Ramsey County History – Spring 1967: “A Bridge, A Street, A Levee: Louis Robert’s Name Lingers in St. Paul”

A Bridge, A Street, A Levee: Louis Robert’s Name Lingers in St. Paul
Author: Patricia Condon

He was one of Minnesota’s pioneers: early settler, merchant, fur trader, steamboat captain and entrepreneur, real estate speculator, and politician. He even got in on the US Dakota War of 1862, narrowly escaping with his life. Robert came to St. Paul from Prairie du Chien in 1843, bought, sold, and gave away huge portions of what became the city’s downtown, ran a fleet of five steamboats in the 1850s, built the first frame and then the first brick residences in town, and participated in the organization of Minnesota Territory. He died rich in 1874.
PDF of Condon article