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Ramsey County History – Fall 2004: “The Rondo Oral History Project Kathryn Coram Gagnon: Operettas, Dances, Parties, and a Growing Love of Music”

Kate Cavett

The Rondo Oral History Project Kathryn Coram Gagnon: Operettas, Dances, Parties, and a Growing Love of Music  Interview by Kate Cavett Based on oral history interviews, this is the story of Kathryn Coram Gagnon, an African-American woman who grew up in St. Paul’s old Rondo neighborhood. The interview…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2004: “The Life and Death of Central Park—A Small Part of the Past Illuminated”

Paul D. Nelson

The Life and Death of Central Park—A Small Part of the Past Illuminated Author: Paul D. Nelson The Central Park story begins in 1884. It was a time of city expansion, and the affluent and powerful residents in an area near today’s State Capitol wanted a park to buffer…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2003: “St. Paul Underground: The University Farm Experimental Cave and How St. Paul Became the Blue Cheese Capital of the World”

Greg A. Brick

St. Paul Underground: The University Farm Experimental Cave and How St. Paul Became the Blue Cheese Capital of the World Author: Greg A. Brick Willes Combs, a professor of Dairy Industry at the University of Minnesota, was buying mushrooms at a West Side cave and saw that the humidity…

Ramsey County History – Fall 2002: “Those Squealing Red River Ox Carts: Norman Kittson and the Fur Trade”

Clarence Rife and Holly Walters

Those Squealing Red River Ox Carts: Norman Kittson and the Fur Trade Authors: Clarence Rife and Holly Walters In 1830 at the age of sixteen, Canadian-born Norman Kittson joined the American Fur Company and headed west. He eventually arrived in Minnesota, where he joined Henry Sibley in the fur…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2002: “The Road to the Selby Tunnel, Or How to Make It Up the St. Anthony Hill”

Virginia Brainard Kunz

The Road to the Selby Tunnel, Or How to Make It Up the St. Anthony Hill Author: Virginia Brainard Kunz St. Paul’s hills posed a challenge for the street railways of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article describes the earliest days of horsecars, the problem of…

Ramsey County History – Spring 1999: “In the Beginning: The Geological Forces that Shaped Ramsey County and the People Who Followed”

Scott F. Anfinson

In the Beginning: The Geological Forces that Shaped Ramsey County and the People Who Followed Author: Scott F. Anfinson “Ramsey County lies in a setting that is geologically complex, both in its bedrock and its glacially produced features.” Beginning about sixty-five million years ago when the region was very close…

Ramsey County History – Spring 1998: “Stairway to the Abyss: The Diverting Story of Cascade Creek and Its Journey under St. Paul”

Greg Brick

Stairway to the Abyss: The Diverting Story of Cascade Creek and Its Journey under St. Paul Author: Greg Brick Among the many lost wetlands and watercourses of Ramsey County is Cascade Creek, which flowed from near Cretin-Derham Hall High School and tumbled over a cascade into the Mississippi near the…

Ramsey County History – Summer 1997: “Millions of Years in the Making: The Geological Forces that Shaped St. Paul”

Edmund C. Bray

Millions of Years in the Making: The Geological Forces that Shaped St. Paul Author: Edmund C. Bray The geological history of what became St. Paul, starting with an epicontinental sea 455 million years ago, through the glacial era and Glacial Lake Agassiz, the Glacial River Warren, and the spectacular waterfall…

Ramsey County History – Spring 1986: “The Mississippi and St. Paul—Change Is Constant for the River and the City That Shaped It”

Paul Donald Hesterman

The Mississippi and St. Paul—Change Is Constant for the River and the City That Shaped It Author: Paul Donald Hesterman The article’s theme is how today’s Mississippi River is different from the mid-nineteenth century river “in virtually every way, from the contours of its banks to the chemical composition…