Twin Cities Snapshots: History Through the Lens of the St. Paul Pioneer Press

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TWIN CITIES SNAPSHOTS HISTORY THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ST. PAUL PIONEER PRESS

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The lonely glow of Mickey’s Dining Car lights up Ninth and St. Peter streets at 4 a.m. on Aug. 13, 1985. The original caption for this noirish photo of the downtown St. Paul institution called it a “vehicle” that always runs but never moves. (John Doman / Pioneer Press)

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TAB L E OF C ONT ENT S 1900-1919 ................................................................14 DAWN OF T H E 20th CE N T U RY

1920-1929 ................................................................24 T H E ROARIN G 20s

1930-1939 ................................................................34 CRIME WAVE

1940-1949 ................................................................44 T H E WAR YE ARS

1950-1959 ................................................................60 A CE N T U RY OF STAT E H OOD

1960-1969 ................................................................76 T U RMOIL AN D PROG RE SS

1970-1979 ................................................................96 N E W H E IG H T S

1980-1989 ..............................................................112 T IT LE TOWN

1990-1999 ..............................................................126 “WE SH OCKE D T H E WORLD”

2000-2009 ..............................................................140 A N E W MILLE N IU M

2010-2023 ..............................................................150 H OPE AMID T RAG E DY

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The Pioneer Press library as it looked in 1965. The rows of filing cabinets lining the walls are the paper’s morgue, where “dead” news and old photos were kept in folders, carefully filed by subject and date. (Pioneer Press file photo)

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Introduction W

here can you still see Prince playing a show at First Avenue?

Or the St. Paul Saints beating the Minneapolis Millers in a Fourth of July double-header?

Or war-weary Minnesotans celebrating V-J Day? The photo archive of the Pioneer Press preserves these moments and many more, frozen in time as negatives, paper prints and megabytes.

We published our first photo in 1894. In the decades since, Pioneer Press photographers have helped to create a collective visual memory of the Twin Cities in our pages.

They’ve captured moments of intense joy — the Twins winning a World Series — and moments of extreme sorrow — the Interstate 35W bridge collapse — along with the many mundane moments that make up most of life.

As the Pioneer Press celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2024, we wanted to offer readers a glimpse into this unique archive of images that tell a story of our community. We hope the roughly 250 photos in this collection delight you, move you and, occasionally, surprise you.

More family photo album than comprehensive history of the Twin Cities, this book is meant to reflect the way our paper has aimed to cover the news since it was founded: with warmth and curiosity — and an admitted favoritism for St. Paul.

Pioneer Press photographer Larry Anderson with a Graflex Speed Graphic camera. (Pioneer Press file photo)

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Employees of the Pioneer Press pose for a photograph outside their offices at what is now Kellogg Boulevard and Minnesota Street in downtown St. Paul on July 3, 1888. In the foreground, a sandwich board lists the day’s biggest headlines. (Pioneer Press file photo)

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Left: The first issue of the Minnesota Pioneer — earliest ancestor of the Pioneer Press — dated April 28, 1849.

Center: James Madison Goodhue, founding editor of the Pioneer. (Pioneer Press file photo) Right: The Pioneer reported the death of President Abraham Lincoln on April 16, 1865, two days after he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.

P I O N E E R DAYS The Pioneer Press has been a newspaper longer than Minnesota has been a state.

James Madison Goodhue printed the first issue of his Minnesota Pioneer – the earliest ancestor of the Pioneer Press – in a single drafty room on what is now Kellogg Boulevard in downtown St. Paul in April 1849.

The first newspaper ever published in Minnesota Territory, it was a weekly. This was important, because Goodhue and his two assistants cranked out each issue, one copy at a time, on his Washington hand press.

An unabashed booster of Minnesota and St. Paul in his coverage, Goodhue saw the potential in what was then a muddy little river town of about 30 wood-frame buildings and a few hundred inhabitants. But his tenure as editor of the Pioneer was short. He died in 1852.

His successors at the top of the masthead would fend off a number of challengers in coming years, eventually upgrading their press and adopting a daily publishing schedule to remain competitive.

On the other side of the Mississippi River, the upstart village of St. Anthony – soon to become Minneapolis – began to sprout newspapers of its own. The St. Paul papers

covered their western neighbor almost as if it were a foreign country.

The next few decades were marked by waves of consolidation in the Twin Cities newspaper market. In St. Paul, titles like the Minnesotian, the Democrat and the Times came and went, folding or being absorbed by larger publications.

When the dust began to settle in 1875, the Pioneer had merged with the St. Paul Daily Press, creating the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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This early downtown St. Paul street scene was captured in 1906 at the corner of East Seventh and Robert streets looking northeast. Construction of the Emporium department store, a longtime downtown staple, can be seen in the center of the photo. Now covered by a glass facade, the building still exists as Metro Square. (Pioneer Press file photo) 14 I TWIN CITIES SNAPSHOTS

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1900-1919 DAW N O F T H E 2 0th C E N T U RY

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he dawn of the 20th century found the Twin Cities in the midst of radical economic and technological transformation.

