Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutStillwater Historic Contexts-UpdatedSTILLWATER HISTORIC CONTEXTS: A COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING APPROACH Prepared for Stillwater Heritage Preservation Commission City of Stillwater, Minnesota Prepared by Robert C. Vogel & Associates - Historians, Archaeologists & Preservation PIanners St. Paul, Minnesota Robert C. Vogel Principal Investigator July 1993 00 os WA,l'e • ♦♦ �es ♦ i es J60 �•es se,Yvs eas 1 se 1 se r se es re I843 19935. r• � r fte ^f *f 4000 v i� .�J .1i4s% STILLWATER HISTORIC CONTEXTS: A COMPREHENSIVE PLANNING APPROACH Prepared for Stillwater Heritage Preservation Commission City of Stillwater, Minnesota Prepared by Robert C. Vogel & Associates Historians, Archaeologists & Preservation Planners St. Paul, Minnesota Robert C. Vogel Principal Investigator July 1993 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the aid of many organiza- tions and individuals. First to he acknowledged are the City of Stillwater, its elect- ed officials, professional staff, and members.of the Heritage Preservation Commission. Without their vision and support this project would have been impossible. It is a pleasure to single out City Planner Ann Pung-Terwedo who, in her role as project director, provided both encouragement and administrative expertise. Special thanks also to Rivertown Restorations, Inc., for their unstinting support for historic preservation in Stillwater. Historic context research benefited greatly from the patient cooperation of the librarians and archivists on staff at the Stillwater Public Library, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the University of Minnesota. Sue Collins in particular made research in the St. Croix Valley Collection a pleasant experience. Important background research was carried out in the State Historic Preservation Office, where Britta Bloomberg, Michael Koop, Homer Hruby, Scott Anfinson, and others assisted the project in many ways. Special mention should also be made of the contributions of Mark Balay, Anita Buck, Sue Collins, Brent Peterson, Stephen S. Russell, Dean R. Thilgen, and Marlene Workman who patiently reviewed and commented on all or part of the draft historic context document. Besides this help, the author is particularly grateful to the many residents of the St. Croix Valley who took the time to explain Stillwater's heritage to an outsider. Needless to say, the author alone is responsi- ble for the result, especially in those instances where he persisted in error in spite of their good advice. i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF HISTORIC PRESERVATION FUND SUPPORT AND NON-DISCRIMINATION POLICY This project has been financed in part with Federal funds from the National Park Service, Department of the Interior, through the Minnesota Historical Society under the provisions of the National Historic Preservation Act, as amend- ed. However, the contents and opinions do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Department of the Interior, nor does the mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendations by the Department of the Interior. This program receives Federal funds from the National Park Service. Regulations of the U.S. Department of the Interior strictly prohibit unlawful dis- crimination in departmental Federally Assisted Programs on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, or handicap. Any person who believes he or she has been discriminated against in any program, activity, or facility operated by a recipient of Federal assistance should write to: Director, Equal Opportunity Program, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, P.O. Box 37127, Washington, DC 20013-7127. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements i Acknowledgement of Historic Preservation Fund Support and Nondiscrimination Policy Table of Contents iii List of Maps _ v INTRODUCTION 1 Administrative Summary 2 Research Design 2 Historic Contexts 3 Historic Preservation Program Goals ..6 Implementing the Historic Contexts 6 HISTORIC CONTEXTS Historic Context I: Pre -Contact Period Native American Cultural Traditions in the Lower St. Croix Valley (10,000 B.C.-A.D. 1680) 8 Historic Context II: Native Americans, European Contact, and Initial Euro- American Settlement in the Lower St. Croix Valley (1680-1862) 13 Historic Context III: Stillwater and St_ Croix Triangle Lumbering (1843- 1914) 20 Historic Context IV: Stillwater Town Planning and Development (1844- 1945) 26 Historic Context V: The St. Croix River, Railroads and Overland Transportation (1839-1931) 36 Historic Context VI: Stillwater and Late -Nineteenth Century Agricultural Development (1860s-1910s) 45 iii Historic Context VII: Late -Nineteenth and Early -Twentieth Century Industrial Development in Stillwater (1860s-1920s) 48 Historic Context VIII: Development of Downtown Stillwater (1850s- 1940s) 53 Historic Context IX: Development of Residential Neighborhoods in Stillwater (1850s-1940s). 57 Historic Context X: Stillwater City, Washington County, and State Government (1840-1940s) 68 BIBLIOGRAPHY 75 GLOSSARY 79 iv LIST OF MAPS Map 1 - General map of the City of Stillwater showing Historic Preservation Planning Areas - page 4 Map 2 - The St. Croix Triangle - page 17 Map 3 - 1874 map of the City of Stillwater, showing the original platted area and early additions - page 32 Map 4 - Stillwater Downtown Commercial Historic District boundaries - page 54 Map 5 - Stillwater's major residential neighborhoods - page 58 v INTRODUCTION Stillwater Historic Contexts: A Comprehensive Planning Approach initiates the comprehen- sive historic preservation planning process in the City of Stillwater. The historic context document was compiled in accordance with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for preservation planning which call for the establishment of historic contexts and the use of these contexts to develop goals and priorities for historic preservation activities.z This doc- ument presents an overview of the important themes in local history, delineates a range of historic property types, and proposes specific preservation planning goals for each con- text. The thematic 'narrative provided for each historic context is based on an analysis of the written record of Stillwater history. The present study does not pretend to be a fully documented, comprehensive history of Stillwater — such works already exist and are available to local preservation planners. Nor is it an intensive study in primary sources designed to uncover a wealth of hitherto unknown "facts" about Stillwater's history and cultural resources. Time and funding limits imposed on the project ruled out the use of oral history interviews, newspaper searches, examination of courthouse records, and other labor-intensive research techniques. Rather, the historic context document is an overview of some of the broad patterns important in Stillwater's historical development, based on a synthesis of the relevant historical, geographical, anthropological, and archi- tectural history literature. The literary and archival sources consulted and their locations are presented in the Bibliography section. Assuming that the City will actively pursue a program of preservation planning and survey work, the historic context narratives will soon be out -dated as context data gener- ated by continued survey activity are available. Historic contexts are by their very nature working documents that should be routinely used by planners, researchers, and local government officials. The historic context overviews and goals will be included in the City's official comprehensive plan. Historic preservation is relatively new in the City of Stillwater and the Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) should be commended for its efforts to develop a system- atic approach to the conservation, protection and use of the community's cultural resources. In the past, Stillwater preservationists have tended to view heritage preserva- tion rather narrowly and primarily in terms of the preservation of architectural land- marks created during the nineteenth century by individuals associated with lumbering or related businesses. However, the belief that buildings, sites, structures, or districts should be preserved because of their cultural significance as representative examples of the kinds of properties traditionally important to ordinary people and their everyday lives has recently gained acceptance, as preservationists have become increasingly aware of the need to preserve and protect surviving vestiges of the heritage of Native Americans and working class Euro-Americans, as well cis cultural resources associated with women, racial and ethnic minorities, and neighborhood subcultures. 1 Department of the Interior, National Park Service, "Archeology and Historic Preservation; Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines," Federal Register 48 (Thursday 29 September 1983), p. 44717_ 1 The importance of maintaining an inventory of the city's heritage resources, orga- nized by historic context, cannot be overemphasized. To date, preservation surveys have focused on the downtown commercial district and isolated architectural landmarks, leav- ing large areas within the city limits poorly documented. Previous surveys have also focused on large architectural properties and paid less attention to the evaluation of accessory buildings, structures, or historic landscapes. Little attention has been given to the area's archeological resources, although a number of potential sites have been identi- fied. With the exception of properties located in the Stillwater Commercial Historic District, the documentation contained in many of the hundred -odd historic resource inventory forms presently on file is insufficient to permit evaluation. The existing historic property inventory files, which are presently in a state of some disarray, need to be reor- ganized and updated. Administrative Summary This report presents the results of a study of historic contexts relating to historic prop- erties in the City of Stillwater, Minnesota, conducted by Robert C. Vogel & Associates, between November 1992 and June 1993. The project was financed in part by Federal funds granted to the city under the Certified Local Government (CLG) program adminis- tered by the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) of the Minnesota Historical Society under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as amended, The project was man- aged locally by city planner Ann Pung-Terwedo on behalf of the Stillwater Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC). The Stillwater historic contexts study involved preservation planning and archival research activities. The city limits defined the geographical boundaries of the study; chronologically, research spanned the precontact and postcontact periods. The terms of the CLG grant agreement between the SHPO and the City of Stillwater set project objec- tives, time lines, and reporting requirements. All work by the consultant was conducted in accordance with standards and guidelines for historic preservation projects established by the Secretary of the Interior and the Minnesota Historical Society. The success of the historic context project is the result of careful planning, systematic and interdisciplinary research, and strong community support. The Stillwater HPC was the principal force behind the project and provided the forum for public participation. Public interest in the project was sustained by meetings of the HPC with the consultant, by a public presentation of the preliminary research findings, and through the involve- ment of several local historians and preservationists in the compilation and review of his- toric context document. Potential users of the historic contexts were invited to review and comment on the draft document. Liaison with SHPO was maintained through meetings with the author and written progress reports. Research Design The primary preservation planning goal of this study was the development of a set of historic contexts applicable to local survey, evaluation, and registration activities in the City of Stillwater. 2 A research design, outlining project goals, research methods, and expected results, was developed at the outset of the project. The Secretary of the Interior's standards and guidelines for preservation planning, identification, and evaluation were the required basis for the consultant's approach to developing historic contexts tor Stillwater'2 These historic contexts were designed to serve as the basic framework for organizing survey data and determining eligibility of individual historic properties for designation as his- toric sites. Baseline data about local cultural resources was obtained from the county inventory files maintained by SHPO. Historic context information was distilled from a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Using the City's historic properties inventory, reports of previous historic preservation planning projects, and statewide historic contexts developed by SHPO as the point of departure, the author attempted to define some aspects of Stillwater's distinctive urban character and St. Croix Valley personality, linking individual historic properties with themes of national, statewide, and local significance. Historical research was conducted in both primary and secondary source materials. This effort was focused on reconstruct- ing the chronology and patterns of physical development in the Stillwater area. A review of the available literary and documentary evidence yielded information about significant historical events, personages, and economic trends associated with Stillwater. Research in historic maps, photographs, and other graphic materials generated important data on settlement patterns and other aspects of the community's physical development. Archival research also enabled the consultant to identify a number of information gaps that will need to be filled by future research. No site specific research was planned or attempted. To guide preservation planning and organize future historic preservation surveys, the consultant and city staff subdivided the city into seventeen Historic Preservation Planning Areas (HPPAs), the boundaries of which correspond generally to subdivision boundaries and which are closely related to other land use planning districts already in use (see Map 1). Obviously, there are numerous buildings, areas, sites, and structures within the city limits which are historically interesting but not eligible for registration, either because of integrity problems or insufficient documentation. These "non -significant" properties are not insignificant and will provide an important source of fascination and aesthetic inter- est for residents and visitors even though they may not be eligible for formal registration. Historic Contexts The Secretary of the Interior's standards for historic preservation refer to the historic context as an "organizational format that groups information about related historic properties, based on a theme, geographical Iimits and chronological period." National Register Bulletin 24, a basic primer on local surveys, defines an historic context as "a broad pattern of historical development in a community or its region, that may be repre- sented by historic resources."3 Historic contexts are the centerpiece of Stillwater's historic preservation planning process and will provide the essential framework for targeting future survey work, evalu- ating the significance of historic properties, organizing inventory data, and making deci- 3 ir7 ' lip -��• _] ., ri •f. f• - • Greelery ��r{��{'il" iiw �1,1 1 5.ID lfi L.. .r u1A Nill r• teriIee l Forest Mille 1• ! • •-ice--�Y l ; . + I _ CI TY O STI Ll.\\'.-TER, \I INN ESOTA General map of the City of Stillwater showing Historic Preservation Planning Areas. 