The finest residence street is Summit Avenue. It begins at Wabasha Street and runs from Summit Park along a high ridge. The most prominent dwelling is the large brown stone mansion of the late James J. Hill, containing a good collection of paintings by Corot, Delacroix, Courbet, Troyon, Decamps, etc.
A Roman Catholic Cathedral is being erected at Summit Park; and to the west of the town, near the west end of Summit Avenue, by the river, is the extensive Roman Catholic Seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas. On the bluff above, at the end of Grand Avenue (parallel to Summit Avenue) are the various buildings of the Hill Seminary.
It is also the seat of Hamline University (Methodist Episcopal), Concordia College (Lutheran), Macalester College (Presbyterian), several medical colleges, a State Reform School, and an Academy of Natural Sciences.
St. Paul has a park system of remarkable beauty. Como and Phalen Parks have picturesque lakes, and Indian Mound Park is said to have views unsurpassed anywhere else on the Mississippi River. Harriet Island, in the river opposite the business district, is provided with public baths. There are twenty-two miles of park and boulevard driveways, not including the River Boulevard. The total park area is one thousand two hundred and four acres. Fort Snelling, attractively located at the mouth of the Minnesota River, occupies a large tract adjacent to the city on the southwest.
The manufactures of St. Paul include machinery, farming implements, furniture, carriages, boots and shoes, and malt liquors. Here also are located the extensive meat packing plants of Swift & Co., and quarries of fine limestone. It is the center of the wholesale grocery and dry-goods business in Minnesota. It is also an important printing and publishing center, and has large car shops, lumber and planing mills, and breweries.
In 1841 Father Galtier, a French Canadian, induced the settlers, chiefly French Catholic hunters and traders in furs and whiskey, to build a log church which was dedicated to St. Paul. In 1849 the town became the capital of the newly organized territory of Minnesota, and was incorporated. It received its city charter in 1854.
WASHINGTON, AMERICA’S CITY BEAUTIFUL
