Ramsey County History – Fall 2014: “Growing Up in St. Paul: The Peripatetic RCHS in the Mid-1970s”

Growing Up in St. Paul: The Peripatetic RCHS in the Mid-1970s
Author: Anne Cowie

Returning to Minnesota in early 1974 with a graduate degree in history, Anne Cowie was hired by the Ramsey County Historical Society (RCHS)  to do research and writing for a new exhibit the society planned to mount in Landmark Center. Ramsey County had recently acquired the Old Federal Courts Building on Rice Park and was in the process of restoring and converting it to the Landmark Center. Thus, Cowie was present at the time when RCHS moved from its offices at the Gibbs Farm Museum to Landmark and then temporarily to offices at Macalester College, and then back to Gibbs Museum before a final return to Landmark. Her boss at RCHS was Virginia Brainard Kunz, the society’s first executive director. Cowie provides a fond memoir full of anecdotes and details of her time on the staff before she moved on to other employment.
PDF of Cowie article