PAY YOUR DUES at the UNION a History of the Union
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, August 27, 1981 Sweet Potato Advertisement from PAY YOUR DUES AT THE UNION A History of the Union Bar Prepared for Prepared by Minnesota Blues Society Penny A. Petersen Charlene K. Roise December 2015 Hess, Roise and Company The Foster House 100 North First Street Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401 Note: The building that housed the Union Bar is located at the intersection of East Hennepin and Central Avenues Northeast. Both street names are used interchangeably in primary sources that refer to this site, but the address of the Union Bar is most commonly 507 East Hennepin. For the sake of consistency, this account will use East Hennepin for the building numbered 505–507 and Central Avenue Northeast for the building numbered 509–513, even though the name “East Hennepin” was not adopted until 1913. 1852 James Sargent Lane, age nineteen, settles in Saint Anthony. There, he joins his older brothers Silas and Isaac, who had arrived in 1848. The brothers work in the lumber business.1 The Lane brothers were born in New Brunswick, Canada, although both their parents are natives of Maine. Their father, Silas Nowell Lane, a veteran of the War of 1812 and a lumberman, moved to Canada, continuing to harvest the pine forest across a national border.2 1855 The Lane brothers are joined in Saint Anthony by their parents, Silas and Velona (or Velma in some sources), and younger brother, Leonidas.3 1856 By this year, the entire family lives on a parcel of land at the corners of Fifth Street, Bay Street (present-day East Hennepin), and Mill Street (present-day Central Avenue Northeast). Silas Lane purchases Lot 1 in Block 15 of the Mill Company Addition to Saint Anthony from the Saint Anthony Water Power Company.4 1859 Leonidas Lane purchases Lot 2 in Block 15 of the Mill Company Addition to Saint Anthony from the Saint Anthony Water Power Company. The Lane family members own the entire corner at Fifth Street and present-day Central Avenue Northeast and many members of the family reside on this property. In time, a portion of this land will become the site of the Union Bar.5 1860 James Lane marries Aubine Dorman. Over a period of twenty years, the couple will produce seven children. The first five are girls. The sixth, the first son, is born in 1877 and named Mark; his brother, Frank, follows three years later.6 1866 James Lane purchases Lots 1 and 2 in Block 15 of the Mill Company Addition from Silas and Leonidas Lane.7 1 George E. Warner and Charles M. Foote, History of Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis (1881; reprinted, Marceline, Mo.: Walsworth, 1977), 579; Alonzo Phelps, Biographical History of the Northwest: Being Volume Four of American Biography of Representative Men (Boston: Ticknor, 1890), 114–15. 2 Phelps, Biographical History of the Northwest, 114–15. 3 Warner and Foote, History of Hennepin County, 579. 4 Hennepin County Deeds Book D, page 735 (recorded December 9, 1856). 5 Hennepin County Deeds Book N, page 468 (recorded July 9, 1859). 6 Phelps, Biographical History, 114–15. 7 Hennepin County Deeds Book 10, page 423 (recorded April 27, 1866); and Book 10, page 512 (recorded May 22, 1866). 1872 The town of Saint Anthony on the east side of the Mississippi River votes to become part of the town of Minneapolis across the river. 1881 James Lane builds a large brick house that still stands at 625 Eighth Avenue Southeast. He and his large family move from Fifth and Mill Streets, but he retains the property there. By this time Lane is a very successful lumberman as partner of Merriman, Barrows, and Company and has extensive real estate holdings.8 1884 The Minneapolis City Council establishes the Minneapolis Liquor Patrol Limits. The patrol restricts saloons to the city’s core along the riverfront and parts of several residential neighborhoods. The boundaries are determined by the area that can be monitored by a horse patrol starting from city hall on an evening’s rounds. One of the neighborhoods with a large area in the limits is Cedar-Riverside, which has a strong contingent of Scandinavian immigrants; another is northeast Minneapolis, where many immigrants with drinking traditions, such as the Germans, reside. On the east side of the river, the patrol limits stretch to the northern city limits west of Fourth Street Northeast. The boundary runs east on Spring Street, turning on Tyler Street to Division Street, then turning at Ninth Street Southeast to Second Avenue Southeast, and continuing along Second until reaching the eastern shoreline. While the boundaries expand somewhat over time, the patrol limits remain in force for the next ninety years.9 1888 James Lane erects a wood dwelling