Union Depot was built in 1926 and at its peak, the station served 20,000 passengers each day by connecting them to over three hundred routes. This station replaced a previous structure that was built in 1881 and destroyed by fire. Construction for the current station started in 1917 but was stalled owing to the outbreak of World War I. The station was completed in 1926. Many suspected that the building might be demolished after the last train rolled through the station in 1971. However, the station once again connects residents to the nation's passenger train network via Amtrak and the building was restored between&nbsp;2010 and 2012. As a result, it continues to connect the city to transportation networks and also serves as a retail and entertainment destination. &nbsp;

St. Paul's Union Depot was restored between 2010 and 2012.

Similar to other urban rail depots, this station features the vaulted ceiling design made famous by Rafael Guastavino and his son Rafael Jr. 

Guastavino Vaulting: The Art of Structural Tile

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A premier transportation hub both from the 19th century to today, Union Depot has connected St. Paul to the larger world for nearly a century. Similar to urban train stations in New York and other major cities, this building features a vaulted ceiling inspired by the work of Rafael Guastavino. After its restoration in 2011-2012, the Depot connects passengers to the city bus system as well as the light rail, taxis, and Amtrak. The Depot offers guided tours every other Tuesday that provide access to the entire building and include discussions of the building's history and its role in St. Paul history. The depot also has five rooftop beehives that produce and sell Bee Line Honey.

Union Depot

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This walking tour begins with some of the city's historic churches and theaters and includes several museums, statues, and landmarks such as Union Depot and the Landmark Center. 

The church was built in a Richardsonian Romanesque style with a façade of
coarse, 24-inch thich Lake Superior brownstone. It has a large gable 90-feet
over the double-arched main entrances along with a square bell tower topped by
an octagonal spire. The original spire was damaged in a severe windstorm and
then blown off in 2004. It was replaced with the current one in 2005. The
semi-circular windows are original. 

The church still features its original pulpit, which was never attached to
the floor. This was so it could be moved when larger crowds were accommodated.
The east wall was initially a series of three pocket doors which allowed for
additional seating. The main sanctuary could seat several hundred people on the
main floor and balcony. 

Renovations in the 1950s led to sealing those doors and removing some of the balcony
to put Sunday School rooms on the second floor. There is also an Oval Room that
has been used as a business office and is currently used as a meeting and
Sunday School room. The church also features an historic pipe organ. 

In its early years, the building served as an auditorium and meeting space
in St. Paul. Notable speakers include Booker T. Washington, presidential
candidate William Jennings Bryan, former president and then-Supreme Court Chief
Justice William Taft, and evangelist Billy Sunday. The church has also been the
site of thousands of weddings, including 2,436 performed by the church’s
longest-serving pastor, Harry Noble Wilson.

Central Presbyterian Church got its beginnings in St. Paul in 1851 when Rev. John Riheldaffer came to town. The population of St. Paul at the time was about 1,500. As the population grew, so did the congregation. The church’s previous building was damaged by fire in the late 1880s. That cleared the way for the current building, built in 1889. The architect was Warren Hayes. The church building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. 

Central Presbyterian Church

The theater opened and operated as the Sam S. Shubert Theater. In 1933 it became a movie house and was renamed to The World Theater. In 1994 the theater was named after St. Paul native F. Scott Fitzgerald. On the Shubert Theater's opening night F. Scott Fitzgerald was living on 514 Holly Street in St. Paul and was only 13 years old. Fifteen years later, Fitzgerald published&nbsp;The Great Gatsby. The theater's first production in 1910 was “The Fourth Estate,” a play about a reporter who went through a court case revolving around the influence of advertisers. The theater opened to acclaim with front-page stories in each of St. Paul’s newspapers, “The Daily News” and the “St. Paul Pioneer Press. These articles praised the design of the theater, which was constructed of concrete and steel. It also praised the physical layout inside the theater itself. The theater had 16 dressing rooms, a stage that could be raised and lowered, a built-in vacuum-cleaning system, and last but not least 2,000 electric lights.

At the time of the theater's opening, Vaudeville productions were the most popular form of entertainment in the country. Prior to the rise of movies, entertainment consisted of skits involving comedians, singers, dancers, acrobats, and ventriloquists. Tickets to shows could be purchased between a quarter to 1.25 per seat.

