Ramsey County History – Fall 1973: “Highland–Groveland–Macalester Park: The Old Reserve Township”

Highland–Groveland–Macalester Park: The Old Reserve Township
Author: Donald Empson

Settlement and development of the southwest corner of the city, bounded by Marshall Avenue on the north, Dale Street on the east, and the Mississippi everywhere else.
The first permanent settler was William Finn in 1848. Formal land sales began in 1854, at $1.25 per acre. Prominent early settlers included John Ayd, William Brimhall, William Davern, Friedrich Knapheide, and Thomas Crosby. What became the University of St. Thomas began in 1874 as the Catholic Industrial School, on land purchased from William Finn. The township became a dairy center in the 1870s and ‘80s; “by 1900 there were at least twenty-six dairy farms in the area.” St. Paul annexed the township in the 1880s. The city’s first electric streetcar line connected the College of St. Thomas and St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary with downtown via Grand Avenue in 1890. Still, “it was not until the 1910s and ‘20s that the mile-upon-mile of houses were built that characterize the area north of Randolph today.”
PDF of Empson article