Catalog
Ramsey County History – Spring 2006: “Mary Hill’s Lowertown, 1867–1891”
Eileen R. McCormackMary Hill’s Lowertown, 1867–1891 Author: Eileen R. McCormack Mary Mehegan Hill lived most of her early life in St. Paul’s Lowertown and was there with her husband, James J. Hill, from the time of their marriage until the Hills moved to Summit Avenue in 1891. Surrounded by prosperous families…
Ramsey County History – Spring 2006: “St. Paul Underground: Stahlmann’s Cellars: The Cave under the Castle”
Greg A. BrickSt. Paul Underground: Stahlmann’s Cellars: The Cave under the Castle Author: Greg A. Brick Bavarian-born Christopher Stahlmann opened his brewery in St. Paul in 1855 on Fort and Oneida streets in the West Seventh area. By the late 1870s, it was the largest brewery in the state. Its lagering…
Ramsey County History – Winter 2006: “‘The Greatest Single Industry?’ Crex: Created Out of Nothing”
Paul D. Nelson“The Greatest Single Industry?” Crex: Created Out of Nothing Author: Paul D. Nelson The American Grass Twine Company was the fifth largest employer in St. Paul in 1903 and its largest manufacturing industry, with 900 employees. The company was based on taking wire grass, which grew in peat bogs…
From Arcade Street to Main Street: A History of the Seeger Refrigerator Company, 1902-1984
James B. Bell“St. Paul has long been famed for its Winter Carnival, but another sort of chill was big business for more than three-quarters of a century on the city’s East Side. There, in a sprawling plant operated by the Seeger Refrigerator Company along Arcade Street, thousands of workers produced iceboxes and,…
Ramsey County History – Fall 2005: “Stonebridge: The Story of a Lost Estate and Oliver Crosby, the Inventive Genius Who Created It”
Jay PfaenderStonebridge: The Story of a Lost Estate and Oliver Crosby, the Inventive Genius Who Created It Author: Jay Pfaender Even in the Groveland neighborhood, little is remembered about Stonebridge, an estate built by St. Paul businessman and civic leader Oliver Crosby. A New Englander from Maine, he came to…
Ramsey County History – Winter 2004: “‘He Loved a Tall Story’ The Life and Times of I.A. O’Shaughnessy, the Man Who Happily Gave His Money Away”
John M. Lindley and Virginia Brainard Kunz‘He Loved a Tall Story’ The Life and Times of I.A. O’Shaughnessy, the Man Who Happily Gave His Money Away Authors: John M. Lindley and Virginia Brainard Kunz Born in 1885, Ignatius Aloysius O’Shaughnessy was an oilman and philanthropist. His parents, who were of Irish decent, moved to Minnesota…
“Bought 2 Horses & a Wagon:” The Story of the Murphy Companies
Virginia Brainard KunzThis is the story of how E. L. Murphy Sr. established his business, gradually converted it from horses to trucks, suffered through the takeover of Murphy Transfer and Storage Company and Murphy Motor Freight Lines by a St. Paul bank in the midst of the Great Depression, and how brothers…
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. BrickSt. 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 – Summer 2003: “Fog and the Dark of an October Night—The Fabled Wreck of the ‘Ten Spot’ in Its Plunge Twenty-five Feet to the Mississippi Below”
David RiehleFog and the Dark of an October Night—The Fabled Wreck of the ‘Ten Spot’ in Its Plunge Twenty-five Feet to the Mississippi Below Author: David Riehle Shortly before 6 a.m.. on October 15, 1912, with the landscape covered in a dense fog, a bridge tender on the Terminal Bridge…