking in toward home plate. The sota Historical Society has identified other Western Association matches structure and crowd look much like it as Nicollet Park circa 1900, per- between Kansas City and Denver, St. any other of the era, but this image haps because it does not look like Paul and Milwaukee, and Omaha and can be identified as Athletic Park the clearly identified Athletic Park Lincoln are also listed on the score- because of the gigantic West Hotel grandstand. This mystery structure board. The association’s 1891 schedule looming in the background. The is taller, the seating is steeper, and included both a Minneapolis-Sioux hotel was located on the neighboring it is topped with boxes on the roof. City series and Kansas City-Denver block, at the corner of Hennepin But labeling it Nicollet Park does not series in late May. As it turned out, Avenue and Fifth Street. make it so: photographs of the origi- there were two Minneapolis-Sioux This view allows a good look at nal Nicollet Park, built in 1896, show City games on Saturday, May 30, the construction of the grandstand, a very different grandstand without 1891—at 10:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.— with its center entrance, backed the roof boxes.12 one of which was a make-up for the benches, steps, box seats along the If the photograph does not show previous day’s rainout. The afternoon front, wire screen to protect the Nicollet Park, which succeeded Ath- game’s crowd was large, estimated spectators, and sun shades cover- letic Park, perhaps it shows an earlier variously as being between 3,000 and ing the openings at the stand’s back. facility, Minneapolis’s South Side 5,000 spectators, accounting for the Unfortunately, there is only a hint Grounds, used from 1886 until 1888. fans on the field. The scoreboard tally of the game and the teams—just Although there was mention of a roof matches the newspaper’s box scores, three blurred forms on the field. But deck in its initial plans, another detail and we learn that Minneapolis won while the players are barely visible, in the cyanotype eliminates the South the game 19 to 3. The Kansas City- there are wonderful views of the Side Grounds as a possibility: the Denver score also matches the news well-dressed crowd and its activities. writing on the dugout awning. Awn reports.10 Four women sit in the foreground. ings sometimes carried advertising, Knowing the date of the game, Perhaps this is a ladies section, and this one, when enhanced, reveals it is even possible to check the one of the common admission and the name of the awning company it- weather, which was summery enough attendance gimmicks of nineteenth- self: “H. J. Saunders, Mfr Awnings & to encourage the scarves, umbrellas, century baseball. In the middle of the Tents.” In May 1889 Henry Saunders and other sunny-weather apparel crowd are two African American fans had a window-shade business, but seen among the bleachers crowd. taking in the game with everyone by April 1890 he had taken over and The afternoon high was 80 degrees.11 else. One of these men and a number renamed Twin City Tent and Awning. of the other spectators are holding Since Saunders was not in the awn scorecards, and the shells of peanuts ing business until after the South he second Athletic Park eaten during the game are easily Side Grounds had been abandoned Timage shows the grandstand. visible in the foreground. for Athletic Park, this cannot be the While this photo is frequently dis- So here we have two views of South Side Grounds.13

20 Minnesota History Grandstand crowd, Minneapolis Athletic Park, a mix of well-dressed men and women who clearly ate peanuts

If it is neither the preceding nor the succeeding ballpark, could this be the Athletic Park grandstand? Ath- “Ladies . . . prefer to be letic Park opened in May 1889 with out of the excitement and unrealized plans for rooftop seat- ruckus which characterizes ing; however, early success and large crowds led the club to erect those the grand stand crank.” roof boxes almost immediately— within a month of the park’s debut. Constructed to accommodate the painted white, providing not only “a “Ed” Whitcomb in the fall of 1892. In larger-than-expected crowds, these neat appearance” but also helping turn, Whitcomb arranged for some boxes came to be used as the ladies players better judge ground balls. non-league baseball the following section because, in the words of one Therefore, the earliest date for the spring. On May 30, 1893, the papers reporter, “Ladies . . . prefer to be photograph is Spring 1890.15 reported on two games featuring the out of the excitement and ruckus But if Athletic Park had roof boxes University of Minnesota baseball which characterizes the grand stand in 1890, where are those boxes in the team, for which respectable crowds of crank.” 14 undated grandstand photo (above)? at least 500 people showed up.16 Another detail pushes the photo- As it turns out, the years after Athletic That success did not last, how- graph’s date past the park’s first sea- Park’s opening were tough for Min- ever. On the evening of June 1, 1893, son: the white grandstand wall. The neapolis baseball. The league teams the fire alarms near the ballpark were Daily Globe reported that in prepara- failed to complete the season in 1891 pulled. A large crowd gathered rather tion for the park’s second season in and 1892, and Henry Hach sold the quickly, having seen the flames and 1890, the front of the grandstand was then-empty Athletic Park to James thinking that the West Hotel was on