4 sions about which properties to register. The role of historic contexts in identification (i.e, survey) is to ensure that research is broad enough in scope to seek out the widest possible range of historic properties, and to efficiently plan survey activities. Evaluation uses historic contexts as a framework for applying the National Register criteria for determining significance. The criteria and criteria considerations for evalua- tion of prperties nominated to the National Register of Historic Places are found in the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 36, Part 60. The City of Stillwater has its own local des- ignation criteria, included in Subdivision 4 of the historic preservation ordinance, which guide the Stillwater HPC in evaluating potential heritage preservation sites for local des- ignation. In considering the designation of any heritage preservation site, the HPC con- siders: (a) (b) Its character, interest or value as part of the development heritage or cul tural characteristics of the City of Stillwater, State of Minnesota or the United States; Its location as a site of a significant historical event; (c) Its identification with a person or persons who significantly contributed to tyhe cultyure and development of stillwater; (d) Its embodiment of distinguishing characteristics of an architectural style, period, form or treatment; (e) Its identification as work of an architect or master builder whose individ ual work has influenced the development of Stillwater; (f) Its embodiment of elements of architectural design, detail, materials, or craftsmanship which represent a significant architectural innovation; and Its unique location or singular physical charateristic representing an established and familiar visual feature of a neighborhood, community, or the City of Stillwater. (g) In general terms, development of the historic contexts involved archival research and review of the relevant historical, architectural, archeological, and planning literature, and analysis of the findings of previous local surveys. Every effort was made to create his- toric contexts that were applicable to properties in Stillwater, but which reflect broader cultural and historical themes suggested by statewide historic contexts developed by SHPO. Each of the historic context study units presented below is based on a theme relating to Stillwater history during the Pre -Contact, Contact, and Post -Contact periods.4 These themes describe important aspects of the development of the Stillwater area and delin- eate a series of broad, inclusive study units that are applicable to archeological sites and landscapes as well as architectural properties. 4The Pre -Contact Period covers all human time up to the initial encounter between Native Americans and Europeans, which occurred in Minnesota in the middle decades of the seventeenth century. The removal of Native Americans to reservations anbd the opening of the public domain to settlement mards the end of the Contact Period; in Minnesota, this occurred between 1837 and 1862. The Post -Contact period deals with Euro- Arnerican settlement and development up until World War 11. Historic Preservation Program Goals In its historic preservation code and comprehensive plan, the City of Stillwater acknowledges that the preservation, protection, and use of historic properties is a public necessity. In order to effectively manage these resources, the City has adopted five basic historic preservation policy objectives: 1) Safeguard the heritage of the City by preserving historic properties which reflect Stillwater's cultural, social, economic, political, visual, aesthetic, or architectural history. 2) Protect and enhance the City's appeal and attraction to residents, visitors, and tourists, using historic properties as a support and stimulus to business and industry. 3) Enhance the visual and aesthetic character, diversity, and interest of Stillwater. 4) Foster civic pride in the beauty and notable accomplishments of the past. 5) Promote the preservation and continued use of historic properties for the education and general welfare of the people of Stillwater. The Stillwater Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) was established by ordinance to identify and designate historic properties, review site alteration permits, and promote the historic preservation ethic through public education activities. As part of the ongoing comprehensive planning process, the HPC has adopted a number of objectives, which are presented.below in order of priority: a) Preserve the Downtown Stillwater Commercial Historic District and adja- cent historic properties through the design review process and such other means cis are available. b) Preserve and protect residential historic properties, including buildings, sites, structures, and districts. c) Preserve, locally designate, and protect governmental and public buildings throughout the City. d) Conduct reconnaissance and intensive historic preservation surveys to iden- tify significant historic properties in all Historic Preservation Planning Areas (HPPAs). e) Determine which historic properties identified by historic preservation sur- veys are eligible for National Register of Historic Places or local designa- tion. f) Preserve locally designated historic properties and those listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places. Preserve the Stillwater/Houlton Interstate Bridge. g) Implementing the Historic Contexts The implementation program for this document adopted by the HPC is as follows: 1) City Council adopts the ten historic contexts as the official overview of his- tory and development in the City of Stillwater. 6 2) HPC conducts historic preservation surveys based on the historic contexts to identify and evaluate the significance of all historic properties within the city limits. 3) Historic preservation surveys (reconnaissance. followed by intensive identi- fication and evaluation activities) of Stillwater neighborhoods, to proceed by Historic Preservation Planning Area (HPPA) as follows: 1994: North Hill Original Town HPPA 1995: South Hill Original Town HPPA 1996: Sabin HPPA 1997: North Hill HPPA 1998: Greeley HPPA 1999: South Hill HPPA 2000: Dutchtown HPPA 2001: Staples HPPA 2002: Schulenburg HPPA 2003 and beyond: Forest Hills, Lily Lake, Sunny Slope, Fairmeadows, Forest Hills, Croixwood, Oak Glen, and Deerpath HPPAs. The preservation planning goals for all ten historic contexts will be taken into consideration during these surveys. 4) HPC continues as the Design Review Committee for the Downtown Stillwater Commercial Historic District, the Downtown Plan Area, and such other locally designated districts and properties. 5) HPC advocates for the preservation of the Stillwater/Houlton Interstate Bridge. 6) HPC works with the City Council, Planning Commission, and other citizen advisory groups to coordinate local efforts to preserve and protect cultural, natural, and historic resources in the community. 7) HPC works to educate the community at large on the cultural values and economic benefits of historic preservation. 7 HISTORIC CONTEXT l: PRE -CONTACT PERIOD NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURAL TRADITIONS IN THE LOWER ST. CROIX VALLEY (ca. 10,000 B.C.—A.D. 1680) , Overview Prior to European contact, Native Americans had lived in the Stillwater area for a long period and through several successive cultures. The plainest evidence that native peoples lived in the area in pre -contact times comes from archeological sites, which docu- ment that humans probably first appeared in the St. Croix Valley about 10,000 B.C. The Stillwater city limits may contain significant archeological deposits, although no archeo- logical surveys had been conducted prior to 1992. Historical Theme Archeological evidence places humans in the New World as early as 25,000 B.C., but because the last glacial ice sheet began to retreat from the St. Croix Valley only about 14,000 years ago, relics of the earliest occupation of the Stillwater area probably date back only a few thousand years. North American archeologists divide the cultural devel- opment of Native Americans into a series of cultural traditions or periods. It should be understood that the dates assigned to these archeological periods vary widely in the liter- ature. Inconsistencies in dating are due largely to the small number of reliable radiocar- bon dates from eastern Minnesota sites and also because of the paucity of scientific, con- trolled archeological excavations in the area.6 The Paleo-Indians, the earliest known human inhabitants of Minnesota, were mobile big game hunters utilizing a distinctive large, fluted projectile point known as Clovis. The Clovis people were followed by another big game hunting tradition characterized by a smaller, thinner fluted projectile point called Folsom. Although many Clovis and. Folsom points have been found in the state, there are no recorded Paleo-Indian sites in Washington County. However, the physical context may exist for Paleo-Indian finds at Stillwater and future archeological surveys should be on the lookout for small lithic scat- ters and the remains of extinct Pleistocene fauna such as mastodon, camel, and wood- land bison. It is interesting to note that both Warner and Foote and Easton, in their local histories, recalled an incident from the winter of 1857-1858 when workers excavating (presumably for a building foundation) on Third Street near Myrtle uncovered what was reported as the tusk of a mastodon. This object, about six feet long, slightly curved and pointed, was later put on exhibit at Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul, where it was eventually destroyed in a fire. Although it is possible that more ancient remains may lie buried below the surface, the earliest cultural group to occupy the area, of which there is evidence, is probably the Archaic, which archeologists date from circa 5,000 to 500 B.C. By ca. 8,500 B.C., a regional climatic change produced a shift in vegetation and wildlife patterns throughout 8 Minnesota. In the Lower St. Croix Valley, the post -glacial spruce forest was gradually replaced by oak savanna and prairie. Most of the large mammals (elephants, horses, camels, etc.) became extinct and while bison remained numerous, whitetail deer was probably the most important large game animal. By ca. 5,000 B.C., the Paleo-Indian cul- tural tradition had been replaced by societies known collectively as Eastern Archaic. The Archaic artifact assemblage includes large notched and stemmed projectile points in a variety of lanceolate shapes, ground stone axes, manos, choppers, scrapers, gravers, and drills. The Eastern Archaic is subdivided by archeologists into early, middle, and late phases. While the Early Archaic is poorly understood in the region, the Middle Archaic (5,000 to 2,000 B.C.) is much better documented in the archeological record of eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. This phase coincided with the peak of the Altithermal, a climatic trend characterized by drier, warmer weather patterns, which encouraged the maximum extent of the prairie and oak savanna biomes in the region. Materials recovered by archeologists from sites in the Middle West show that the Middle Archaic lifeway was based on hunting, fishing, and foraging. As hunter -gatherers, Middle Archaic people appear to have been migratory and occupied seasonal camps. Cooler and moister conditions returned during the Late Archaic, which is dated to between 2,000 and 500 B.C. The Late Archaic is noted for its well -formed stone artifacts and the use of native copper, and sites tend to be located near lakes and streams. The same basic Middle Archaic foraging pattern of subsistence seems to have continued throughout this period. However, since wild rice gathering was already important in cen- tral and northern Minnesota by Middle Woodland times, it is possible that use of wild rice may have occurred during this period in the lower St. Croix Valley. From the pattern of distribution of Archaic period archeological sites in Minnesota, it can be suggested that resource procurement and bivouac sites associated with Early, Middle, and Late Archaic cultures may exist in the Stillwater area and would most likely occur along the lakeshore as small, diffuse scatters of cultural material. Recent alluvial and colluvial deposits and fill may overlie such sites, making them difficult to identify and evaluate without exacting fieldwork. The Archaic blended with and was succeeded by the Woodland cultural tradition, which originated in the Ohio River Valley as a manifestation of the Havana -Hopewell cultural fluorescence. Like the Archaic, the Woodland cultural tradition has been subdi- vided into early/initial, middle, and late phases. The beginning of the Woodland period in Minnesota and western Wisconsin Is dated to circa 500 B.C., when grit -tempered pot- tery was added to the basic Archaic artifact assemblage. However, the introduction of pottery did not alter the hunter -gatherer economy. Woodland people lived in small groups composed probably of one or several related families and subsisted on the natural bounty of the land. Aside from pottery, excavation of Woodland sites has revealed chipped stone, ground stone, and bone artifacts in a wide variety of forms. The Woodland cultural tradition also introduced the custom of building earth mounds and numerous Woodland period mounds, some containing human burials, have been recorded in the Lower St. Croix Valley, although none are known to exist within the 9 Stillwater city limits. In Minnesota and Wisconsin, the Middle Woodland mortuary cult produced literally thousands of mounds, varying in form and function: most were 30-100 feet in diameter and 5-15 feet high and most — but not all — were constructed over human skeletons or cremated remains. The purpose of these earthworks is not altogether clear, although it seems likely that their primary function was something other than funerary (possibly an expression of territoriality). The dates usually assigned to the beginning and end of the Middle Woodland cultural tradition in Minnesota and Wisconsin are ca. 100 B.C. to A.D. 600. The archeological record suglests a strong affinity toward occupation of the riverine-lacustrine deciduous forest and prairie microenvironments. Habitation sites tend to be located on low bluffs or ridges overlooking lakeshores or stream floodplains. Over time, populations appear to have increased and some semi -permanent settlements coalesced at strategic locations. There is very little data on the Late Woodland period (ca. A.D. 600-1400) in the Lower St. Croix Valley. Further north, the transition from Middle to Late Woodland is rep- resented in a group of archeological sites representing the St. Croix Phase, which was associated with the distinctive Arvilla burial complex and is dated to between ca. A.D. 400 and 900. Technological innovations associated with the Late Woodland cultural tra- dition include the introduction of the bow and arrow and construction of burial mounds in the form of animal effigies. Although hunting, foraging, and fishing dominated the Late Woodland mode of production, wild rice harvesting had a dramatic impact on the pre -contact Indian population of central and northern Minnesota ca. A.D. 900. The archeological manifestation known as Oneota probably represents the northern borderlands of the Mississippian culture area, which had its cultural hearth at Cahokia near present-day East St. Louis, Illinois. In contrast to the Woodland mode of production, the Oneota economy was multi -focused and encompassed hunting, gathering, trade, and horticulture. The appearance of the Oneota cultural tradition in the St. Croix Valley ca. A.D. 1000 drastically affected the indigenous Woodland cultures: archeologists suspect that many Woodland groups were either absorbed, displaced, or exterminated by the Oneota. There are possible Oneota components in the archeological record of a number of small sites in the St. Croix Valley, but only one significant Oneota habitation site (the Sheffield Site in northeastern Washington County, dating from about the fifteenth centu- ry) has been excavated so far. The archeological record is sketchy, but the Lower St. Croix Valley appears to have been depopulated between ca. 1400 and 1700, although Indian groups affiliated with both the Woodland and Oneota cultural traditions certainly contin- ued to use the area for hunting, fishing, and foraging for centuries before the arrival of the first Euro-American settlers. At the dawn of recorded history, the Oneota emerged as the Winnebago tribe of southern Wisconsin and the Ioway Indians of southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa. The Late Woodland ceramics known as Sandy Lake prob- ably represent the pre -contact Eastern Dakota. Although no archeological sites within the city limits are on record in the files of the SHPO or the State Archeologist, early historians noted some evidence of the pre -contact Native American presence in the Stillwater area. A potentially significant site most likely to have been associated with late pre -contact period Native American occupancy of the Stillwater area are the petroglyphs (rock art) described in early local histories. The site 10 (largely destroyed during the construction of the Lower St. Croix Boom) is described in Warner and Foote's History of Washington County: A short distance above Stillwater, at a bend in the river, are found the painted rocks, in former yecrs g point of grant interest to tonristc Hare for cavern[ rods the smooth surface of the Jiff was decorated with fanciful colors to suit the rude taste of the savages. Figures of animals were clearly delineated and a chapter of Indian history was written in their strange hieroglyphics. The Indians, after settle- ment by the whites began, attempted to interpret the text of this strange chapter. It was found to relate to battles and victories won over foes and seemed fully intelligi- ble to the Indian visitor. As often as they passed the Jiff they were in the habit of performing ceremonies, which their superstition led them to believe were effica- cious in rendering any enterprise in which they might be engaged, successful.? There are also unconfirmed reports of pre -contact period artifacts in private collec- tions which may have been picked up within the city limits. Mafor Bibliographic References Dobbs, Clark A. Historic Context Outlines: The Pre -Contact Period Contexts. (Draft). Minneapolis, n.d. Gibbon, Guy E. Oneota Studies. Minneapolis, 1982. Griffen, James B. "Eastern North American Archaeology: A Summary," in Science, Vol. 156 (1967), pp. 175-191. Johnson, Elden. The Prehistoric Peoples of Minnesota. St. Paul, 1969. Quimby, George 1. Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes: 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1800. Chicago, 1960. Stoltman, James B. (ed.). Prehistoric Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley. Davenport (lows), 1986. Chronological Limits This historic context spans all of eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin history up to the time of initial contact between the region's native inhabitants and Europeans. Most archeologists assign the date of ca. 10,000 B.C. to the first appearance of humans in what is now Minnesota. Although Canadian fur traders almost certainly penetrated the country south and west of Lake Superior in the middle decades of the seventeenth centu- ry, 1680, the year Duluth and Hennepin encountered the Eastern Dakota, safely marks the initial European presence in the St. Croix Valley and therefore the beginning of the "historic period" locally. Geographical Boundaries Archeological and geomorphological data suggests that the city limits encompass sites and natural resources occupied or utilized by successive Native American cultures throughout the Pre -Contact Period. Property Types Although no archeological sites have been recorded within the city limits, it is not unreasonable to suggest that ancient Native American sites at Stillwater would be similar to other sites identified in the region. The range of archeological property types includes 7Wamer and Foote 9comps.), History of Washington County (Minneapolis, 1881), p. 496. 11 resource procurement (hunting, butchering, plant processing) sites, single and multiple occupation bivouacs, temporary and seasonal base camps, and villages. These property types are significant because of their potential to yield data on pre -contact Native American cultures. Representative Properties No archeological resources associated with ancient Native American have been iden- tified within the Stillwater city limits. However, there are recorded Pre -Contact Period archeological sites in the vicinity, including: Site 21WA29, the "Lower Boom Site," a lithic scatter of undetermined cultural affiliation; Site 21WA30, located on the north side of Brown's Creek at the north end of McKusick Lake, a culturally anonymous pre -contact period artifact scatter found in a plowed field; Site 21WA43, the "Rivard Petroglyph Site," a collapsed rockshelter with the inscribed images of serpents, thunderbirds, and other objects (no longer visible) of uncertain date, on a bluff overlooking Lake St. Croix north of Stillwater (see above); Site 21WA49, the "St. Croix River Access Site/' a multicomponent Lake Woodland habitation site dating to approximately A.D. 800--1700, partially destroyed by a gravel pit; and Site 21WA12, a group of earthen mounds mapped by the antiquarian Theodore H. Lewis and now partially destroyed. Preservation Planning Goals Information needs about Pre -Contact Period Native American occupation of the Stillwater area are fundamental. The basic research questions are: is there evidence that the site of the City of Stillwater was occupied or used by Native Americans during the pre -contact period? And: when did this occupation occur? The basic preservation planning goal pertaining to this historic context is, simply, to identify properties associated with pre -contact Native American occupation of the City of Stillwater. Archeological reconnaissance of undeveloped lands within the city limits to identify and locate intact cultural deposits need to bg undertaken as soon as possible. Archeological surveys will be systematic and will utilize problem -based research designs. Because some evidence of ancient Stillwater may have already been acquired by anti- quarians or avocational archeologists, an effort will be made to locate and analyze arti- facts preserved in private collections. Over the years, much of Stillwater's historic preservation activity has been done from the perspective of people steeped in the Euro-American cultural tradition and deeply inter- ested in the protection of architectural landmarks. This historic context (as well as Historic Context II: "Native Americans, European.Contact, and Initial Euro-American Settlement in the Lower St. Croix Valley") encourages a more multi -faceted, comprehensive approach to local heritage preservation. Through a systematic program of applied anthropological research, the city can offer residents and visitors a fresh perspective on the shared histori- cal heritage of American Indians and Euro-Americans. 12 HISTORIC CONTEXT II: NATIVE AMERICANS, EUROPEAN CONTACT, AND INITIAL EURO-AMERICAN SETTLEMENT IN THE LOWER ST, CROIX VALLEY (1680-1862) Overview When Europeans came to the Lower St. Croix Valley in the late -seventeenth century, the region was inhabited and utilized by the Eastern Dakota Indians. Unfortunately, little is known of the Dakota's use of the Stillwater site, although most early accounts mention Native Americans and there were roving groups of Dakota and Ojibwe in the area as late as the 1850s. Although only a few Euro-Amencans (e.g., Joseph R. Brown) lived in the Stillwater vicinity prior to 1843, their influence on later townsite development was impor- tant. Properties associated with this historic context probably exist only as archeological sites. Historical Theme Prior to Euro-American settlement, Native Americans had lived in the St. Croix Valley for a very long period and through several successive cultures. When the first French fur traders and missionaries came to the region, the Stillwater area was part of the tribal ter- ritory of the Eastern Dakota or Sioux Indians, "the largest and most widespread of the American Indian groups living in Minnesota at the beginning of the Contact Period."8 At the dawn of the historic period, the homeland of the Mdewakanton (the collective name for the largest of the Eastern Dakota tribes) was in the lakes region of north -central Minnesota and northwest Wisconsin. The French knew them as the Nadouessieoux (even- tually shortened to "Sioux"), the Algonquin diminutive for snakes. Theirs was a culture based primarily on hunting and gathering along theinterface between the prairie and forest biomes, but they were also maize farmers and traders and enjoyed a reputation for military prowess. By 1700 the French had brought them within the orbit of the Montreal fur trade. Later in the eighteenth century, the Mdewakanton migrated south to villages along the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers, where they remained until the reservation era. Unfortunately, little is known of the Dakota presence in the Lower St. Croix Valley during the early contact period. Whatever the nature of the Dakota presence along the St. Croix, a key geopolitical theme was their century -long contest with he Ojibwe, a large Algonquin -speaking nation, for hegemony over Minnesota. The Ojibwe or Chippewa formerly inhabited a large area north of Lake Superior, where they were found by the French. The Ojibwe were deeply involved in the fur trade and in the mid -seventeenth century the tribe expanded west and south into what is now Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Saskatchewan, where they encroached upon the traditional hunting territories of the Dakota. The eighteenth century was marked by a series of short, intense conflicts, interspersed with truces with the Dakota. By 1750, the Ojibwe had occu- pied much of the former Eastern Dakota homeland in northwestern Wisconsin and north -central Minnesota (the question of whether the Dakota were driven out or migrated 8Clark A. Dobbs, Historic Context Outlines: The Contact Period Contexts (Minneapolis, n.d.), P. 30 (draft). This local historic context is applied to historic properties in Stillwater within the conceptual framework of the Contact Period statewide historic contexts developed as part of the SHPO's Minnesota History in Sites and Structures comprehensive planning process. southward of their own volition is still debated by ethnohistorians). Intertribal "border wars" reached new levels of intensity under the American regime. At a council held at Prairie du Chien in 1825, the United States brokered a regional peace treaty between the Dakota and the Ojibwe in an attempt to stabilize the frontier. Cedar Bend, near the pre- sent-day northern boundary of Washington County, marked the boundary between Dakota and Ojibwe territories along the St. Croix. As a result of treaties made in 1837 and 1851, the Ojibwe were allocated reservations in northern Minnesota, although some small bands probably continued to make visits to the St. Croix Valley up to the end of the nineteenth century. The Victorian era historians of the St. Croix Valley were careful to relate their under- standing of the Native American heritage of the Stillwater area. However, much of the Indian lore contained in these narrative histories is little more than legend, for example, the tale of the Dakota and Ojibwe chiefs meeting in single combat on Zion Hill, a story attributed to the trader Thomas Connor. Somewhat better documented is the Ojibwe- Dakota skirmish which occurred within what are now the Stillwater city limits in 1839. One of several versions of the story is that provided by the Rev. Edward D. Neill in his essay on Minnesota history published in Warner and Foote's history of Washington County. Responding to Ojibwe depredations, a war party from the Mdewakanton village near St. Paul retaliated: The Kaposia band of Sioux pursued the Saint Croix Chippeways [sic], and on the third of July found them in the Penitentiary ravine at Stillwater, under the influ- ence of whiskey. Aitkin, the old trader, was with there. The sight of the Sioux tend- ed to make them sober, but in the fight twenty-one were killed and twenty-nine were wounded.9 The encounter was commemorated by the name "Battle Hollow" which has ever since been applied to the ravine now occupied by the Territorial/State Prison. In April 1850 hostilities again erupted between Dakota and Ojibwe. In April a Dakota war party passed up the St. Croix and wiped out a camp of Ojibwe on the Apple River, then returned to dance the scalp dance in Stillwater, much to the consternation of the Iocal populace. Native American cultures were greatly altered after the arrival of Europeans and in the course of less than a century and a half the river bands of the Ojibwe and Dakota tribes were decimated, eliminated, or relocated. Diseases introduced by Europeans reduced their ranks and the tribal remnants were not easily assimilated into the domi- nant Euro-American culture. Throughout the first half of the nineteenth century, Indians of various tribes frequented the St. Croix River Valley, but the local Native American pop- ulation declined rapidly in numbers and importance until, by ca. 1860, only a few scat- tered family bands remained. Nevertheless, although only relatively few Indians appear to have been living in Washington County during the Post -Contact period, their influence on Euro-American settlement was important in several ways. For example, Stillwater appears to have been located near an important trail crossing Lake St. Croix and was fre- quented by groups of Dakota moving between villages on the Mississippi and the Apple River district up until the U.S.-Dakota Conflict of 1862. Other Native American influences were not so obvious, e.g., the reoccupation of Indian camps and village sites by Euro- American settlers, and the use of native plants by immigrants. Native Americans and 9Warner and Foote, Washington County, p. 102. 14 Euro-Americans coexisted peacefully in Washington County for a generation, but as set- tlement pressures increased, relations between natives and newcomers deteriorated. No military action of significance took place in Washington County during the U. S.-Dakota l-nnflirt of 1 Rh7 nithr iinh Stillwater was for o time gripped with hysteria over the possi- bility of Little Crow leading a raiding party against the town. Although the Dakota were expelled from Minnesota in the aftermath of the 1862 war, there is some evidence that roving groups of Native Americans were in the Stillwater area well into the late nine- teenth century. The expeditions of Hennepin and Duluth in 1680, Perrot in 1688, and LeSeuer in 1700 produced the first written records of the history and geography of the St, Croix Valley and ushered in the "historic" period. The European discovery of the St. Croix is commonly attributed to Louis Hennepin, whose party passed the mouth of the river while en route to the Mdewakanton villages at Mille Lacs in April 1680. To Daniel Greysolon, sieur Duluth, goes the honor of being the first European visitor of record to pass by the site of Stillwater; Duluth portaged into the Upper St. Croix from the Brule River in June 1680 and followed its course to the Mississippi. The name St. Croix probably commemo- rates an unlucky Frenchman who perished near its mouth sometime in the 1680s or 1690s. Little is known of the early years of the fur trade on the St. Croix. By ca. 1700 both the Dakota and the Ojibwe had become important suppliers of peltry to the French, who established a network of fortified trading stations throughout the "upper country." The trade was carried in birchbark canoes manned by French Canadians and Indians and the St. Croix-Brule route between Lake Superior and the Mississippi was an important avenue of colonial commerce. Concerned solely with the fur trade, the French (1680s-1760s) and British (1770s-1800s) discouraged permanent settlement in what is now Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Under the American regime (1800s-1830s), however, trading posts proliferated, particularly along the upper reaches of the St. Croix, in what was then known as the Folle Avion country. During the twilight years of the fur trade (1830s-1850s), operatives of the American Fur Company established posts which became the nuclei of the later Euro-American communities of Mendota, Hastings, and Red Wing. The site of Stillwater, however, remained unoccupied until Joseph Renshaw Brown's "Dakotah" project, one of the watershed events in Minnesota history. Brown (1805-1870), a native of Maryland who had lived in Minnesota since 1819, had an extraordinary career as a soldier, explorer, fur trader, farmer, lumberman, politi- cian, Indian treaty negotiator, newspaper owner, townsite founder, and inventor. Following his discharge from the army, Brown joined the fur trade fraternity: in the 1820s he was trading among the Pokegama band of the Ojibwe from a post at the Falls of the St. Croix; the 1830s saw him operating out of Oliver's Grove (Hastings) and on the upper Minnesota River; in 1837-1838 he had a post on the Mississippi at Lower Grey Cloud Island, where he also served as a public official under the auspices of Wisconsin Territory, and began to apply himself to politics, real estate, and other ventures. But in 1839 he shifted his base to the western shore of Lake St. Croix. Brown was well known throughout the Upper Mississippi Valley as a mover and shaker and it would appear that his choice of Stillwater was motivated not by his interest in the fur trade but rather his search for a political base in the St. Croix Triangle, which he (and others) hoped to separate from 15 Wisconsin as a new territory. From this time onward, Brown and Stillwater played pivotal roles in the development of Minnesota as a territory and state. Leaving his family at Grey Cloud Island, Brown canvassed the St. Croix Triangle in an effort to secure for Dakotah the honor of being made the seat of government of the new St. Croix County, Wisconsin Territory. Brown was successful and built a complex of log buildings, the centerpiece of which was called "Tamarack House," a combination warehouse -store -inn -courthouse, into which he installed his extended family early in 1841. Detailed information about goings-on at Dakota during Brown's tenure (1841-1845) are lacking: it would appear, however, that there was intermittent activity at the place, which never became the bustling frontier entrepot Brown had envisioned. Brown's entourage (which included his half-sister, Lydia Carli) continued to use Dakota briefly after the platting of Stillwater, although Brown himself seems to have continued to divide his time between Grey Cloud, the Minnesota River posts, and his St. Croix town - site. Tamarack House was eventually abandoned and Brown's townsite disappeared into history. According to William Watts Folwell, "When the hoped -for settlers did not arrive,Brown turned to other enterprises, and years after his imagined village of Dakotah became an addition to Stillwater."10 Brown's Dakotah settlement, reportedly located "about half a mile above the original site of Stillwater" and the Old Tamarack House occupied by Brown and half -sister's families in 1841-1842 and 1844-1846, were reported- ly included in the old Carli and Schulenburg Addition.? 