Opening in 1910, the Fitzgerald Theater is Saint Paul's oldest surviving theater. The theater was heralded as one of the finest in the midwest when it opened as the Sam S. Shubert Theater in 1910. This was one of four other theaters created by Lee and J.J. Schubert. The theater was designed in the shadow of the Maxine Elliot Theater in New York. 

The Fitzgerald Theater

The historic Fitzpatrick Building, now known as Viking Apartments, exemplifies the popular Victorian-era (late nineteenth-century) Commercial Queen Anne style in Saint Paul's business district. Construction of the Fitzpatrick Building finished in 1890 during a building boom of the late 1880s and early 1890s. However, the builders for the Fitzpatrick Building relied on masonry and load-bearing walls rather than utilizing steel as other buildings had done during that era; it's one of the last few buildings to emerge without a steel frame. Saint Paul benefited from late-nineteenth-century railway expansion and its position as a Midwestern hub, which allowed the city to develop into a regional commercial and financial center and a concurrent boom in population and construction. Downtown expanded to meet the demands of a city growing in its commercial significance. The Fitzpatrick Building stands today as one of the few reminders of that growth, and its Queen Anne design serves as a demonstration of the era from which it appeared.One typical feature of the Queen Anne style involves the effective utilization of a corner location. The building's namesake and builder, Thomas Fitzpatrick, understood the lot's value at the intersection of two major thoroughfares in downtown St. Paul. The corner Queen Anne turret and entrance take full advantage of the busy intersection. Storefronts operated on the ground level, professional offices filled the second floor, and the upper two floors supported living quarters. But, by 1901, all three upper floors transitioned into hotel rooms only to be converted back into apartments by 1963. The corner turret once enjoyed a "witch's hat" topping that had been removed during the twentieth century. When an investment group purchased the building in early 2020, they not only made plans to convert the entire structure into an apartment building, but they also planned to return the witch's hat topping to the turret. Moreover, the company intended to update, renovate, and repair the historic building, which had fallen into significant disrepair in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Built in 1890, the Fitzpatrick Building is one of the last remaining Queen Anne commercial structures in St. Paul. The building stands as a reminder of the boom era for the city that saw a dramatic expansion of the downtown commercial area from the 1880s into the early 1890s. The railway expanded significantly in Minnesota during that era, helping St. Paul grow in population, commercial activity, and architecturally. However, despite advances in the uses of steel in buildings, Fitzpatrick stood as one of the last buildings to rely on masonry and load-bearing walls. 

Fitzpatrick Building (now known as Viking Apartments)

The Minnesota Children's Museum was founded in 1981 by&nbsp;Marialice Harwood, Kate Donaldson and Suzanne Payne. Originally located in&nbsp;Minneapolis, the Museum was an instant success and gained large popularity. Before long, it was unable to maintain its location as a result of the area being too confined to maintain the large number of visitors to the museum. The Minnesota Children’s Museum first opened in downtown
Minneapolis and then to Bandana Square before reopening in its current location
in downtown St. Paul in 1995.&nbsp; 

 The Children's Museum's St Paul location resides in a&nbsp;large, 65,000 square-feet building that is capable to house all of the exhibits and contains additional room for growth. &nbsp;The museum&nbsp;offers a unique experience for children that is both&nbsp;fun and&nbsp;highly educational.&nbsp;

The Minnesota Children’s Museum offers a unique experience for children that offers them fun activities that are also highly educational.  The museum features interactive engaging opportunities for children, including field trips, small group programs, family nights, museum-to-go classes, traveling exhibits, and even exhibits available for purchase.  The museum’s exhibits include Earth World: Discover Minnesota’s unique habitats up close, Habitot: Creep & Crawl into hours of fun & fascination, Our World: Explore Community & diversity in a world teeming with excitement, Rooftop ArtPark: Merge nature & art in an immersive outdoor gallery, and World Works: Uncover secrets of the world in an environment loaded with fun and intrigue.  One of the guiding ideas of the museum is to let the children be able to to interact with all the exhibits, which allows them to gain first hand experience and learn more about the exhibits in the museum.  

