Origin Story Part The Twelfth: Robert Sweeny Sketches Early St. Paul

Robert Ormsby Sweeny (1830-1902) arrived in St. Paul in 1852 as near the first documented Quaker to the territory. His mother Rachel Ormsby (1797-1841) was…
Origin Story Part The Eleventh: Water Water Everywhere And A Dangerous Drop To Drink

The land of skyblue waters, Minnesota, did not provide clean drinking water for its growing population. In the West End, the glacial landscape created a…
Origin Stories Part The Tenth: Origins Of The Church Of St. Paul

In 1680 Franciscan Louis Hennepin, a Catholic missionary, began exploring Minnesota along with French and métis fur traders. In 1727 two Jesuits, Michael Guignas and…
Origin Stories Part the Ninth: Origins of St. Paul, Radically Revised

The City of St. Paul was birthed with the expulsion of immigrants by the U.S. military. In the 1600s French explorers, traders and missionaries came…
Origin Stories Part the Eighth: Fort Snelling at Bdote

While Fort Snelling has been around a couple hundred years, the Dakota have called Bdote home for eight thousand. Bdote is the confluence of the…
Origin Stories Part the Seventh: Not in the Book’s History

In 1914 Lucy Leavenworth Wilder Morris was researching original “highways” of Minnesota and found few maps. As she investigated, she interviewed old settlers. “All at…
Origin Story, Part the Sixth: John Irvine, Granddaddy of W7 / St. Paul

While Irvine Park and Hillside commemorate John Irvine, his legendary civic role in the birth of our neighborhoods and city is somewhat neglected. Prior to…
Origin Story, Part the Fifth: The Delusion of Downtown St. Paul

There is a misconception that the City of St. Paul grew out of a downtown district. Through the 1800s nothing could be further from the…
Origin Story, Part the Fourth: Les Français arrivent avec les Ojibwés

In the 1500s eight thousand years of Dakota way of life and territorial integrity in Minnesota was challenged by European colonial powers. Following Christopher Columbus’…