1 Joe Brown was certainly the first important person connected with the history of Stillwater — his association with the place spanned the entire territorial period and the early statehood years — and, lack of a published scholarly biography notwithstanding, he is a major figure in the history of Minnesota, equal in stature to Steele, Sibley, and Ramsey. Brown's resume of "firsts" (in addition to being the initial Euro-American occu- pant of the Stillwater site) includes: first Minnesota lumberman, player in the first the- atrical production performed in Minnesota, first to raft logs down the St. Croix, first pri- vate land claimant in Minnesota, first farmer in Minnesota, first justice of the peace in the St. Croix Triangle, and first clerk of the upper house of the Minnesota Territorial legis- lature. He owned the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper for a time and was the founder of the town of Henderson. He was also one of the prime movers behind the creation of Washington County and the Minnesota Territory and is credited with having suggested the name "Minnesota" with its present spelling. No lands anywhere in Minnesota were open to settlers until 1838, when, by the terms of the treaties agreed to by the respective tribes and the United States in 1837, the Dakota and Ojibwe ceded tracts lying east of the Mississippi River to the United States. The site of Stillwater, then, forms an early node of settlement in that part of the old "Saint Croix Triangle" (see Map 2) where Dakota Indian sovereignty was extinguished by the Treaty of Washington. This district was initially attached to Crawford County, Wisconsin Territory, and formed the original St. Croix County established in 1840. Into this wilderness came a trickle of settlers attracted by opportunities in lumbering, steamboating, farming, and real estate. Joe Brown's Dakotah project had to be aborted, but in 1843 others realized the prospects of the Lake St. Croix site and turned their collective energies toward devel- oping a permanent town there. 10l ft-story of Minnesota (St. PQuI, 1921), 1:234. 11 Warner and Foote, Washington County. p. 498; Augustus B. Easton (ed), History of the St. Croix Valley (1909), 1:6. 16 rOR1 CC11HG pi4 orb E-H r 1 • fircoo 111:f. x =Black Di i ViI1 ye r � � � -" • t dSC�o���r..�,/ !H: . .H • Mi NDOTA OR 57FCTERS CH MILL THE ORGANIZE] OUNTIES of •�+lirlKt'I1a.\ i.IN . iT � aitr W 4trim S�.,v-_I iuMr:rl Yq. • + •.s..3 ��f,�} � • . , . c- �..,.. , 30' LangixndcRtn• e .^ .�_ � The Saint Croix Triangle. Portion of the Thomas Cowperthwait map of Minnesota Territory (1850). (Minnesota Historical Society) 17 Jr Major Biblro_graphic References Easton, Augustus B. (ed.). History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago, 1909. Folsom, William H. Fifty Years in the Northwest. St. Paul, 1888. Folwell, William Watts. History of Minnesota. Vol. 1 of 4. St. Paul, 1922. Landes, Ruth. The Mystic Lake Sioux. Madison, 1968. Robinson, Doane. The History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians. Minneapolis, 1967. Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote (comps). History of Washington County. Minneapolis, 1881. Warren, William W. History of the 0jibway Nation. Minneapolis, 1957. Wozniak, John S. Contact, Negotiation, and Conflict: An Ethnohistory of the Eastern Dakota, 1819-1839. Washington, 1978. Chronological Limits 1680, the date of Hennepin's and Duluth's visits to the Eastern Dakota, marks the beginning of the Contact Period in the St. Croix Valley. Permanent Euro-American occu- pation of the Lower St. Croix Valley dates from 1838, although there were a handful of traders, missionaries, soldiers, and other frontier types residing in the region before the treaties of 1837. The terminal date for this historic context is 1862, the date of the U.S.-Dakota Conflict, which marks the close of the American Indian presence, because of the context's central theme of Native American-Euro-American interaction. Geographical Boundaries The distribution of Contact Period sites in the Lower St. Croix Valley is very poorly documented. The principal area of initial Euro-American occupation seems to have been around Brown's "Dakotah" establishment, the exact location of which has never been fully documented but which was probably on the terrace overlooking Lake St. Croix in the old Carli and Schulenburg Addition. Property Types It seems reasonable to suggest that properties associated with this historic context may exist as archeological sites. Potential archeological property types associated with historic Dakota and Ojibwe occupation of the Stillwater area would include those site types postulated for Pre -Contact Period properties identified with the Woodland and Oneota cultural traditions; along with wild ricing camps and maple sugar making camps. To that list should be added native and European sites associated with the fur trade, although documentation for Euro-American fur trade posts located at Stillwater, with the exception of Brown's establishment, is lacking. No standing structures are believed to exist from the Contact or Post -Contact (i.e., post-1837) periods. Representative Properties No historic properties from this period are known to exist in Stillwater, either as archeological sites or standing structures. One historic site, represented by a commemora- tive plaque, is Battle Hollow, the ravine occupied by the old State Prison. 18 Preservation Planning Goals As with the "Pre -Contact Period American Indian Cultural Traditions in the Lower St. Croix Valley" historic context, the fundamental preservation planning goal for this study unit is to identify sites, structures, and objects associated with Native American and 1840s Euro-American occupation of Stillwater_ Identification will require systematic archeological investigation supported by intensive archival research. The search for Brown's Dakotah settlement will focus on lands in the Schulenburg HPPA. Intensive archival research to establish likely site location, content, and preserva- tion potential, will need to precede any field survey. 19 HISTORIC CONTEXT III: STILLWATER AND ST. CROIX TRIANGLE LUMBERING (1843-1914) Overview In the late 1830s, American lumbermen began arriving in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota to exploit the pineries of the St. Croix Triangle. Stillwater was founded in 1843-1844 and soon emerged cis the region's principal entrepot. Individual lumber- men and their families exercised a profound influence on the town's architecture and the development of civic institutions. After the collapse of the lumber industry in the early 1900s, major shifts in economic activity occurred and Stillwater's distinctive urban char- acter underwent significant changes. Historical Theme The timber resources of eastern Minnesota and western Wisconsin were often men- tioned by early explorers, but until the treaties of 1837 the pineries were virtually untouched. Then, in something less than eighty years, the white pine forests of the St. Croix basin were depleted. The first mill was erected at Marine in 1839 but Stillwater rather than some other village along the St. Croix, became the headquarters for the lum- bering industry. The era of industrial lumbering left a lasting legacy on the Stillwater landscape and represents one of the central themes in regional history. Stillwater's piv- otal role in the development of the St. Croix Valley lumber industry is the subject of a considerable literature and needs no lengthy discussion here. Many of the associated his- toric properties are described in the reports prepared by Paul Clifford Larson and Norene A. Roberts and fall within the boundaries of the Stillwater Commercial Historic District.12 Stillwater's genesis as a lumber town is told in a dozen local histories. Carpenter Jacob Fisher arrived at Taylors Falls in 1842 and made his way down to Joe Brown's Dakotah, where he wintered in the basement of the vacant courthouse. Next spring, while hunting raccoons near McKusick Lane, Fisher made the "discovery" that led to the birth of Stillwater. The story is related by Warper and Foote in their county history: Mr. Fisher discovered what seemed to him to be a favorable location for a saw- mill... In a few days he revisited the found, when his practical eye soon led him to conclude that Brown's creek, formerly known as Pine creek, could be turned into the lake above, and a canal of about sixty feet in length at the lower end of the lake would conduct the water into the lake, over the bluffs, down a ravine near the shore of Lake St. Croix, where it could be utilized in a mill enterprlse.13 Fisher showed the site to some of his fellow lumbermen, including Elias McKean and Elam Greeley, who realized the potential of the site and brought in one John McKusick, then resident at Burlington, Iowa, as their partner in an enterprise christened the Stillwater Lumber Company. Warner and Foote continue the story: 12This local context incorporates many of the themes and property types identified in the statewide historic context "St. Croix Triangle Lumbering" outlined in the SHPO's Minnesota history in Sites and Structures p3 n. 1 Washington County, pp. 498-499. As there was no market for logs, and no logs had been rafted down the river prior to this date, McKusick thought of building a mill to manufacture the logs spoken of into lumber... Mssrs. Greeley and McKusick were planning for some feasible way of converting their logs into lumber, when they learned of Jacob Fisher's movement, in which McKean and Leach had some interest.14 The mill was built and started operation in 1844 with machinery brought up from St. Louis. Water power was provided by a wooden viaduct and canal connecting Brown's Creek with Lake McKusick. McKusick's mill became the nucleus for an attenuated com- munity of forest workers and adventurers and in the fall of 1844 the Stillwater Company laid out its namesake townsite along Lake St. Croix. The tree that brought the Yankee lumber barons to the St. Croix Valley was the Eastern White Pine (Pints strobus L.), also known as the "northern white pine" and "soft pine." The largest conifer native to the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, it was the king of fhe timber species east of the Mississippi and, not surprisingly, is the state tree of both Maine and Minnesota. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soft pine wood was the only low-cost raw material available in sufficient volume to meet the expanding needs of builders in the Mississippi Valley and Great Plains. Before ca. 1910, white pine logs for building materials comprised the greatest proportion of the Minnesota forest industries output, and a large share of this was milled into boards at Stillwater between the 1840s and the 1910s. As early as 1856, J. Wesley Bond expounded the natur- al advantages of Stillwater as a lumber milling center. Stillwater is the natural receptacle of the countless millions of lumber that for a long time to come will float down the river St. Croix. Stillwater will be a second Bangor In the lumber trade. Nothing can prevent It. The logs will stop there of their own accord, and Schulenburg, and Heaton and Sawyer, and McKusick, and Staples, will convert them into building material. Lumber, not logs, will be the sta- ple of Stillwater henceforth.15 A number of writers have dwealt upon the Stillwater -as -the -Bangor -of -the -West theme. Historian Agnes M. Larson has written: Stillwater on the St. Croix had all the possibilities of a second Bangor. In the lum- ber world Bangor in Maine was a name to conjure with. Stillwater on the St. Croix, like Bangor on the Penobscot, stood at the edge of a black forest. Thoreau said of Bangor that it was like a star on the edge of the night; the same could be said of Stillwater. Bangor sent its lumber to Spain, England, and the West Indies; Stillwater on the St. Croix was to furnish the lumber that would build farmsteads, towns, and cities on the American prairies.16 The principal market for Stillwater lumber products was the rapidly developing Upper Mississippi Valley and Great Plains. The prime forests of New England and the eastern and southern Great Lakes had been largely exhausted by mid-century and the lumber industry quickly established itself in the river towns along the Mississippi and its tribu- taries. The St. Croix Valley was targeted first by New England interests, later supplanted by home-grown Midwestern lumber barons, whose frenzied activity has been likened to a swarm of locusts which drops without warning, remains for a short time and then flies away, leaving a barren wasteland. 141b1d., pp. 499-500. 15Minnesota and Its Resources (Chicago, 1857), p. 158. 16History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1999), p. 18. The development of industrial lumbering in Stillwater after 1843 shaped the town physically and culturally. Sawmills of enormous capacity were erected and employed hundreds of workers year-round. Some idea of the scale of the milling activity at Stillwater can be obtained from the following passage in Larson's study of the white pine industry in Minnesota: The number of logs scaled through the boom at Stillwater increased. In 1878 more than 200,000,000 feet of logs were sent through the boom, and in 1890 the num- ber of feet passed the 400,000,000 mark. The increase was steady, with rarely a set- back until the white pine was gone. In the twenty-eight years from 1875 to 1903 the log output through the St. Croix Boom measured 7,781,835,650 feet.17 Due to StilIwater's strategic Iocation near the head of Lake St. Croix, the mode of operation was based upon floating sawlogs downstream on the "spring rise" to a large boomed holding area, whence they were poled out individually and towed into the sawmills. As the -demand for lumber increased and transportation facilities (steamboats, railroads) improved, regional and national markets for St. Croix pine expanded and pro- duction demands increased. Primitive water -powered saws (which moved up and down like a handsaw) did not last long into the 1850s, which saw the construction of the first steam sawmills using circular saws (later bandsaws), which greatly increased production capacity. Development of the network of railroads after 1870 supplemented but did not replace rafting logs to downriver markets. Lumbering played an important role in the economic development of the town. Lumber capital financed the flour milling industry, railroad construction, and manufac- turing. It was also critical to the growth of banking, insurance, and other finance enter- prises. Lumbering affected Stillwater physically as well as economicaIIy. Ample statistics on the production output of Stillwater's sawmills have been printed, but perhaps the most telling vestige of the town's milling history is the presence of a layer of sawdust extending to a depth of several feet beneath much of lower Stillwater. Other effects of industrial lumbering on the cultural landscape include the construction of many fine homes by local lumber barons and their minions and the development of businesses providing sup- port services to the lumber industry. Some vestiges of the lumber culture can be found behind the building facades and in the cultural lore (both written and remembered) of the town. fames Taylor Dunn's popu- lar history of the St. Croix is perhaps the best of a half -dozen or so histories which romanticize the Lumberjack era in Stillwater: Lumbering and the West's appetite for its product created the St. Croix Valley set- tlements; and logs were for over half a century the foundation of their prosperity. 'Instead of remarking about the weather,' the Chicago Tribune reported in 1865, St. Croix residents 'speculate upon the number of logs that are coming down, and the chances of their getting choked at the dam.' Down they came every spring, mil- lions of logs, after heavy rains along the upper tributaries brought high enough water to float them. The villagers along the St. Croix gathered expectantly on the levees to watch the sure-footed red-shirted river drivers with their innumerable bat- teaux, wanigans or cook barges, and multifarious camp equipage follow the tum- bling, groaning logs to the final sorting place at the Stillwater Boom.18 17/bid., p. 132. 