Minnesota Children’s Museum

The parish was founded in 1856 by Bishop Joseph Cretin to serve the growing German immigrant population. A small church was built at this location. By the late 1860s the church was too small and so plans for the current building were developed. Construction began in 1871. A parish school was built behind the church in 1860 for the children of the German immigrants. This burned down in 1863 but the current structure was built a year later and operated as a school until 1888. It is also listed on the <a href="https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/a7727b1a-82a7-4560-984b-898fb3064f97/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" title="Link: https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/a7727b1a-82a7-4560-984b-898fb3064f97/">National Register of Historic Places (1975)</a>. It is not clear what the building is used for today or if it is still&nbsp;affiliated with the church.

Situated in the heart of downtown St. Paul, the Church of the Assumption is one of the more architecturally striking buildings in the area. It was constructed in 1874 after three years of construction. Architect Joseph Reidel designed it in the Romanesque Revival style. The most prominent features are the twin towers that reach a height of 210 feet. Each contain two bells that, interestingly, were rung by ropes until 1975 when electronic controls were installed. The interior has remained largely unchanged. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Church of the Assumption

Across the street from the Church of the Assumption, is Mickey's Diner, one of St. Paul's most recognizable and enduring landmarks. Built in 1937, it's a very rare example of a prefabricated diner designed to look like a classic railroad car. As such is only 50 feet long and 10 feet wide. A vestibule was added later to make the diner a little more comfortable. It has appeared in movies, such as "Jingle All the Way," starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and and magazines such as National Geographic and Smithsonian. The diner was built in New Jersey and transported to St. Paul in 1939. It was placed on the National Register Historic Places in 1983 and was one of the first diners to receive this designation. It has been in continuous operation every day since its opening. 

Mickey's Diner

William Hamm led efforts in 1919 to complete the formerly stalled construction of this building that began in 1915. The land had previously been owned by St. Paul Cathedral. The Hamm Building in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, embodies early twentieth-century building trends and materials. Still, the Hamm Building served as the only structure in the state comprised entirely of terra cotta cladding on all of its primary facades and stands out because of its exemplary ornamentation. Indeed, the American Terra Cotta &amp; Ceramic Company of Chicago deemed the Hamm Building "the pride of the Midwest."  More than that, the building has stood as the center of entertainment and business for more than a century in St. Paul. The building connects people of the 21st century to many former eras, including the period before the building existed.The Hamm Building stands on property that had been purchased by investors in 1914 who intendied to build a department store, but construction stalled during World War I mainly due to a lack of funding. William Hamm, the owner of locally-based Hamm's Brewery, took over the project and financed the construction of what would become the new Hamm's Brewery office building when it opened in 1919. Though the building only reaches six stories high, it covers half of a large city block. From a structural standpoint, the Hamm Building epitomizes the construction methods typical of urban commercial buildings during the early twentieth century. However, the type of steel framework used differed from most buildings that arose at the time. The structural framework of cantilevered steel beams and girders saved money, reduced building vibration, and offered tremendous flexibility in the interior arrangement of spaces. The flexibility provided an immediate advantage when, within one year of its opening, and with the establishment of Prohibition and the era of the "Roaring '20s" emerging, the Hamm Building transitioned into a multipurpose commercial and service-industry establishment. The building opened in what became the heart of a rapidly-growing entertainment district. For instance, the Capitol Theater "movie palace" opened in Hamm Building as one of the most expensive and elegant theaters in the Midwest. The theater helped the building swiftly grow into one of the most popular places in the Twin Cities. Over the years, the Hamm Building has been home to a wealth of tenants, including law firms, financial services, insurance companies, the tech industry, and numerous retail outlets. And since 1997, Great Waters Brewery has operated its beer operation in the Hamm Building, helping keep the beer tradition alive. Even more intriguing for the modern brewery is its ties to the old St. Paul church that used the property; the brewery gets its water from a 550-foot well dug by the church before 1914.

This ornate, terra-cotta building became the headquarters of Hamm's Brewery in 1919. The structure is located at the site of a former church, and the 550-foot well dug by the members of that congregation still provides water to a modern brewery that operates in the expansive building. William Hamm of Hamm's Brewery saw an opportunity to purchase this land after the construction of a department store stalled during World War I. Hamm completed the building's construction and turned the building into his brewery's headquarters when it opened in 1919. With the passage of prohibition and a booming 1920s economy, the building transitioned into a multipurpose business hub and entertainment destination in the next decade. 