The proliferation of telephones made instantaneous communication commonplace. Automobiles replaced horses on city streets. Steel frame construction allowed taller and taller buildings to take over downtown skylines.

While Minneapolis established itself as the flour milling capital of the country, St. Paul’s nexus of rail and river transportation made it the gateway to the nation’s Northwest region for people and products making their way to and from the East Coast.

Several iconic Twin Cities businesses got their start during this time, including the Seeger Refrigerator Co. and 3M in St. Paul and the Dayton Co. in Minneapolis.

The long-running rivalry between the two cities was near its height, although the Mill City was steadily pulling away from St. Paul in terms of population growth.

The Saintly City came out on top architecturally, though, with the construction of its Twin Domes — the Minnesota Capitol and the Cathedral of St. Paul.

These formative decades concluded with the tumult of World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic, both of which turned the lives of Twin Cities residents upside down. The war left 2,133 Minnesotans dead, while the flu killed an estimated 10,000.

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Left: President Theodore Roosevelt waves to onlookers as he makes his way down Wabasha Street in St. Paul to a speaking engagement in the early 1900s. Roosevelt made several trips to the Twin Cities over the course of his political career.

During a 1901 appearance at the Minnesota State Fair as vice president, he famously outlined an American foreign policy that would “speak softly and carry a big stick.”

Just four days after Roosevelt’s speech at the Fair, President William McKinley was shot by an assassin in Buffalo, N.Y. When McKinley died a week later, Roosevelt assumed the presidency, bringing his fondness for “Big Stick” diplomacy with him.

(Pioneer Press file photo)

Right: The exterior of the Cathedral of St. Paul nears completion in August 1914. Construction of the massive stone edifice at Summit and Selby avenues in St. Paul began in 1906 and continued for more than three decades. It opened as a work-in-progress in 1915. Designed by acclaimed French architect Emmanuel Masqueray, the Cathedral drew nearly unanimous praise, including from St. Paul native Cass Gilbert, who designed the Minnesota State Capitol. Gilbert declared that if the Cathedral “were in Italy, thousands ... would go there to see it as a classic piece of Renaissance 14th century architecture.”

(Pioneer Press file photo)

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Registered nurse Hayleigh McLellan holds the hand of a COVID-19 patient in an intensive care unit of Regions Hospital in St. Paul on Nov. 24, 2020. (Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

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2010 -2023 H O P E AM I D T R AG E DY

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here’s been no shortage of news to cover in the Twin Cities over the past dozen or so years – some of it joyful, some of it tragic, none of it the same as yesterday.

The 2010s found Minnesota making history as the first state in the Midwest to codify through legislation the right of same-sex couples to wed – two years before gay marriage was legalized federally.

The Minnesota Lynx dominated the WNBA, winning six conference titles and four league championships, establishing a dynasty that gave hope to long-suffering Minnesota sports fans.

A big decade for local professional athletics, the 2010s also saw four new stadiums built in the metro – two in Minneapolis and two in St. Paul.

Several fatal shootings by Twin Cities police officers drew condemnation and protests from residents, many of them galvanized by the Black Lives Matter movement.

The state suffered another shocking loss when Prince died unexpectedly at his home in Chanhassen, which was later turned into a museum.

The 2020s, meanwhile, have challenged Minnesotans in ways they may have never thought possible.

The deadly COVID-19 pandemic caused schools and businesses to close, bringing life to a screeching halt and overwhelming hospitals. Thousands of Minnesotans have died of the virus.

Amid this upheaval, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, leading to several days of rioting in the Twin Cities. Chauvin would be convicted and sentenced to more than two decades in prison.

In the succeeding years, many things about the lives of Minnesotans have returned to a version of normal. Others have not.

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Above: Target Field in downtown Minneapolis opened to rave reviews when the Twins moved there from the Metrodome at the beginning of the 2010 season.

Here, Twins first baseman Justin Morneau hits a line drive foul ball during the first inning of a game against St. Louis that April. (John Autey / Pioneer Press) Top right: Gina Giselle crawls under downed power lines on May 22, 2011, after a tornado ripped through the Camden neighborhood of North Minneapolis.

One man died and 48 people were injured by the storm, which caused tens of millions of dollars in damage, according to the National Weather Service.

(Scott Takushi / Pioneer Press)

Bottom right: First Lt. Jeff Sabatke hugs his wife, Cindy, at the West St. Paul Armory on May 1, 2012, as he and hundreds of other members of the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th “Red Bull” Infantry Division return from a yearlong deployment to Kuwait during the Iraq war. “Trust me, I’m the happiest I’ve been in a long time right now,” Jeff Sabatke said. “To see green grass and the beautiful smile on my wife – it’s amazing.” (Ben Garvin / Pioneer Press)

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On March 25, 2011, workers from the Birdair specialty roofing company begin the process of replacing three diamond-shaped panels of the Metrodome roof that ruptured under a heavy blanket of snow during a December 2010 storm. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press) PIONEER PRESS I 153