18The St. Croix: Midwest Border River (New York, 1965), p. 109. 22 Lumbering certainly added color and romance to life in Stillwater and provided the townspeople with activities missing in inland towns. the city had, for example, many saloons and dives, brothels, etc. However, while Stillwater's reputation for rowdiness is the hicinrirnl hncic far 1 iimharinek r)nvs_ fPw of the saloons id none of the hniices of ill- repute have acquired "historic" status, although survivors almost certainly exist. The heyday of Stillwater as an industrial lumber center was from ca. 1860 to 1890. By 1915 the era had passed into history and within a generation most of the mills and yards were closed. Major Bibliographic References Dunn, James Taylor. The St. Croix: Midwest Border River, New York, 1965. Durant, Edward W. "Lumbering and Steamboating on the St. Croix River," in Minnesota Historical Society Collections Vol. X (1905), pp. 645-675. Easton, Augustus B. (ed.). History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago, 1909. Folsom, William H. "History of Lumbering in the St. Croix Valley, with Biographical Sketches," in Minnesota Historical Society Collections Vol. IX (1901), pp. 291-324. Larson, Agnes M. History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota. Minneapolis, 1949. Larson, Paul Clifford. Stillwater's Lumber -Boom Architecture: An Annotated Photographic Essay. Unpublished report, 1989. Roberts, Norene, and John A. Fried. Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront, Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota. Unpublished report, 1985. Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote (comps.). History of Washington County and the St. Croix Valley. Minneapolis, 1881. Chronological Limits The history of industrial lumbering in Stillwater commences with the siting of the McKusick sawmill in 1843 and ends with the last outgoing Iumber raft in 1914. Geographical Boundaries Properties associated with industrial lumbering are probably distributed over much of the city. However, most of the mills and related industrial sites were located in the down- town district. Residences built and occupied by principals in the lumber business, as well as workers employed in the forests, on the river, and in the sawmills and factories exist in the North Hill Original Town, North Hill, South Hill Original Town, South Hill, Schulenburg, and Dutchtown HPPAs. Property Types Architectural property types associated with this context include the mills themselves as well as accessory buildings, offices, etc. Opportunities for industrial archeology proba- bly exist at the mill sites. Many fine homes, including numerous specimens of Romantic, Victorian, and Eclectic period architecture built during the late -nineteenth and early - twentieth centuries stand as evidence of Stillwater's !umber town heritage. Workers' hous- 23 ing in a wide range of vernacular house types, including (but not limited to) Gable -Front, Gable -Front -and -Wing, Gothic Cottage, and Folk Victorian forms, might also be signifi- cant because of their association with the lumber industry_ Finally, saloons (Stillwater boasted over sixty in its heyday), brothels, and other dens of iniquity were one of the hallmarks of the lumber boom in Stillwater. Archeological property types include the ruins and buried remains of mills and relat- ed structures, as well as former residences. Representative Properties St. Croix Lumber Mills/St. Croix Manufacturing Company, 318 N. Main St. Hersey -Bean House, 319 W. Pine St. Isaac Staples mansion site (ruins), Pioneer Park. Lumbermen's Exchange, 113-121 S. Water St. Albert Lammers House, 1306 S. Third St. Ivory McKusick House, 504 N. Second St. William Sauntory House, 626 N. Fourth St. Preservation Planning Goals Specific planning goals relating to this context are straightforward: (1) identify and preserve historic resources relating to St. Croix Triangle lumbering; (2) whenever archival research identifies locations of potentially significant archeological resources, field sur- veys should be conducted to document the presence and assess the integrity of the resource; and (3) the City should support research on individuals and companies engaged in lumbering at Stillwater to help evaluate their association with themes of national, statewide, and local significance. Many (perhaps most) of the buildings and sites which are significant primarily because of their association with St. Croix Triangle Lumbering are included within the Stillwater Commercial Historic District or are individually registered homes. Nevertheless, future surveys of all HPPAs should be alert to the presence of buildings and sites linked to the rise and decline of the lumber industry. In particular, attention should be paid to identifying mill workers' dwellings believed to exist in the Schulenburg and Dutchtown HPPAs. Archeological surveys along the riverfront may detect evidence of buried cultural deposits dating from the 1840s-1910s period. In their study of the riverfront, Roberts and Fried used historical materials to identify a number of potential archeological sites associ- ated with lumbering. Follow-up archival research will be used to document the locations and assess the research value of mill structures such as mill races, powerhouse founda- tions, landings, and booms, which will be subjected to archeological testing wherever appropriate. As with any important pattern of historical events, StilIwater's lumbering heritage has different meanings for different people. To better understand and appreciate the sites, 24 buildings, and structures which survive from the lumbering era, every effort will be made to study the 1843-1914 period from a variety of perspectives. The impact of lumbering on the built environment in Stillwater, of course, will be a key to this, but preservation sur- vPv nnrl hictnrir rnntPxt refinement will Haar] to neinnt n mnre hnlictir nnnrnnrh fo ifiunti_ fying and evaluating historic properties that applies the relevant tools and concepts of the historical, cultural, architectural, archeological, and geographical disciplines. The history of lumbering in Stillwater, as presented in the standard texts, has tended to be written in terms of broad generalizations about lumberjack culture and anecdotes about local lumber barons; many of these images have been derived from stereotypes or the myth -making of early writers. In the past, historic preservation in Stillwater has con- tributing to this limited (and limiting) vision by the emphasis on preserving large houses or commercial buildings financed with lumber capital, using stylized architecture as a major measure of significance (and, by implication, cultural achievement). Future sur- veys will recognize the richness and complexity of Stillwater's cultural heritage and the cultural resources produced by working class men and women. Finally, historical research on individual lumbermen and their families will utilize the relevant methodological tools and concepts of the various cultural -historical disciplines (e.g., anthropology, sociology) to generate a body of information that will permit preser- vation planners to reliably assess the relative significance of historically important indi- viduals, both in the context of Stillwater history and statewide or national themes. Much of the existing data on the "leading men" of Stillwater was (assembled by avocational his- torians or local boosters and can best be characterized as superficial, uncritical, and biased in favor of the male -dominated, capitalist elite and against women, members of ethnic minorities, and the working class. Future historical work will emphasize a balance in the treatment of individuals and groups and the critical use of primary sources. 25 HISTORIC CONTEXT IV: STILLWATER TOWN PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT (1844-1945) Overview The general plan of Stillwater was based on a model that had evolved over two cen- turies in New England and the Oki Northwest. Street patterns, lot lines, and the differenti- ation between residential, commercial, and public use areas essentially define the urban landscape. A number of surviving historic landscapes document local decisions with regard to changing land uses, public policies, and attitudes. Historical Theme This historic context deals with the large-scale structure and pattern of the built envi- ronment, the development of the city infrastructure, and the history of municipal plan- ning in Stillwater. The focus is on the cultural ecology of the Stillwater site and the his- toric resources associated with the modification of the physical environment and chang- ing land uses. For historic preservation purposes, the physical geography of Stillwater is represented by a set of historic properties, which, for sake of convenience, we will call "natural landscapes." The forms introduced by people to alter the natural landscape rep- resent another set of cultural resources and are expressed collectively in what geogra- phers call "cultural landscapes." Borrowing from a tradition as old as written history, early observers were careful to describe the geography behind Stillwater history. One of the earliest is that of guidebook author I. Wesley Bond: For about a quarter of a mile along the lake, where the city of Stillwater stands, the bluffs have retreated from the lake in the form of a semicircle. The ground along the lake is but a few feet above high water mark; and for the distance of two streets, it is slightly ascending — just enough so for convenience, neatness and beauty. Then one ascends at a rather steep grade — though not more so than at Quincy, Illinois, or Natchez, Mississippi; until the tops of the bluffs are reached — which are about 100 feet high. On the top, and beyond these bluffs, are beautiful oak openings, very fertile and easily cultivated.19 In Warner and Foote's county history we find the following observations: The city of Stillwater is beautifully and romantically located at the head of Lake St. Croix, twenty-five miles above Point Douglas. When settlement began here, the plateau near the lake was of limited area, and little elevated above the surface of the lake. In shape the tract resembles the segment of a circule, the bluffs forming the cir- cumference and the bank of the lake the secant line. The bluffs above are high, and ravines indicate that streams once flowed from lakes and streams above to the lake below. The level tract, where settlement began, now occupied by the business portion of the town, may have been reclaimed from the lake by gradual filling from the high bluffs during a Iong period of years previous to settlement, or by some rapid action, analogous to the land -slide of 1852. For many years residences and business houses 19Bond, Minnesota, p. 158. 26 were built only on this low land, and its adaptation for building sites was greatly enlarged by the land -slide above referred to, and by the artificial fi]Iing done by pub- lic and private enterprise. Some of the bluffs have been graded down to a level with the higher portion of the low land... The deep ravines have nearly disappeared, and some are found who cannot see in the artificial changes the beauty that once exist- ed in the abrupt bluffs and irregular ravines in a state of nature. However this may be, a full equivalent for beauty lost is paid for by utility gained. Enough is left to mark this stuff as a point of rare beauty.20 Foremost among the physical qualities of Stillwater that shaped its historic character are the bluffs. The natural landscape of the town was dissected with ravines, rills, and gullies which collected nmoff and allowed it to flow into the St. Croix. Two small lakes McKusick Lake, named after the town's founder, and Lily Lake (at one time called Sunfish Lake), named in allusion to the aquatic vegetation there — also drain through the town. Historically, the most important drainageway was Brown's Creek, the outlet of McKusick Lake, which flows into Lake St. Croix at the north edge of the old townsite. As the town developed, this runoff sometimes produced catastrophic effects, as in the celebrated land- slide of 14 Muy 1852, un event described by Warner and Foote: On the prairies, beyond the elevated bluffs which encircle the business portion of the town, there is a lake which discharges Its waters through a ravine, and sup- plied McKusick's mill. Owing to heavy rains, the hills became saturated with water, and the lake very full. Before daylight the citizens heard the 'voice of many waters,' and looking out, saw rushing down through the ravine, trees, gravel and diluvium. Nothing impeded its course, and as it issued from the ravine it spread over the town site, covering up barns and small tenements, and, continuing to the lake shore, it materially improved the landing, but a deposit of many tons of earth. One of the editors of the day, alluding to the fact, quaintly remarked, that 'it was a very extraordinary movement of real estate'.21 Over the course of the late nineteenth century, StilIwater's ravines and creeks were essentially channelized, straightened and deepened as part of a city-wide plan devised by the city's engineering office. Brown's Creek and the old lumber millrace canal from McKusick Lake was closed sometime after 1870 and the lake became the city's drinking water reservoir. Where they encroached on the backs of lots and erosion threatened hous- es, the ravines were partially infilled and stabilized. In the heavily urbanized landscape downtown they were sometimes completely built over so that streams flowed underneath buildings. The bluffs themselves were cut down by grading (as much as thirty to forty feet along Third Street) to allow for streets and buildable lots. As Stillwater grew, its irregular topography presented some unique and challenging transportation engineering problems as well. Mrs. Mahlon Black, who came to Stillwater in 1848, when Stillwater was "a tiny, struggling village under the bluffs," remembered excursions up onto the bluffs, "holding onto the hazelbush to help us."22 When residen- tial development spread into the North and South Hill neighborhoods, the steep slopes dictated that pedestrian traffic required a physical climb, and the answer to this need was the construction of public stairways, constructed originally of wooden treads but eventu- ally replaced by stone or iron steps. This unique feature drew praise from a number of nineteenth century observers, including Warner and Foote, who noted that the blufflands below Isaac Staples' residence "has been transformed into a succession of giant steps, 20Warner and Foote, Washingtcn County, pp.554-555. 211bid., p. 124; cf., pp. 508-509. 2ZIn Daughters of the Amerioirn Revolution, Minnesota, Old Rail Fence Comers: Frontier Tales Told by Minnesota Pioneers, ed. Lucy Leavenworth Wilder Morris, (reprint, St. Paul, 1976), p. 29. built of solid masonry, rising one above the other until the summit is reached, on which the residence is located."23 Problems with flooding shaped development of the downtown. The first settlers pretty much took the waterfront as it was, clearing it where it was forested along the natural levee, grading down parts of the glacial terrace to provide wagon access to the levee, but generally leaving large parts of the site little more than a swampy quagmire. Floods were a recurring problem. 