•  About
•  Incorporation
•  Named selected
•  Early development
•  Suburban evolution
•  The housing boom
•  From village to city
•  Today
•  Historical Society

There is little data about the Native Americans who occupied the area for centuries before the first European settlers arrived. European settlers who arrived in the 1850's cleared brush and trees to create farms to supply livestock and produce for Minneapolis. This collection of farms was informally known as Elmwood.

Incorporation
In August, 1886, 31 people signed a petition asking county commissioners to incorporate the Village of St. Louis Park. The petition was officially registered on November 19, 1886. By incorporating, these citizens hoped to turn this small community into a boom town.

Name selected
Although the name “Elmwood” was considered, “St. Louis Park” was selected instead. The new name was derived from the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad - the word “Park” was added on the chance that the village would be confused with St. Louis, Missouri. City founders linked the community name to the railroad because they believed the railroad would help transform this village of 45 families into a center of trade and industry.

Early development
Two of the village's landowners and five businessmen from Minneapolis created the St. Louis Park Land and Improvement Company, the city's first developer. In 1886 and 1887, they platted three subdivisions.

In 1890, lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker and a group of wealthy Minneapolis industrialists incorporated the Minneapolis Land and Investment Company to focus industrial development in Minneapolis. Walker's company also began developing St. Louis Park for industrial, commercial and residential use.

Generally, development progressed outward from the original village center at the intersection of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad (now CP Rail) with Wooddale Avenue. However, this concentric pattern wasn't strong and was overtaken by Minneapolis expansion. By 1883, the western boundary of Minneapolis was at France Avenue. The Minneapolis city boundary may have continued to expand westward had it not been for St. Louis Park's 1886 incorporation.

By 1893, the downtown area of St. Louis Park had three hotels and many newly arrived companies surrounded the downtown. Around 1890, the village had more than 600 industrial jobs, the majority associated with agriculture implement manufacturing.

The financial panic of 1893 altered the developers plans and put a damper on the village's growth. Walker left St. Louis Park to pursue other business ventures.

In 1899, St. Louis Park became the home to the world's first concrete, tubular grain elevator and provided an alternative to combustible wooden elevators. Despite the nickname of "Peavey's Folly" and dire predictions that the elevator would burst like a balloon when the grain was drawn off, the experiment worked and concrete elevators have been used ever since. You can still see this former grain elevator (which is now on the Historic Landmark Register). It's the tall "chimney-like" structure near Highway 7 and 100. View Grain Elevator.

Suburban evolution
Although early dreams were of a major industrial area, St. Louis Park evolved differently. By the early 1900s, residents held jobs in Minneapolis and viewed St. Louis Park as a residential suburb. The evolution into a residential suburb came about partly because streetcar lines created easy access to Minneapolis jobs. In addition, the population was scattered throughout St. Louis Park making it difficult to support a single, central commercial area.

At the end of World War I, only seven scattered retail stores operated in St. Louis Park because streetcars provided easy access to shopping in Minneapolis. In the 10 years from 1920 to 1930, the population doubled from 2,281 to 4,710. Vigorous home-building occurred in the late 1930's to accommodate the pent up need created during the depression. With America's involvement in World War II, however, all development came to a halt.

The housing boom
Explosive growth came after World War II. In 1940, 7,737 people lived in St. Louis Park. By 1955, more than 30,000 residents had joined them. From 1940 to 1955, growth averaged the equivalent of 6.9 persons moving into St. Louis Park every day! Sixty percent of St. Louis Park’s homes were built in a single burst of construction from the late 1940’s to the early 1950’s.

This dramatic increase was due to returning veterans, easy home financing through the GI Bill, and a flurry of home construction spurred by St. Louis Park’s minimum lot sizes which made large-scale construction profitable. The cost of a typical home in those days? About $7,000. Today, those Cape Cods and ramblers often sell for nearly $200,000.

Residential development was closely followed by commercial developers anxious to bring goods and services to these new households. In the late 1940’s, Minnesota’s first shopping center — the 30,000 sq. ft. Lilac Way — was constructed on the northeast corner of Excelsior Boulevard and Highway 100. (Lilac Way was torn down in the late 1980’s to make way for redevelopment.) Miracle Mile shopping center, built in 1950, and Knollwood Shopping Center, which opened in 1956, remain open today.

In the late 1940’s, a group of 11 former army doctors opened the St. Louis Park Medical Center in a small building on Excelsior Boulevard. The medical center merged with Methodist Hospital and, today, is HealthSystems Minnesota. HealthSystems is the second largest medical clinic in Minnesota (after Rochester’s Mayo Clinic).

During the period between 1950 and 1956, 66 new subdivisions were recorded to make room for 2,700 new homes. In 1953 and 1954, the final two parcels — Kilmer and Shelard Park — were annexed. These parcels (originally in Minnetonka) came to St. Louis Park because of our ability to provide sewer and water service.

From village to city
The postwar boom in industry and population overwhelmed the part-time village government. The village had an outmoded zoning ordinance, no comprehensive development plan and no staff to even begin making one. The form of government that was adequate to serve 7,000 people bogged down and broke as the population boomed.

In 1954, voters approved a home rule charter that gave St. Louis Park the status of a city. That action enabled St. Louis Park to hire a city manager to assume some of the duties handled by the part-time city council.

In those days, the primary concerns were the physical planning of St. Louis Park, updating zoning and construction codes, expanding sewer and water systems, paving streets, acquiring park land and building schools.

Today
Today, most of St. Louis Park is developed, and much of the focus has shifted from building infrastructure to improving it. St. Louis Park actively encourages quality redevelopment and is a recognized leader in redevelopment aimed at creating livable communities, areas that are less reliant on cars and offer a mix of housing, shopping, entertainment and jobs within a short distance of one another.

Historical Society & Depot
The St. Louis Park Historical Society collects, preserves and shares knowledge about St. Louis Park's history. Its collection of historical documents is housed in the Depot in Jorvig Park, 37th and Brunswick. The Depot, which was built by the Milwaukee Road railroad in 1887, is open to visitors from 1 to 4 p.m. on Sundays throughout the summer or by appointment.

Volunteers staff a desk at Lenox Community Center several days each week. Visitors can drop by during the hours listed below or call (952) 924-2550 and leave a message which will be returned by a Historical Society volunteer. Lenox is located at 6715 Minnetonka Boulevard.

Historical Society Desk Hours -

• Mondays 10 a.m. to noon
• Thursday 10 a.m. to noon
• Information
• Newsletter
• St. Louis Park Historical Society web site

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