and store at 505–507 East Hennepin, the site where the Union Bar will eventually stand.10 1895 James Lane takes out an $18,000 construction permit for 509–513 Central Avenue Northeast. He hires prominent local architect Adam Lansing Dorr to design the building and contractor F. G. McMillan to erect it. Lane spends almost $20,000 to complete the three-story brick building, which has stores on the first level and apartments above. A newspaper article pointed to this development as “another indication of the confidence which Minneapolis property owners have in the future of the city as a place for investment.” This building is well within the Liquor Patrol Limits. In time, after being put to many other uses, it will house a portion of the Union Bar.11 Dorr, a native of New York, was born in 1854. He received his professional training in architects’ offices in Canada and New York. He and his wife moved to Minneapolis in 1882, and he worked for Plant and Whitney as a draftsman and later for George and Fremont Orff. By 1886, he had his own practice. His son William later joined him and the firm became Dorr and Dorr in 1910. Scholar Alan Lathrop notes, “The firm specialized in designing fine residences and commercial building, including hotels and 8 Warner and Foote, History of Hennepin County, 579; “Real Estate—Building Matters,” Minneapolis Tribune, April 2, 1881. 9 Proceedings of the City Council, Minneapolis, Minn., 1884–1885 (Minneapolis: Minneapolis City Council, 1885), 59–60; “The City Circuit—Patrol Limits,” Minneapolis Tribune, February 13, 1893; Jim Hathaway, “The Liquor Patrol Limits of Minneapolis,” Hennepin History, Fall 1985, 3–7; Jay Edgerton, “Patrol Limits—A Lumberjack ‘Hangover,’ ” Minneapolis Star, September 26, 1956. The Tribune article includes a map of the entire Liquor Patrol Limits. Some of the streets that were boundaries no longer exist. 10 Minneapolis Building Permit No. B13583 (dated January 3, 1888). 11 Minneapolis Building Permit No. B33994 (dated January 28, 1895); “The Lane Building,” Minneapolis Tribune, January 29, 1895. A History of the Union Bar—Page 2 apartment houses.” Some of Dorr’s designs include the Bull residence, 1628 Elliot Avenue South (1887); C. F. Keyes residence, 2225 East Lake of the Isles (1904); and the Continental Hotel, 66–68 South Twelfth Street (1910).12 1896 James Lane calls the new building the “Nowell Block,” apparently using the maiden name of his paternal grandmother. A hardware store owned by Otto Rood is among the first commercial tenants. Lane’s sixteen-year-old son Frank is listed as the manager of the Nowell Block. 1898 In March, James Lane and his sons Mark and Frank incorporate the Lane Company, and this entity, which sells hardware, soon occupies the storefronts at 509–511 Central Avenue Northeast. About the same time, James and Aubine Lane sell Lots 1 and 2 in Block 15 of the Mill Company Addition to the Lane Company for $45,000.13 1900 The Lane Company hardware store sells, among other items, bicycles. A newspaper remarks that “this concern caters to the East Side trade and expects to get its share of it during the season.”14 1903 Mark Lane, acting for the Lane Company, begins to sell off the holdings at Fifth and East Hennepin. This year a portion is sold to the Gluek Brewing Company.15 1906 In June, James Lane dies from complications of a stroke. Prior to this, he has served eight years on the Minneapolis City Council.16 Mark Lane sells off more of the land at Fifth Street Northeast to the Gluek Brewing Company. Before Gluek Brewing buys the rest of the property at 505–507 East Hennepin Avenue, it apparently holds a grocery store run by F. J. Hogan.17 1907 By this year, the Gluek Brewing Company owns the property at 505–507 East Hennepin and razes the wood buildings that stand there. In their place, Gluek erects a two-story brick building with two storefronts, hiring architects Boehme and Cordella to design what will be a saloon. In time, the Union Bar will occupy both of these storefronts.18 By late November, Charles A. Swenson is operating the building at 507 East Hennepin Avenue Northeast as a saloon.19 Established in 1903, the firm Boehme and Cordella designed number of saloons for Gluek including buildings that still stand at 15 North Sixth Street (which continues to 12 Alan K. Lathrop, Minnesota Architects: A Biographical Dictionary (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2010), 60–61. 13 Minnesota Secretary of State File number 14859-AA, March 7, 1898; Hennepin County Deeds Book 488, page 386 (recorded March 31, 1898). 14 “The Whirr of the Wheels,” Minneapolis Tribune, March 25, 1900. 15 Hennepin County Deeds Book 567, Page 278 (recorded December 24, 1903). 16 “Former Alderman Lane Is Stricken,” Minneapolis Journal, June 4, 1906.