Fort Snelling at Bdote background reading list from Linden Hills Public Library For millennia, the place where the Minnesota River joins the Mississippi has been a crossroads, a place of strategic power. But that symbolism is complicated. This tour is a powerful reminder that most Minnesotans today are descendants of immigrants, living on conquered land. […]
Just over a century ago the Minneapolis City Council directed the Milwaukee Railroad Company to construct a trench located just north of Lake Street, between Hennepin and Cedar Avenues, and 37 bridges for roads spanning the trench. This provided a grade separation between the railroad and the city’s automobile and streetcar traffic for three miles, […]
James Eli Shiffer, author of The King of Skid Row: John Bacich and the Twilight Years of Old Minneapolis, will visually take us to visit the nucleus of the old Gateway at Hennepin, Nicollet, and Washington Avenues. Though office towers, upscale hotels, and condos abound here, imagine this intersection 60 years earlier where you are […]
Author and historian Brian MacMahon will discuss how the Ford Motor Company transformed Minnesota as detailed in his award-winning book, The Ford Century in Minnesota, published by the University of Minnesota Press. The impact of the company will be seen locally, including the introduction of the Model T, the building of the Twin Cities Assembly […]
Until the 1970s, large swaths of Minneapolis were devoted to railroad use -- depots, switching yards, freight houses, and shop facilities. Much of that has disappeared, along with the industry that depended on the railroads. Historian Aaron Isaacs takes us on a tour of the city showing what was here before and what has replaced […]
We have received notice that Good Shepherd Lutheran Church is suspending all in-person church activities as of March 14. The building will be closed and all activities suspended through March 27. Thus, this program has been postponed. We will look at rescheduling when things have settled down. In 1905, Wonderland Park on East Lake Street […]
We are in a new era in which any property in the neighborhood is a potential site for new construction, up to three units per lot. We will view recently-built examples alongside houses from the late 19th century through what was presumed to be the full “build-out” of Linden Hills in the 20th century. What […]
In 1919, the Minnesota Legislature recognized women's right to vote in presidential elections. And in 1920, after the U.S. Legislature passed the 19th Amendment and two-thirds of the states ratified the amendment, women gained the right to vote. This right to vote took decades of discussion, protest, and persuasion. Historian Linda Lounsbury will examine the […]
Authors and historians, Andy Sturdevant and Bill Lindeke, will take us on an entertaining journey into the highs, lows, bright spots, and dark corners of the Twin Cities' most famous and infamous drinking establishments —- history viewed from the barstool. This is a virtual event and will be hosted on Google Meet. For the link […]
Minneapolis Jews, like their African-American and Japanese-American fellow residents, faced serious discrimination and social exclusion in employment, housing, and some public accommodations. Indeed, one of the leading investigative journalists and essayists of the era, Carey McWilliams, noted in his Common Ground article “Minneapolis: The Curious Twin” (Autumn 1946), “One might even say, with a measure of justification, […]