Hamm Building

Designed by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, the Landmark Center was
built in 1902. The building became rundown and
faced destruction in the early 1970s, but was saved and restored to its
previous state. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Originally a U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, the building is now a cultural and arts center. Events held here include musical performances, dance, theater, exhibitions, and public forums.  The center is home to several galleries and museums, including the American Association of Woodturners Gallery, Landmark Gallery, Uncle Sam Worked Here (an interactive history museum), Ramsey County Historical Society Gallery and Research Center, and the Schubert Club Museum. The center offers various public, private, and educational/school tours of the building and city. Inside this beautiful building is a 5-story courtyard with a skylight and rooms with 20-foot ceilings.  

Landmark Center 

The AAW works to support and educated people around the world about the artwork of lathe-turning wood crafting. Woodturning as a craft has existed for over 4,000 years and is found in several ancient cultures. It is a unique form of wood working since it involves the wood spinning at a fast rate during the cutting process, which differs greatly from other forms of wood working. Due to the age of the craft and the unique pieces of work which are created by it, the association was founded in the hopes of encouraging others to practice in this craft. It was founded at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and the two are closely affiliated.The association holds annual symposiums each year. The location of the symposium alternates in order to not alienate members living on different sides of the country. The symposium gives members and opportunity to demonstrate wood turning in action, display their works of art, and to sell some of their crafts.&nbsp;In addition to the national symposium, the association gives its members educational opportunities, scholarships, insurance coverage, a bimonthly magazine, and a place to display and market their works of art.The Association is a affiliated with groups around the world. It has over 330 local chapters in the United States, with more chapters located in places like Canada, Japan, England, and Taiwan. There are also three virtual chapters which are online and allow for members to be more widespread. The virtual chapters also specialize in different forms of wood turning.

The American Association of Woodturners (AAW) is the leading organization in the United States demonstrating finely crafted artworks of wood turning. The association was founded in 1986 and is located in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and has over 15,000 members around the world. AAW holds an annual national symposium, and generously sponsors organizes activities for outreach to new members as well as educational activities.

American Association of Woodturners Gallery of Wood Art

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota
in 1896, but the Fitzgerald family moved to New York 15 years later.&nbsp; They moved back to Fitzgerald’s hometown 5
years later when F. Scott Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy.&nbsp; Fitzgerald attended Princeton University and
lived back home in St. Paul during the summer of 1919, and lived here until 1920.

Artist Michael Price created the F. Scott Fitzgerald statue in 1996 to honor the famous American author on the centennial of his birthday.  Constructed of bronze, “warm Brown patina,” and sitting on a red granite base, this bronze statue depicts Fitzgerald in his 30s and is nestled in the middle of St. Paul's Rice Park.  

F. Scott Fitzgerald Statue

Funds for the library came from railroad baron James J. Hill, a subscription
campaign, a bequest from Greenleaf Clark and a sale of bonds authorized by the
state legislature. The total cost of the facility, including the James T. Hill
Reference Library, was $1.5 million. 

The building’s exterior is made of Tennessee marble while the interior is predominately
gray Mankato stone. Noteworthy architectural features include round arched
windows, Palladian style entrances, large stonework, the balustrade surrounding
the building, classical columnns and pilasters among others. The original
woodwork is gray stained maple. 

Numerous renovations have taken place through the years. In 2014, the
Central Library was renamed the George Latimer Central Library, to honor the
former St. Paul mayor. Today, in addition to the main building, the St. Paul
Library system includes 12 branches and a bookmobile. The main branch is home
to about 350,000 books and other materials, and gets more than 300,000 visitors
a year.

The St. Paul Public/James T. Hill Library has a long history in St. Paul. The Library’s beginnings were in 1856 as a reading room at the local YMCA. In 1882, the first formal library was organized and opened. Plans for what began as the Central Library, took shape in the early 1900s thanks to rapid growth. The current building, designed by architect Electus Litchfield, was constructed from 1914 to 1917. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

St Paul Public/James T. Hill Library

&nbsp;The 1980 victory of USA Hockey over the Soviet Union had global significance owing to the Cold War, and the presumes superiority of Russia's team. The match was named as the top sports moment of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated in 1999. In 2004, Disney released a movie called "Miracle" that dramatized the story of Brooks and his hockey team. Brooks was a consultant on the film until his untimely death in 2003 when he dies in a car accident at the age of 66.&nbsp;<div> </div><div>This statue of Herb Brooks is a testament to his career in ice hockey. He was a husband, father,&nbsp;player, coach,&nbsp;and ultimately a legend in his field. Among a list of accomplishments, Brooks was also inducted into the US Hockey Hall of Fame along with the players&nbsp;that secured the victory at the Lake Placid Olympics.&nbsp;</div>

