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Ramsey County History – Winter 2005: “Union Park in the 1880s—Band Concerts, Balloon Ascensions Once Lured 10,000 People in a Single Day”

Minnesota Junior Pioneers

Union Park in the 1880s—Band Concerts, Balloon Ascensions Once Lured 10,000 People in a Single Day Author: Minnesota Junior Pioneers In 1880, the Milwaukee Short Line Railroad opened up development in today’s Macalester, Groveland, and Merriam Park neighborhoods, then on the outskirts of St. Paul. Union Park, as it…

Ramsey County History – Summer 2004: “Spring Wagons and No Roads: A Gibbs Daughter Remembers a Pioneer Family’s Sunday as a ‘Serious Undertaking’”

Lillie Gibbs LeVesconte

Spring Wagons and No Roads: A Gibbs Daughter Remembers a Pioneer Family’s Sunday as a ‘Serious Undertaking’ Author: Lillie Gibbs LeVesconte This is a reminiscence of the youngest daughter of Heman and Jane Gibbs. She recalls that getting to church services was no easy task in the 1870s. It…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2004: “‘High and Dry on a Sandstone Cliff:’ St. Paul and the Year of the Chicago and Rock Island’s Great Railroad Excursion”

Steve Trimble

‘High and Dry on a Sandstone Cliff:’ St. Paul and the Year of the Chicago and Rock Island’s Great Railroad Excursion Author: Steve Trimble This article examines what St. Paul looked like in 1854 when the Great Railroad Excursion came to the city. St. Paul was part of the…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2004: “A Quilt and a Diary: The Story of the Little Girl Who Rode the Orphan Train to a New Home”

Ann Zemke

A Quilt and a Diary: The Story of the Little Girl Who Rode the Orphan Train to a New Home Author: Ann Zemke The author made a quilt that is used to tell the story of her grandmother, Margaret Peterson, who was an orphan. From 1854 to 1929, thousands…

Ramsey County History – Winter 2004: “A Century Ago: Hundreds of Thousands Greet the Liberty Bell the Day It Came to Town”

Susan C. Dowd

A Century Ago: Hundreds of Thousands Greet the Liberty Bell the Day It Came to Town Author: Susan C. Dowd The Liberty Bell, with its twenty-four-inch-long crack, came to St. Paul on June 6, 1904. The nation’s “most cherished relic” was on its way from Philadelphia to St. Louis…

“Bought 2 Horses & a Wagon:” The Story of the Murphy Companies

Virginia Brainard Kunz

This 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 – 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 Riehle

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 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…

Ramsey County History – Spring 2003: “The Volunteer Hook and Ladder Company”

Virginia Brainard Kunz

The Volunteer Hook and Ladder Company Author: Virginia Brainard Kunz This is a short article on Wilson Farrell’s Pioneer Hook and Ladder Company, which was established in 1854. Like other groups of this type, its members were elected and had to buy their own ladders, buckets, and rope. Arson,…

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…