Spring 2012 21 Mystery solved: Minneapolis Athletic Park, about 1890–92 fire. Instead, it was the ballpark that Pacific Railroad. He returned to the was burning. Talk of arson and insur- Twin Cities in early 1893, and that ance payments soon appeared in the fall he became a part-owner and the newspapers, and suspicions were fur- secretary of the Minneapolis Base ther aroused when owner Whitcomb Ball Association. In January 1894 he could not be located and made no pulled a permit and hired a contrac- repairs to the ruined facility.17 tor to completely rebuild the Ath- Ironically, it was a St. Paul man- letic Park stands in order to provide ager, John Barnes, who stepped a home for the city’s new Western forward in the late fall to engineer League team. Descriptions of the the rescue of Minneapolis baseball. new structure presented it as supe- Barnes had played on and managed rior to its predecessor: the central St. Paul baseball teams starting in the grandstand access would be easier, mid-1880s and then spent three sea- the boxes at the stand’s front would sons in the Pacific Northwest, where be better than the rooftop boxes, the he organized baseball teams and a seats and their backs would be more John Barnes, late 1880s, league at the behest of the Northern comfortable than the old “circus seats” during his St. Paul days

22 Minnesota History of the 1889 grandstand. In every way, its last game at Athletic Park, and photos were taken on the same day Barnes’s new park would be an im- the cyanotype some time between in May 1891? provement over the old one.18 1890 and the partial 1892 season. While this question may never The vantage point for the bleach- be answered, the study of these four ers image and the cyanotype leads photographs creates more accurate ur chronology, then, puts to a tantalizing possibility: with the dates, clarifies the architectural Othe bleachers photograph at photographer in the same area of chronology of the Athletic Parks May 30, 1891, around 4:30 p.m., the the grandstand, and with a shadow- of Minneapolis, and clears up the grandstand shot after the beginning casting crowd on the field and a persistent misidentification of the of the 1894 season but no later than number of umbrella-wielding spec- cyanotype, that mysterious picture of May 23, 1896, when the team played tators, is it possible that these two the “Base Ball Park Minneapolis.” a