1850 was a bad year and produced the oft -repeated anecdote about steamboats dropping their gangways directly onto the steps of the Minnesota House hotel on Main Street and letting their passengers off onto the steps of the hotel. Later freshets did not flood Main Street, we are told, because the 1852 landslide raised the level of the land above the normal high-water mark. Eventually, the levee area was enlarged and the flood problem was mitigated somewhat by constructing buildings over the shore on tim- ber pilings, which became "made land" through alluviation. Meanwhile, while the inhabitants of Stillwater traditionally valued the Lake St. Croix waterfront for its econom- ic value, nineteenth century townspeople generally treated the lakeshore with little respect for its natural or aesthetic values. High density industrial and residential develop- ment was allowed to come right down to the water's edge; the town's sewers also dis- charged directly into the lake and the resulting pollution made the waters so dirty and dangerous that by 1880 the St Croix had been rendered ugly and virtually inaccessible. Based on surveyor field notebook data compiled by the General Land Office survey of Washington County in 1846, forests originally covered only about one -fifth of the land now encompassed by the city limits. About three -fifths of the land area was prairie, much of it in the form of small "oak openings" or barrens interspersed with scrub oak and the wet, lowland meadows along the lake. The rest was swamp or marsh. Within a genera- tion, most of the woodland had been cleared for urban development or cropland, and to satisfy the townspeople's needs for fuel. A few small tracts of native grassland remained undisturbed within the city limits at the end of the century; the prairie disappeared alto- gether during the first decades of the twentieth century. Only isolated deciduous trees remain today as vestiges of Stillwater's natural vegetation. Before it was the "Queen City of the St. Croix," Stillwater was a frontier boomtown dominated by lumbermen. Indeed, it might well be said that the plan behind the original townsite was really a large-scale version of the early lumber barons' own corporate plans. The General Land Office township survey was completed in 1847 and in August the fol- lowing year the first parcels of the public domain in Minnesota were offered for sale at the government land office in St. Croix Falls. Among the tracts auctioned off was the site of Stillwater, which its proprietors promptly had surveyed by Harvey Wilson so that they could begin to sell town lots. The first land deed for a city lot recorded in the Washington County courthouse dates from September 1848 and was made by John McKusick, who transferred title to a town lot to a buyer in Cincinnati. Growth was slow at first, but as the tide of immigration rose and the demand for lumber skyrocketed, Stillwater mush- roomed. The post -Civil War economic boom served to hasten industrial growth and urbanization, so that by the 1870s, nearly all of what is now downtown Stillwater was rapidly being covered by building bulk. As the city grew, urban land use problems also multiplied. A study of historic maps and plats shows that Stillwater's municipal bound- aries never coincided with the limits of urban development. The increasing demand for 23Washington County, p. 555. 28 urban space was met by accelerating expansion of Stillwater into the rural areas of Stillwater Township through annexation of adjacent areas that could be platted as "addi- tions" and eventually became urbanized. The general plan of the original town was based on a model that had evolved in North America over two centuries since the platting of the first towns in the New England colonies. The gridiron plat of rectilinear streets crossing at right angles, with rectangular blocks and lots of small dimensions, was essentially a device for organizing residential and commercial development that the original townsite proprietors hoped to attract. Recognizing the importance of the St. Croix waterway, the initial developers of Stillwater oriented the orthogonal plat to Lake St. Croix, which placed the commercial district along streets running parallel to the lakeshore, on an axis of approximately north-north- west to south-southeast. Later nineteenth and twentieth century additions were laid out in conformance to the standard longitudinal and latitudinal grid of the rectangular sur- vey and emphasized residential development and parallel streets (see Map 3). In both the original platted area and additions, the configuration of the lots was designed for com- mon dwellings, shops, and stores of more or less uniform size. The generally small size of the lots allowed a clutter of small commercial buildings and dwellings but forced larger commercial buildings and mansions to occupy multiple lots, or irregularly shaped parcels not well suited for residential use. Together, these early planning/design decisions con- tributed to the dense, compact appearance of residential and commercial development in Stillwater. Perhaps the most important structural feature of the city founded by the Stillwater Lumber Company is the pattern of streets and roads. As described above, the general plan is rectilinear the obsolete gridiron was not abandoned until development spread into the western neighborhoods after 1940. Some diagonal streets and cul-de-sacs were incorporated into the evolving city plan in response to the dictates of topography. In the nineteenth century, streets (including commercial district thoroughfares) were alternately grassy, muddy, and dusty lanes adapted to pedestrian and wheeled traffic. Downtown, paving stones and boards were early solutions to the problem of mud and standing water. Norene Roberts, in her National Register district survey, noted the development of the urban infrastructure along the downtown streetscape: Early photos of downtown Stillwater show wooden sidewalks and streets by turn muddy or dusty. Streetscapes from the 1890s show Main Street as a dirt road, but with stone curbs and sidewalks. By 1899, Main Street sported tall telephone poles at each block and the downtown streets had pavers of wood or brick. The set -back in the principal thoroughfares has always been the width of the sidewalks, provid- ing no room for boulevard trees or other accouterments —known today as "street furniture." By 1928, the telephone poles flanking Main Street had been removed to more discrete locations at the rear of the buildings. Electrical street lights [arc - lights] first appeared on Main Street in 1927. These first street lights were cast iron with fluted columns and opaque globes. They were replaced by tall new lights simi- lar to the present ones in December 1957 by NSP.24 Before 1870 little distinction was made between street and walkway, but by the time the North and South Hill neighborhoods were in place it was common practice to sepa- rate pedestrians and vehicles. Street paving commenced around the turn of the century and by the 1960s a significant percentage of the land area was covered with concrete or asphalt paving. 24lntensive National Register Survey of Downtown Stillwater, Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1989), p. 40. The unimaginative and cramped gridiron plat neglected the aesthetic and environ- mental needs of the residents in favor of accommodating uncontrolled economic develop- ment. There were no public greens in any of the additions platted during the nineteenth century, although in practice both local law and tradition favored the retention of com- mon ar. ,s on the fringe of the built-up area, which served residents' needs for open space. The town founders did identify several sites as consecrated ground and these burial grounds also tended to be on the outskirts of the developed area. Development pressures caused the relocation of the pioneer cemeteries to the park -like Fairview Cemetery, plat- ted in 1867; the potter's field was removed to a plot in South Stillwater in 1873. At an early date, however, pleasant spots developed where people could hang out for hours at a time, mostly on the grounds of public buildings and, to a lesser extent, downtown along the waterfront. But by the 1890s, the city had built only a handful of public parks, most- ly in high places on land less suitable for other forms of development. All this changed after the turn of the century, when Stillwater experienced a brief renaissance in urban design that has left a significant imprint on the built environment of the waterfront. The earliest urban planning in Stillwater grew out of the town's unhap- py experiences with floods and landslides and were simple strategies to modify the natur- al landscape of the townsite in in the interests of improving the public health and safety, and to enhance the town's economic potential. Few restraints were placed on the uses of private property, however, and relatively little was accomplished with regard to planning for the orderly acquisition and development of lands for public buildings, parklands, schools, etc. Lowell Park represents the city's first attempt at devising and implementing "a system of intelligent planning" during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Inspired by the City Beautiful Movement, a national revival of urban planning and design launched at the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition_in 1893, a group of Stillwater civic and business leaders succeeded in having the city government create a commission to study local improvement projects. Of particular interest was the development of a city park or promenade along the St. Croix. Under the auspices of the Park Board (forerunner of the modern Planning Commission), the city retained the services of the Minneapolis land- scape architecture firm of Morrell and Nichols to design the urban showplace that became Lowell Park. In a body of planning and design work culminating in their 1918 Plan of Stillwater, Morrell and Nichols provided the,city with a conceptual blueprint for "parks, boulevards, civic center, highways, industrial developments, etc., which although it may require generations to bring into realization will eventually make Stillwater famous all over the country." 25 Morrell and Nichols' plan also included provisions for improving transportation and housing and for a rudimentary system of land use zoning. But the centerpiece of the plan was the development of waterfront park along the historic levee. The Stillwater levee at the foot of Chestnut Street had been a hub of commercial activity since Territorial times and during the middle decades of the nineteenth century the waterfront was a busy spot because of the steamboat port facilities and the nearby farmers' market. But by the turn of the century the levee was something of a wasteland, treeless and covered with sixty years' accumulation of flotsam, jetsam, and sawmill waste; the city dump was actually located at the river's edge a little north of Chestnut. 25Anthony V. Morrell and Arthur Nichols, Plan of the City of Stillwater (Minneapolis, 1918), p. 14. 30 Local lumbermen donated the land and work began in 1913 with the construction of a concrete "sea wall" and demolition of a number of old buildings. Work on the walkways, gardens, and pavilion was continued until 1916, by which time the former dumping grounds had been transformed into "a veritable beauty spot."26 When they submitted their Pion of Stillwater to the Park Board in 1918, Morrell and Nichols sketched the genesis of the waterfront plan: Some eight years ago [1910] the Civic Club proposed to the City Council that it would contribute the same amount of funds to the development of a riverside park that the city was asked to contribute. Under the joint direction of a common com- mittee of the Club and Council and present beautiful Lowell Park of Stillwater was inaugurated. When these funds were exhausted and the park improvements were not completed one of the citizens of Stillwater offered to finance the completion of the development provided the direction of planning and supervision of construc- tion work were placed in the hands of competent landscape architects.27 Other park improvements were undertaken in other parts of the city, prompting the author of the Federal Writers Project guide to Minnesota to state: "The present town has a well -planned system of parks, playgrounds, and boulevards. Its river bank has been land- scaped and converted into a public park. Stillwater also has a municipal 9-hole golf course."28 Work continued at Lowell Park in the years immediately before and after World War II: the railroads tracks were removed in 1935 and most of the remaining buildings on the site were torn down in 1946. The Federal Government was also active in shaping the face of Stillwater along the Lake St. Croix waterfront. The Army Corps of Engineers interest in Stillwater was primari- ly in the areas of flood prevention and navigation improvements. Flooding of the Stillwater site has occurred throughout its history and the building up of an artificial levee atop the natural levee was one of the earliest human modifications of the water- front. Although there remained a great deal of local control over land use along the waterfront, after 1931 the Corps took on a large measure of the responsibility for protect- ing downtown Stillwater against flooding. The Federal strategy has called for the con- struction of shoreline revetments and retaining walls and a slight change in the align- ment of the river channel. The Corps' development of the 9-foot navigation channel from Pt. Douglas all the way to Stillwater also contributed to its flood prevention plan: dredg- ing to maintain the navigation channel also tended to decrease the length of the ri'ver's channel, thereby increasing its velocity and so hurrying the floodwaters into the Mississippi. The Morrell -Nichols plan marks the advent of city planning in Stillwater, although it should be noted that early efforts were concerned primarily with promoting Stillwater's civic beauty and attractions to industrialists rather than with improving neglected urban environments. Later efforts were directed toward public utilities planning and official controls on land use designed to preserve property values by protecting residential neigh- borhoods from commercial or industrial development. By the 1940s, city planning was focused not on any single problem or reform, but on the improvement of the whole city. The legal framework for a modern program of municipal planning began with the zon- ing ordinance, enacted by the city council in the 1920s, which recognizing planning as a 261bid., p 15. 271bid., pp. 13-14. 28Minnesota: A Guide to the State (New York, 1938), p. 457. 1874 map of the City of Stillwater, showing the original platted area and early additions. From A. T. Andreas' Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Minnesota. Note that contrary to carographic convention, the map was originally printed with north at the bottom of the page. 32 proper function of municipal government and placed official controls on private uses of certain lands. Until the 1960s, city planning was done by civil engineers and landscape architects; afterward, the city hired professionally trained municipal planners. In the 1970.c lnnel 11SP nlnnninn wnC t»pnletnented by sneclnl init-ntives, including higtnrir preservation and economic development, characterized by quantitative, aesthetic, politi- cal -behavioral, and social welfare approaches to seeking solution for Stillwater's urban problems. Moor Bibliographic References Andreas, Alfred T. Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Minnesota. Chicago, 1874. Clarke, Lewis M. Map of McKusick and St. Paul Ravines... Unpublished MS, 1888. Merritt, Ray H. A History of the St. Paul District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Washington, 1979_ Morrell, Anthony U., and Arthur Nichols. Plan of the City of Stillwater. Minneapolis, 1918. Runk, John. Collection. Photographs, Minnesota Historical Society, n.d. Shepard, Myron. Sectional Map otStillwater. St. Paul, 1878. Chronological Limits This context begins with the platting of the townsite in 1844. The terminal date is the end of World War I1. Geographical Boundaries This historic context is city-wide in scope. Property Types Streets, alleys, lot lines, bluffs, vistas, ravines, lakes, parks, and the Lake St. Croix waterfront define the urban landscape of Stillwater and document the decisions of a suc- cession of entrepreneurs, developers, public officials, and planners over a century and a half of growth, decline, and change. Property types associated with this historic context may be classified generally cis historic landscapes and include sites, structures, and dis- tricts. In terms of historical geography, the unique physical aspects of Stillwater's topogra- phy, drainage, and vegetational history contribute to the identity of place, particularly in the Stillwater Commercial Historic District and in the North and South Hill HPPAs. The bluffs are the dominant landform and the instinctive need to climb up to the high ground in order to survey the riverfront seems to have had a profound impact on individ- ual decisions. The North Hill in particular was recognized early on as an important place because it afforded a spectacular view of the town and Lake St. Croix. Although steps represent a set of transportation structures, and are important as such, their significance is the product of their association with local responses to the challenges of topography. Stillwater's ravines represent a unique set of cultural landscapes which document his- torical processes of land use and which retain visual and associative characteristics indicative of the transformation of the natural landscape. Ravines are an important 33 character defining element in the geography of the downtown area and adjacent residen- tial neighborhoods and are historically significant because they posed natural barriers to urban development. In the late nineteenth century, ravines became engineering struc- tures, constructed to control surface water runoff. They also traditionally afforded natural routes for pedestrian transportation: Paul Caplazi, for example, described a path from Holcombe's Addition to downtown which ran through the ravine between