Ramsey County History – Spring 1983: “Swamps, Farms, Boom or Bust—Como Neighborhood’s Colorful History”

Swamps, Farms, Boom or Bust—Como Neighborhood’s Colorful History
Authors: Patricia Murphy and Gary Phelps

Before construction of the Como Shops, the Como neighborhood was an undeveloped area of timberland, swamps, and a few farms. Lake Como was probably named by an early settler. Land developer Henry McKenty built the first road to the area in 1857; resort hotels were built soon after, and a railroad line passed nearby in 1862. Planning for a park also began also in the 1890s and the Northern Pacific’s Como Shops completed in 1884, soon employed two hundred people. Residential development soared in the 1880s. There was a fifty-two acre development southwest of the lake named Warrendale. The streetcar reached the area in 1892. The Depression of 1893 slowed development until the building booms of the 20th century. Many changes occurred in the neighborhood in the 1970s and ‘80s.
PDF of Murphy & Phelps article