Origin Stories: An Introduction
Since the 1970s the Community Reporter has been blessed with reporters, editors and board members who have documented the history of our neighborhoods in its pages, as well as small businesses that supported its publication with advertising. Unfortunately historians of St. Paul and Minnesota have overlooked the West End’s presence and importance. Often they refer to a few “landmarks” between downtown and Fort Snelling, but ignore our role in the trajectory of statehood and prosperity.
“The Origin Story of Fort Road/West Seventh Street, the Township/City of Saint Paul, the Territory/State of Minnesota: Glacial Age Forward” is my attempt to remedy this oversight. When the continents separated at the South Pole and ours moved north, geologic forces created our limestone bedrock. After the Ice Age, climatic forces created our rivers, the Mississippi and Minnesota. Then for 8,000 years the Dakota and their forebears settled the land. In the 1600s the French and Ojibwe arrived via the Great Lakes; American control after 1783.
The proletariat history of our neighborhoods, primarily between Wabasha Street downtown and Bdote/Fort Snelling at the confluence of the Mississippi River, was the product of successive waves of immigrant settlers through the 1800s and 1900s. While our residential neighborhoods and commercial strip are the oldest in both the city and the state, the City of St. Paul has marginalized its value. The post war period of the 1950s prioritized freeways and white flight over preservation and the scenic river.
In the 1970s West End volunteers rose up. In the 1970s, our neighborhood council, the Federation, and a cadre of volunteers swung into action to rescue our “inner city.” We allied with other councils to fight 35E. We saved Irvine Park, Kipps Glenn and the C.S.P.S. Hall from demolition, saved the Schmidt Brewery complex as an historic site. We advocated for public housing at Sherman Forbes and community centers at Oneida and Palace, saved the local school (Monroe) and founded our local library and community newspaper. The Federation and its Community Development Corporation (CDC) rehabilitated stressed housing and became a model for the district council system in the early 1970s. We developed the North High Bridge Park and Sculpture Garden and a series of garden and history tours.
The Origin Story was seeded when I arrived from the West Side in the later 1970s. I bought my first home at the dead end of Goodrich that I transformed with four additions complementing its Victorian stick style. It was built by Joseph Haag in 1880 and moved shortly after 100 feet with a limestone foundation of the Lauer Brothers. I plunged into community organizing under Betty Moran who guided me through the decades and taught me W7 history. I headed the Community Reporter in the 1980s that sharpened my research and reporting skills as well as all aspects of the news publishing process. From 2004 to 2013 I joined Czech and Slovak SOKOL Minnesota as treasurer, archivist and president (2006 – 10) and president of the West 7th Business Association 2014-18.
The breadth of 45 years’ affiliations in the West End made me aware of its role in the history of our state. I was born at the end of the Second World War but my family’s rural history (all my aunts and uncles were raised on farms) informally reinforced the narrative, and also informed my genealogy to the 1600s. When my mother’s Czech Dvořák father died in 1923, she and her sisters came to live with their Aunt Julia and Uncle Joseph Gust Svobodny on Juno in West 7th. Her two sisters graduated from Ancker Hospital nursing as did my sister Kaye in 1963—one of its last residential nursing classes. My mother worked “up on the hill” as a domestic until she graduated from St. Francis Junior High School (1928). On June 22, 1857 my Luxembourgish relatives hitched up a buckboard and road 30+ miles from New Trier to St. Paul for their son Peter’s christening at Assumption Church, its second year.
All these connections impelled me to dive into the history of Fort Road/West 7th Street. With this introduction the Community Reporter will serialize monthly episodes of its history. I have already presented four “talks” and contributed to a PBS documentary on riverside communities, with more talks to come. And if I can find funding, a second edition is in the works—especially with family stories related to me when purchasing books. I hope you will enjoy these as much as I have enjoyed the research and authoring of their origin stories.
You can find a copy of “The Origin Story of Fort Road/West Seventh Street, the Township/City of Saint Paul, the Territory/State of Minnesota: Glacial Age Forward” at your local library. Learn more about the book and find Joe’s upcoming conversations about the history of West 7th at josfland.com.