Holcombe and Fourth near the Baptist Church, down Pine to the Junior High School, as the route used by school children. Finally, the ravines form the natural boundaries between the North Hill and South Hill neighborhoods. Historic designed landscapes characterize the peculiarly geographic association of his- torical forms, physical and cultural, and exemplify principles or schools of landscape architecture. Lowell Park represents an extensive constructed landscape that is significant becal 1CP of its artistic qualities and its historical association with the City Beautiful Mo, it. Other designed city parks and open space areas may also be significant as hist, &c sites. Sites such as cemeteries and neighborhood parks are significant because of their asso- ciation with trends in urban design; some may also have value as examples of landscape art. Streets are the focal point of every neighborhood and historic street furniture, as well as designed landscape elements along streets, may have preservation value. (For exam- ple, many of the boulevard trees planted in the nineteenth century are still standing.) Levee walls and sections of street or sidewalk pavement may also have historic preserva- tion potential as structures which contribute to the significance of groups of historic buildings or designed historic landscapes. The major land use planning features of the Stillwater urban plan are (1) the gridiron street plan, (2) the division of the city into commercial' and residential quarters, (3) its system of public open spaces, and (4) the development of high ground sites for civic buildings, churches, and the showplace residences of the wealthy elite. The gridiron street pattern is best preserved in the original platted area downtown and in the North Hill, South Hill, Schulenburg, Dutchtown, Sabin, Greeley, Lily Lake, and Staples HPPAs. There are other potential historic properties associated with efforts to plan and design munici- pal development. Evidence of land use planning appears in the gridiron plat, the rectan- gular street system, division of the city into commercial and residential districts, and in the density, height, bulk, and spacing of buildings and structures developed under mod- em zoning regulations. The contrast in historic feeling between older and newer HPPAs is an important aspect of significance with regard to historic landscape values. Representative Properties Lowell Park, levee, and pavilion. Main Street Steps to South Hill neighborhood. Laurel Street Steps to North Hill. Pioneer Park. Preservation Planning Goals To date, neither the functional geography of Stillwater and its influence on changing patterns of Land use, nor the history of local urban planning, have attracted the atten- 34 tion of geographers or urban design students. Until recently, preservationists maintained a fairly rigid distinction between cultural and natural resources, but Stillwater can no longer afford to neglect the cultural resource value of the geography behind its history. C,ennrnnhIcnl fentnrPs and lame -scale patterns of urban design will be included In future reconnaissance surveys in all HPPAs, and their identification and evaluation assigned high priority. The property types associated with this historic context may be eligible for designation either individually as significant historic properties or as properties contribut- ing to the significance of historic districts. Stillwater's ravines, bluffs, and other natural features have been obscured but not completely destroyed by urban development. Because they document the interplay between the natural and the cultural landscape, these landmarks possess historic identity that is based on recognizable content, limits, and relation to other landscapes. It essential that they be identified, evaluated, preserved and, when practicable, restored. Stillwater will undertake an. intensive city-wide survey of its historic landscapes. Intact examples of significant natural features shaped by historical processes of land use will be designated as historic landscape districts. In sense used here, landscape is not simply an actual scene viewed by an observer, but a generalization derived from the observation of individual scenes. Often, the significance of a landscape will be something less than the whole of its historic features. 35 HISTORIC CONTEXT V: THE ST. CROIX RIVER, RAILROADS AND OVERLAND TRANSPORTATION (1893-1931) Overview Stillwater has traditionally been the transportation nexus for the St. Croix Valley hin- terland. The St. Croix waterway was the first highway but surface roads were built at a very early date to link Stillwater with other settled areas, natural resources, and markets. The city was also an important shipping point on four regional rail lines. The importance of bridges in the city's physical history cannot be overemphasized. Historical Theme Stillwater was founded as a steamboat port and shipping point and remained a major transportation center during the period of railroad supremacy. The development of the modern transportation system, based on the automobile, caused the town to decline in importance during the first decades of the twentieth century; nevertheless, Stillwater remains the focus of the St. Croix Valley transportation network, just as it has since 1843. The St. Croix River is the most important single part of Stillwater's natural endow- ment. Its headwaters are in northwestern Wisconsin and the river flows southwest 164 miles to its junction with the Mississippi River (at Pt. Douglas) about forty river miles downstream from the Twin Cities. Hennepin named it the R. de Tombeau on his 1683 map — the "River of the Tomb" was so -named, we are told, because a member of Hennepin's Mdewakanton Dakota escort was fatally injured near the mouth of the river by a rat- tlesnake bite. The St. Croix is labeled R. de Magdelaine on a French map of 1688 but by 1703 Riviere Sainte -Croix was its standard cartographic representation. Traditionally, St. Croix commemorates the name of a French trader shipwrecked at the mouth of the river in the late seventeenth century. Since 1848, the lower 127 miles of the river's length has formed the boundary between the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. In pre -lock and dam times, the river was navigable as far as Stillwater in all seasons; between Stillwater and Taylors falls by shallow -draft vessels; and above the falls only by small boats and canoes. Native Americans may have traveled by water up and down the St. Croix Valley using dugout log or birchbark canoes for centuries before the arrival of the French explor- ers, but the fur trade was the first commercial use of the St. Croix waterway. By the 1840s, heavier flatboats and rafts were common on the Mississippi above Prairie du Chien, but their occurrence at Joe Brown's Dakotah is not documented. At a very early date the St. Croix provided a highway for steamboats. The river steamboat was invented in the early nineteenth century and was used experimentally on the Upper Mississippi between 1819 and 1838; by 1860, there were more than a thousand steamboats in ser- vice on western waterways. The flat-bottomed, double -decked, paddle -wheel propelled model was the most important type of common carrier on the St. Croix. After the Civil War, larger packet and excursion boats, some which resembled floating palaces, plied between Stillwater and the Mississippi ports. 36 The historic port of Stillwater consisted of the harbor, essentially the channel of the St. Croix River, which was sufficiently deep for steamboats to come right up onto the levee, where the natural shoreline was gently sloping and sandy. The principal steamboat land- ing was located along the levee between Myrtle and Chestnut streets. Steamers common ly tied up perpendicular to the shore, but sometimes moored alongside small wharfs or piers where they were loaded and unloaded. The levee was privately owned until 1875, when it was deeded to the city; under municipal ownership, a stone retaining wall was constructed between Chestnut and Nelson streets. Before construction of the interstate bridge, Stillwater was also the home port of ferries running from Mulberry Point to St. Petersburgh (present-day Houlton, Wisconsin) and Willow River. The building of steamboats, barges and other craft for service on the St. Croix was an important industry. Local black oak as well as white pine and iron was used in steam- boat construction. Foremost among the Stillwater boatwrights was the Muller Boat Works, founded by Philip Muller, a coffin maker, in 1855. Philip Muller's sons and grandsons expanded the company from a backyard boatworks, specializing in skiffs, launches, and bateaux for the lumber companies, to a small shipyard which after 1873 produced a succession of steamers, work boats, and tugs; after 1914 the Mullers turned to building pleasure boats and the company remained in operation until 1986, using the site now occupied by the Stillwater Yacht Club. The first steamer appeared on the St. Croix River in July 1838 and others followed, transporting passengers, sawmill machinery, and provisions to the embryo settlements at Marine and the Fails. "The first steamboat that attempted to land at the point where Stillwater is located, was the Otter, under Captain Harris, which brought up the [Stillwater Lumber] company's outfit in the fall of 1843," report Warner and Foote in their county history; "The next spring a regular line was established, and during the summer, boats visited the place once every two weeks, running regularly between Stillwater and Galena."29 Steamboat traffic on the St. Croix was at its height between the 1850s and the 1880s, when packetboats carried mail, passengers, and freight between Stillwater, Marine, St. Paul, Hastings, and points south. Warner and Foote commented on the importance of river traffic on the life of the town: In the early days, before Stillwater became o place of importance and before rail- roads brought daily freight and mail, the arrival of a steamboat was an important event. From a clipping we learn that the levee, during the summer of 1856, was the scene of excitement on the arrival of each boat. Hundreds thronged the wharf, business men in expectation of freight, politicians in quest of election news, some to see the boat and others to be in the excitement.30 During what Roberts has termed the initial period of lumbering in Stillwater (1839-1872), the town was solely dependent upon the St. Croix River for its transporta- tion needs, and for three-quarters of a century river driving remained the chief means of transporting logs from the pineries down to the mills. Logs floated downriver were enclosed in booms of long logs chained end to end. The first St. Croix boom was con- structed in 1851 near Osceola, Wisconsin, but the river was determined to be too narrow there and in 1856 the boom was moved to a site a few miles above Stillwater in 1856. For export, timber was collected in rafts and pushed or towed downstream. Roberts and Fried have stated that the advent of the railroads shifted the activity in Stillwater from rafting 29Woshington County, p. 508. 3o1bid., p. 509. 37 logs to downriver mills to the shipping of finished lumber, lath and shingles by rail: "Only when the mills at Stillwater could not saw all the logs from the boom, were rafts of logs sent south by river."31 The navigation season for steamboats was, on average, March -November; during December -February, the St. Croix was gorged with ice. There were years, however, when the river was closed to traffic as early as mid -November and dangerous conditions lasted until mid -April. Moderate to high water depths assured a satisfactory channel for boats between Hastings and Stillwater during the late spring and early summer months. In dry years, low flows restricted use of the Lower St. Croix in late summer and fall, but seldom closed the river. Local authors contend that when the steamboats of the Diamond Jo and other packet boat lines could not ascend the Mississippi to St. Paul because of low water, they sometimes used Stillwater as an alternate port of call. Although railroad traffic grad- ually supplanted river traffic, Stillwater remained an important port of call for Upper Mississippi River steamboats until after the turn of the century. The St. Croix River in its natural (i.e., pre-1851) condition consisted of two connected watu bodies: the Upper St. Croix River, a shallow stream flowing through a narrow gorge, interrupted by shoals and rapids; and Lake St. Croix, an elongated, relatively deep pool that extended from a little above Stillwater to the junction with the Mississippi River at Pt. Douglas. As soon as the St, Croix Valley was opened to settlement, fur trade inter- ests joined forces to effect a radical change in the river's morphology. In 1851 the Stillwater Boom Company constructed its log barrier from bank to bank a little above Stillwater; in their study of the waterfront, Roberts and Fried noted that this innovation effectively blocked all commercial river traffic upstream from Stillwater and had an adverse effect on the development of Marine, Osceola, and other upper valley towns. In 1889-1890, another combination of loggers caused the construction of the Nevers Dam, loco '; 'd about 11 miles above Taylors Falls, which impounded the upper river, thereby allowing the lumber companies to manipulate water Ievels for their own purposes. The first public navigation improvements were undertaken under the jurisdiction of the St. Paul office of the Army Corps of Engineers (established in 1866) and focused on the occasional removal of snags and log jams from the Lower St. Croix. In 1935, Congress authorized construction of a 9-foot navigation channel in the Mississippi from the mouth of the Missouri River to Minneapolis; the 9-foot channel had been extended 24.5 miles up the St. Croix to Stillwater by the time Lock and Dam No. 2 (Hastings) was completed in the late 1930s. The channel above Stillwater was occasionally used by steamboats before the construction of the St. Croix Boom; after 1914, the upper river was open to small boats. Railroads came to Stillwater at a comparatively early date. The first steam railways had been developed in England during the 1820s and spread to the United States in the 1830s. In 1840, there were just under three thousand miles of track laid, most of it along the Atlantic seaboard; by 1860 more than thirty thousand miles of railroad had been constructed in a network that stretched from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Their first function was to provide an all-weather, year-round roadway for the movement of passen- gers and general freight between St. Paul and the St. Croix Valley. The effect of the Panic of 1857 on railroad development was disastrous nation-wide, but between the Civil War Norene Roberts and John A. Fried, Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront, Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1985), p. 37. 