Notes 1. Kristin Anderson and Christopher apolis, ca. 1890,” “Spectators at a baseball 14. Minneapolis Tribune, May 26, 1889, Kimball, “The Saints on Sunday: Ballparks game at the ballpark on Fifth Street North p. 10; St. Paul Daily Globe, May 23, 1889, and Sabbatarianism in St. Paul,” NINE: A and First Avenue North, Minneapolis, ca. p. 5, May 27, 1889, p. 1. Frank Pezolt’s 1891 Journal of Baseball History and Culture 17 1892,” and “Spectators crowd the stands for bird’s-eye-view map of Minneapolis shows (Fall 2008): 1–15. a baseball game at Nicollet Park, ca. 1900.” roof boxes at Athletic Park, albeit only on 2. St. Paul Daily News, Mar. 22, 1888, 8. Minneapolis Tribune, May 19, 1889, one side of the grandstand; in fact, they p. 4; St. Paul Daily Globe, Mar. 22, 1888, p. 12; Minneapolis Journal, May 14, 1889, were on both. While useful, Pezolt’s rendi- p. 2, June 3, 1888, p. 6. p. 2. tion is inaccurate in several additional im- 3. St. Paul Daily Globe, Aug. 14, 1893, 9. Decatur Morning Review, Oct. 2, 1890, portant respects, including the setback p. 5; H. Roger Grant, The Corn Belt Route: p. 1; St. Paul Daily Globe, Oct. 5, 1890, p. 6, from the street and the lack of bleachers. A History of the Chicago Great Western Apr. 21, 1892, p. 3; The Sporting Life, Oct. 11, 15. St. Paul Daily Globe, Apr. 3, 1890, Railroad Company (DeKalb, IL: Northern 1890, p. 1; Minneapolis Tribune, Oct. 28, p. 6. Illinois University Press, 1984); The 1890, p. 4. 16. Minneapolis Tribune, Dec. 7, 1892, Official Railway Equipment Register 17 10. Minneapolis Tribune, May 31, 1891, p. 5, June 1, 1893, p. 7; Minneapolis Jour- (June 1901): 133. p. 13 (two articles). nal, May 30, 1893, p. 6; St. Paul Daily 4. St. Paul building permits for 365 State 11. Minnesota Climatology Working Globe, May 31, 1893, p. 5. St., May 7, 1885 (#3709), 214 Dunedin Ter- Group, historical data tab, http://climate 17. Minneapolis Tribune, June 2, 1893, race, May 1886 (#7322), 218–220 Dunedin .umn.edu (accessed Jan. 13, 2012). Addi- p. 5; St. Paul Daily Globe, June 2, 1893, p. 3; Terrace, July 1891 (#25887), and 380 State tional corroborating evidence on the score- Minneapolis Journal, June 2, 1893, p. 9. St., issued Feb. 10, 1892, work completed board: the “St. Paul Monday” announce- 18. St. Paul Daily Globe, Aug. 31, 1893, Mar. 1, 1892 (#27090)—all in Ramsey Co. ment at the lower left, promoting a p. 5, Jan. 19, 1894, p. 3, Feb. 25, 1894, p. 10; Historical Society; St. Paul Daily Globe, Minneapolis-St. Paul series scheduled for Minneapolis Tribune, Dec. 17, 1893, p. 23; Oct. 20, 1885, p. 2; Charles Rascher, Atlas the following week, and the game-in-prog- Jeff Price, “A Tale of Four Cities: Pro Base- for St. Paul, Minn. (Chicago: Rascher ress umpire, veteran player and umpire Lon ball in the Northwest had its origins in Se- Insurance Map Publishing Co., 1891), 4: Knight, who by 1891 was working in the attle, Portland, Tacoma, and Spokane,” Rain plates 354, 363; St. Paul Dispatch, Feb. 22, Western Association. On Knight, see St. Check: Baseball in the Pacific Northwest, ed. 1888, p. 1. Paul Daily Globe, Aug. 2, 1888, p. 5, June 7, Mark Armour (Lincoln: University of Ne- 5. St. Paul building permits: July 1, 1890, 1897, p. 5; Minneapolis Tribune, Aug. 2, braska Press, 2006), 4; building permit for $28,000 (#23147), June 8, 1891, for 1888, p. 2, Aug. 30, 1889, p. 2, June 10, 1890, issued Jan. 17, 1894 (#A3862), Minneapolis $14,000, work completed Aug. 4, 1891 p. 3, Aug. 13, 1890, p. 1, Apr. 18, 1891, p. 2. Development Review, Public Service Cen- (#25652). St. Paul Daily Globe, Aug. 15, 12. Minneapolis Times, June 21, 1896, ter; Minneapolis Times, Mar. 11, 1894, p. 7. 1892, p. 2, Sept. 26, 1897, p. 11, Feb. 9, 1902, p. 1. p. 14, Apr. 8, 1902, p. 2. 13. Minneapolis City Directory, 1888–89, 6. St. Paul Daily Globe, May 1, 1893, p. 2, 1890–91; Dual City Directory for Minneap- Apr. 5, 1897, p. 2 (two articles), Mar. 27, olis and St. Paul, 1889–90; H. J. Saunders The photo on p. 22 is from the Library of 1904, p. 22. ad (window shades), St. Paul Daily Globe, Congress. All other illustrations are in MHS 7. The photos are cataloged as: “Predom- May 5, 1889, p. 9; H. J. Saunders (new busi- collections, including the St. Paul Daily inantly male spectators watch game at base- ness notice), Minneapolis Tribune, Apr. 27, Globe, June 3, 1888, and the Minneapolis ball park in back of the West Hotel, Minne- 1890, p. 6. Journal, May 14, 1889.

Spring 2012 23

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