Dedicated in 2003, this statue honors Herb Brooks and captures the moment of his celebration after his team completed an unlikely victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid. Brooks was born in St. Paul and it was here where he was introduced to the world of ice hockey. Herb Brooks played hockey for many years before starting his coaching career, which culminated in three NCAA championships and an Olympic gold medal. Despite his many accomplishments on and off the ice, Brooks is best known for coaching the Americans to victory in a match known as the "Miracle on Ice." 

Herb Brooks Statue

Opened in 1912, St. Paul's Commerce Building initially served the Commercial Club of St. Paul (established, 1891) and the offices of the St. Paul Association of Commerce. During the Gilded Age, most large urban centers had at least one formal commercial organization by the 1880s, which later evolved into Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce later on during the twentieth century. Commercial Clubs mainly looked to maintain a civic culture that proved friendly to businesses. The building stands as a reminder to a time when cities competed for commercial growth, as well as a period where St. Paul proved more slightly more attractive to businesses than its neighbor, Minneapolis. The period between 1880 and 1920 saw the addition of many new building types to downtown St. Paul. The skyscraper, while functional, also served as a sign of success, influence, and prominence. Minneapolis and St. Paul were in direct competition -- often as bitter rivals -- for new business, especially for convention business. Yet, for the vast majority of those forty years, St. Paul led the state in establishing relationships that advanced its commercial and economic prosperity, taking advantage of the city's proximity to the State Capitol. The St. Paul Commercial Club formed in 1891, and in 1909 its members announced an intention to build a new headquarters. Not only was a centralized located desired, but also a consolidated organization. In 1911, the St. Paul Commercial Club and St. Paul Association of Commerce were among the nation's first to merge its organizations into a single building. However, the Commercial Club continued to function as an independent association after the merger. The Commercial Club members hired architect Hermann Kretz to design the new building. Construction of this historic building began in 1911, and its completion arrived quickly because the builders used slabs and reinforced concrete. The Commercial Club enjoyed many amenities such as an ornate main lobby, ladies' reception room, card room, banquet room, tea room, secretaries office, check room, billiard room, dining hall, and private dining rooms. The club quarters also enjoyed plenty of decor marked by fumed oak, silver oak, burnt cypress, and old ivory intermingled with oriental rugs, upholstered furniture, Spanish leather, and tapestries. The grand opening of the Commercial Club was on September 9, 1912, followed by a week of festivities near the building. But, ten years after opening, during a time of economic decline from 1921-1923, the St. Paul Association of Commerce decided to forgo renewing its lease and moved out of the Commerce Building. During the Great Depression, tenant losses mounted in the building, and Minneapolis overtook St. Paul as the power-center for commercial activity. During the Depression and World War II, downtown construction slowed dramatically, and, during the 1950s, urban renewal projects led to the demolition of many nineteenth-century buildings; the Commerce Building was one of the few to survive. As is often the case with older downtown buildings during the late twentieth and twenty-first century, the building transitioned into an apartment complex in 2008.

Constructed in 1912, this early skyscraper served as the home to the Commercial Club of St. Paul, a company that was established in 1891. The building also held the offices of the St. Paul Association of Commerce. The Commercial Club was a membership organization that offered the chance to network and worked to bolster the city's reputation as a suitable home for industry and commercial activity similar to other membership organizations that operated in major cities during the Gilded Age. The building offered amenities for its members, from fine dining to billiards rooms, as well as tea rooms and parlors. The economic disruption of the Great Depression, followed by World War II, led to declines in membership, and fraternal organizations around the country were forced to sell their lavish downtown headquarters. The building eventually faced a tenant shortage. Although many s neighboring structures were demolished during the 1950s, this building survived. In 2008, it was converted to apartments as more working professionals returned to the city core. 

Commerce Building in St. Paul, Minnesota

The Minnesota Building emerged in 1929 after a nine-year-long pause in significant downtown construction. It served as the first downtown Art Deco-styled building constructed during a renewed building boom in the business loop area of St. Paul during the 1930s.St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota since its emergence as a territory in 1849, enjoyed its greatest prosperity during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which coincided with the establishment of the city's downtown. By the late 1800s, brick warehouses dominated the streets of the "Lowertown" part of downtown. At the same time, a steady increase in skyscrapers emerged in the central downtown region, mostly built with very traditional, Beaux-Arts, Classical, or Neo-Classical architectural style. However, architects in New York and Chicago reacted to the completion of the high-profile, Gothic-Style Chicago Tribune Building in 1923 as an exhausted architectural style. Architects began to dabble in new approaches to commercial architecture, namely the style that became known as the Art Deco/Moderne design; The Minnesota Building emerged from that new design trend. The Minnesota Building's Architect, Charles Hausler, was born in St. Paul in 1879. But, in his late teens, he traveled to Chicago and apprenticed for the renowned Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan. He returned to Minnesota and was licensed as an architect hi 1908, and was then named as Saint Paul's first City Architect in 1914, a position he held until 1923 when he left to serve as a state senator. During his tenure as a city architect, he formulated the city's first building code and designed several municipal buildings, schools, and parks. He designed the Minnesota Building during a sixteen-year span where he dually worked in the state senate and as an architect. Construction began in early 1929. Hausler designed the building mainly to cater to upscale offices. The Minnesota Building evolved into a prestigious location. Indeed, Hausler moved his architectural offices there in 1930. The success of the building inspired many other projects in downtown St. Paul, from commercial buildings to theaters and hotels, many of which enjoyed an Art-Deco design.

The Minnesota Building emerged in 1929 as the city's first Art Deco/Moderne design as the city's downtown enjoyed a transition away from the prevalence of Classical architecture.  The Minnesota Building's Architect, Charles Hausler, apprenticed for the renowned Chicago architect, Louis Sullivan. Hausler proved instrumental in the development of St. Paul as a private and city architect, as well as a state senator. 

Minnesota Building

The two buildings were designed in the Italian Romanesque style and were constructed during a&nbsp;major commercial boom period. The Pioneer was built first (in 1889) and originally the two buildings were separated by a narrow alley. The museum was founded as the St. Paul School of Fine Arts in 1894. It was officially incorporated as a museum in 1927. Serious collecting began in the 1940s and its name was changed to the St. Paul Art Center in the 1950s. The name was changed again in 1969 to the Minnesota&nbsp;Museum of Art. It became the Minnesota Museum of American Art in 1992 to reflect the museum's primary focus on American works.

Housed in the historic Endicott Building, the Minnesota Museum of American Art is one of the state's leading arts institutions. It features a collection of 4,500 works of state, regional and national American artists including Thomas Hart Benton, Joan Mitchell, Romare Bearden; many Minnesota artists are also represented. The museum also offers numerous educational  community engagement programs including classes, interdisciplinary programs, and partnerships. The Endicott Building was built in the late 1890s and, along with the adjoining Pioneer Building, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

Minnesota Museum of American Art

Other notable tenants who rose to national importance were&nbsp;Cushman Kellogg Davis, who served as governor of Minnesota and as a U.S. senator; Pierce Butler, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court 1922-1939; and William D. Mitchell, who served as U.S. Solicitor General from 1925-1929 and U.S. Attorney General from 1929-1933. In 1967 the city had plans to demolish the building to widen the streets. Luckily, preservationists organized to save the building and the city dropped its the plans to tear it down.

Constructed in 1892 and originally named the Merchants National Bank Building (it eventually was called the McColl Building), the Brooks Building is one St. Paul's most historically important structures. In terms of architecture, the building is the last remaining 18th century structure and the last example of Romanesque-style design on Jackson Street. The building also played an important role in St. Paul's economic development and political history. As for the former, many of the city's wholesale and retail businesses were tenants here (the bank was on the first floor). As such, the building was the center of the city's (and therefore the northwest's) economic development. In terms of political history, the upper floors featured offices rented to lawyers. Many of these individuals rose to great national prominence, such as Frank B. Kellogg, who became a U.S. Senator and was Secretary of State under President Calvin Coolidge. He also served as ambassador to the United Kingdom. The building, which continues to house offices, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Historic St. Paul Minnesota Walking Tour

Union Depot

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Backstory and Context

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