38 and World War One railroad development was rapid and continuous, the financial pan- ics in 1873 and 1893 notwithstanding. Railroads reached their peak of mileage national- ly and in Minnesota during the early twentieth century: most of the 9,000 miles of rail- road built in Minnesota were laid between 1870 and 1890. The railroads serving Stillwater were typically overcapitalized and overbuilt, and as time went on the smaller roads experienced precarious financial circumstances and were absorbed by the larger railroads, which started abandoning large segments of their rural networks after 1920. During the 1850s, a number of abortive attempts were made to build a railroad between Stillwater and other points, but it was not until after the Civil War that the regional rail network was developed; afterward, railroad construction proceeded at a feverish pace and transformed Stillwater from a port town to a rail terminal. The first was the Stillwater & St. Paul Railroad, organized by a group of local businessmen led by John McKusick, which completed construction of a 13-mile road between Stillwater and White Bear Lake in 1870. When the line opened on 1 January 1871 the line ended in the Schulenburg Addition, but by mid -summer the track was extended to the foot of Myrtle Street, to which site the depot was relocated and where a large warehouse and elevator were constructed. The S. & St. P, operated as a branch line of the Lake Superior & Mississippi Railroad, which operated a main line between St. Paul and Duluth. In 1872, the L.S. & M. was leased by the Northern Pacific Railroad, but the N.P. pulled out after the Panic of 1873. The L.S. & M. was reorganized as the St. Paul & Duluth in 1877 and bought out the old S. & St. P. in 1899. Subsequently, the reorganized Northern Pacific reacquired the line, known historically as the "upper road" -and now operated as an excursion railway. Not long after their entrance into Stillwater, the N.P. purchased the Union Depot & Transfer Company, a small switching railroad which also operated the Union Depot. The Northern Pacific was the largest and most important railroad presence in Stillwater. In 1901 the railroad, in cooperation with the city, built an iron bridge over Brown's Creek, which provided it with access to the waterfront. A year later, the N.P. bought the Union Depot & Transfer Company, a small switching railroad which also operated Stillwater's primary downtown passenger and freight terminal, originally built in 1887 by the Stillwater Street Railway &Transfer Company. In 1908, as part of the Lowell Park project, the railroad leased much of its waterfront real estate to the city, and much of the N.P. trackage and buildings were dismantled. The St. Paul Stillwater & Taylors Falls Railroad was incorporated in 1869 to build a line from St. Paul to Taylors Falls via Stillwater, with a branch line to Hudson. The 17.5 mile branch line reached Stillwater in 1872; the link with the West Wisconsin was made a mile and a half south of town at Stillwater Junction (later renamed Siegel). The "lower road" came into Stillwater from the south, along Lake St. Croix, and ended at South Main Street, where the old Butler warehouse was used as a depot. Significantly, the rail- road also operated a steamboat line and maintained a transfer point at Stillwater. The railroad became part of the St. Paul & Sioux City line in 1880 and in 1881 it was merged into the Chicago, St. Pau] & Minneapolis, as the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha (the "Omaha Line"). The Omaha Line rebuilt the track and raised a new brick depot in Stillwater in the 1890s; the Stillwater depot was closed in 1930 (and demolished in the early 1970s) and the track was dismantled in 1935. Soon afterwards, the Chicago 39 & Northwestern moved into a controlling position of the line. The original line between Hudson and Stillwater was abandoned many years ago, but the West Wisconsin branch is still operated by the Chicago & Northwestern. The directors of the St. Paul, Stillwater & Taylors Falls also started two other railroads in the area, one to River Falls, Wisconsin, and another to South Stillwater (present-day Bayport). The 2.16 mile link was completed in 1873 by the St. Croix Railway & Improvement Company and was absorbed into the St.P. S. & T.F. At a later date, the route through Stillwater Junction was replaced with an extension from South Stillwater to the West Wisconsin main line near the Hudson bridge created a more direct route between Stillwater and Hudson. The branch is still in use between Hudson and Bayport. Construction of the Stillwater & Hastings line was undertaken by the Stillwater & Hastings Railway Company, which was formed in 1880. Track was laid from the St. Paul, Stillwater & Taylors Falls to the sawmill complex at Lakeland. The Stillwater & Hastings was bought up by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad in 1882 and a large depot, now known as the Freight House, was opened in Stillwater in 1883. The Milwaukee Road "Peanut" line was used for freight and passenger service until 1957 and the branch was abandoned in 1979. The first electrified interurban rail line was built in Kansas City in 1884 and by 1890 electric street railways were the rage in urban areas across the country. An electric street railway was constructed in Stillwater 1889 and operated until 1897, with five lines link- ing the downtown with the residential districts. in 1892 the St. Paul & White Bear Railroad electric car line was built to serve communities along the Stillwater -St. Paul axis. Freight was always more important than passengers with the regular railroads, and the St. Paul & White Bear filled an important economic need by transporting workers, tourists. and shoppers between urban centers. The trolley line used electric power for its passenger trains and was able to compete quite successfully with the steam railroads until the 1920s; service was discontinued in 1932. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the railroads were faced with competition from automobiles, trucks, buses, and modern river towboats and barges. By the 1920s the railroads serving Stillwater had lost most of the passenger traffic between the St. Croix and the Twin Cities. The Northern Pacific ended passenger service to Stillwater in the fall of 1927, although the Union Depot ticket office was kept open for some years afterward. The Milwaukee Road pulled out in 1950 and ten years later the Union Depot was demol- ished. The railroads held their own in freight traffic until after World War II. A majority of the freight moved in and out of Stillwater consisted of heavy, bulky products, such as lumber, grain, and coal. but the significance of railroads in Stillwater history goes far beyond transportation. Besides the depots and freight houses, a substantial number of downtown buildings were built by or used for various railroads and related businesses. The social impacts of railway travel tended to break down rural isolation and made Stillwater an integral part of Minnesota. The trolleys of Thomas Lowry's interurban rail- way gave Stillwater residents access to the Wildwood amusement park, spurred develop- ment of summer cottages along Lake St. Croix and enhanced Stillwater's reputation as a tourist destination. The railroads were also labor-intensive (4.4% of the national labor force in 1910, according to the census), and it can be reasonably deduced from the sec- 40 ondary literature that railroads were an important local employer between 1880 and 1940. Figures are not available, but it would seem likely that Stillwater's lumber barons also had a large stake in financing railroads -- it has been estimated that ten per cent of the total wealth of the United States was invested in railroads in 1912. According to local tradition, a number of trails used by Native Americans crossed the Lower St. Croix Valley. It seems likely that the most important native route was probably along the shore of Lake St. Croix itself; there also might have been some kind of trailway striking out cross-country to the west. After the St. Croix Triangle was opened to settle- ment, road communication was slowly established between Prairie du Chien and St. Paul and there are early references to roads laid out during the 1850s, linking Stillwater with the territorial capitol, the river towns of Marine and Pt. Douglas, the inland town of Cottage Grove, the Snake River, and the mouth of the Rum River. In 1851 Congress authorized construction of a military road between Prescott, at the mouth of the St. Croix, and the village of Superior on Lake Superior, as part of a national system of fron- tier defense. According to transportation historians, the route of the Military Road fol- lowed the west side of Lake St. Croix from Pt. Douglas through Stillwater, along the high terrace next to the cemetery (located on Laurel between Second and Fourth). Although several local roads converged upon Stillwater from both sides of the St. Croix, as late as the 1870s the regional network of overland routes was not well developed; indeed, most county and township roads were little more than rude trails until the "Good Roads Movement" of the 1890s-1910s. Experiments with gasoline -powered "horseless carriages" in the 1890s led to the mass production of automobiles in the 1900s and by 1914 the motor car was fast becoming an integral part of American life; in the Middle West, the great period of automobile expan- sion was the 1930s-1940s. One of the most important effects of the automobile revolu- tion was the renaissance of road building. The "Good Roads Movement" actually origi- nated during the bicycle craze of the 1890s. Automobiles first appeared in Stillwater in the 1900s and their impact was quickly felt. City streets were gradually paved with brick or bituminous macadam. Highways, whose economic significance had declined during the railroad era, were rapidly improved and by the 1920s stretches of concrete trunk highway entered Stillwater from north and south. One of the most important functions of municipal government after the 1920s was the construction and maintenance of streets and roadways. Modem highways are part of the automobile era and came of age after World War 1. All-weather paved trunk highways linked Stillwater to the Twin Cities and other regional centers by the 1920s. Bridges spanned the St. Croix and ferries became things of the past: as early as 1875, the Minnesota legislature authorized construction of a bridge across the St. Croix at Stillwater and after 1876 a 300-foot long pontoon bridge with a center draw was operated as a toll bridge. It was replaced by the Stillwater-Houlton Interstate Bridge, a steel lift drawbridge built in 1931 by the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Within Stillwater, patterns of development were altered by changed values and the perfection of the automobile. Shopping patterns changed as cars and buses made it pos- sible for individual business to expand their trade areas over ever larger regions. As a consequence, many once -thriving businesses eventually closed and Stillwater's downtown 41 commercial district declined in importance, and as early as the 1940s many of the com- mercial buildings along the levee were abandoned. Beginning in the 1950s, a new, thriv- ing commercial district started to develop along U.S. 36. Demolition of historic buildings and old transportation structures accompanied the construction of improved thorough- fares. Major Bibliographic References Buck, Anita Albrecht. Steamboats on the St. Croix. St. Cloud, 1990. Durant, Edward W. Lumbering and Steamboating on the St. Croix River. St. Paul, 1979 (reprint). Merritt, Ray H. A History of the St. Paul District Corps of Engineers. Washington, 1979. Prosser, R. S. Rails to the North Star. Minneapolis, 1966. Roberts, Norene A., and John A. Fried. Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront: Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota. Unpublished report, 1985. Thilgen, Dean R. Valley Rails: A History of Railroads in the St. Croix Valley. N.p., 1990. Stillwater-Houlton Interstate Bridge National Register of Historic Places Inventory -Nomination Form. Chronological limits The chronological boundaries of this historic context are the arrival of the steamboat Otter in 1843 and the completion of the Stillwater-Houlton Interstate Bridge in 1931. Geographical Boundaries Properties associated with this historic context occur primarily within the boundaries of the Stillwater Commercial Historic District. Some transportation -related properties may also exist in the Dutchtown and Schulenburg HPPAs. Property Types Recorded and potential historic properties associated with transportation in Stillwater include above -ground buildings and structures and archeological sites associated with non -extant buildings and structures. Historic properties with well documented physical and historical associations with river transportation are not very numerous. Stillwater was not an excellent natural port — its most important aspect was its relationship to the lumber mills and boom — so it is not surprising that so little has survived from the pre-1914 period. Nevertheless, the levee was an important transportation terminal from the 1840s to the 1910s, when the lumber industry generated the largest proportion of the river traffic. Unfortunately, cultural resources associated with steamboating are among the scarcest and most threatened in Stillwater due in large part to the extensive post-1900 alteration of the waterfront envi- ronment; moreover, the significance of the levee has been underappreciated and the need to identify, evaluate, and protect buried cultural deposits has been nonexistent. Archeological deposits associated with the steamboat levee (including vessels and parts of vessels) may be buried beneath the modern waterfront or on the lake bed underwater. 42 Hardly a trace exists of the shore facilities required for transshipment of freight and pas- sengers. From old photographs and lithographs, it appears that the levee was paved in places and included a large apron or working space where cargoes were transferred from shore to vessel. Around the apron were sheds and warehouses used as temporary storage, and railroad spurs ran. The old port also included facilities for refueling (wood, coal after ca. 1880), boat repair, and storage of cargoes in transit. Buildings constructed for and used by railroads included freight and passenger depots, railroad shops, and accessory buildings; railway structures include grades and bridges. Railroads used a considerable amount of the developable land in Stillwater between the 1870s and the 1930s, much of it taken up by rail yards, rights -of -way, depots, and related service buildings, but they generated relatively little building activity, beyond construc- tion of passenger and freight depots, most of which have been torn down. A few build- ings associated with railroads are known to exist and have been evaluated as significant within the downtown historic district. An interesting feature of the freight houses, passen- ger depots, and other railway structures built in Stillwater is that several were constructed on wooden pilings on "made land" along Lake St. Croix. In some cases, sections of rail- way track were also elevated on pilings over floodplains. No archeological data have been sought or obtained from the sites of former railroad buildings. The road and highway transportation structure is superimposed over the basic plan of the town. All of the historic routes are now used by automobile thoroughfares and if pre- 1900 road surfaces exist they are probably buried under several feet of modern pavement or fill. The Stillwater-Houlton Lift Bridge is the only significant, intact transportation structure. No traces of its forerunner, the pontoon bridge, are known to exist. Representative Properties Stillwater-Houlton Interstate Bridge. Muller Boat Works, foot of Chestnut St. Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Depot and Freight House, 233-335 Water St. Minneapolis & St. Paul Suburban Railway Company Office and Power House, 518 N. Owens St. Austin Jenks House, 504 S. Fifth St. Stillwater Levee, Lowell Park. Preservation Planning Goals The historic Stillwater levee contains a complex layering of cultural resources whose composition may make it significant. First and foremost, the levee may have archeologi- cal research value and an assessment of the waterfront area's archeological potential, building on Roberts and Fried's 1985 Corps of Engineers study, will be carried out as part of the intensive survey and evaluation of the Lowell Park site. Secondly, the levee's signif- icance as the site of an important series'of historical events relating to steamboating on the St. Croix will need to be reevaluated on the basis of archival data and the results of archeological survey. A set of specific archeological research questions wi]I be developed prior to intensive survey or site excavation. Finally, survey and evaluation will need to 43 distill the dense physical overburden of levee history in order to gain a clear understand- ing of the site as a complex cultural landscape rather than as a collection of isolated buildings, archeological features, and park improvements. No historically important shipwreck sites are known to exist within the city limits, but the potential exists for recovering data from the remains of smaller craft which may be buried under the existing levee or lie below the waters of Lake St. Croix. Stillwater's historic function cis a transportation nexus resulted in a considerable amount of railroad and railroad -related construction; however, relatively little evidence of this architectural and engineering development activity has survived. Nevertheless, the sites of demolished depots and related railroad structures are well documented and have potential value as archeological sites. These potential historic properties will be surveyed and their research value evaluated. Transportation structures associated with railroads and highways will be included in future reconnaissance surveys of the HPPAs outside of downtown. The historic preservation value of railroad bed, sections of track, trestles, and other railway structures will need to be reevaluated as survey data accumulate. 44 HISTORIC CONTEXT VI: STILLWATER LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT (1860s-1910s) Overview Although lumbering was a significant cause for Stillwater's rapid growth between 1844 and 1890, in terms of historic sites and structures a greater influence may have been the rapid expansion of commercial agriculture after the Civil War. It is no coincidence that the "golden age" of agriculture (1890s-1910s) coincided with the boom periods in lumbering and railway development. Historical Theme Between the 1840s and the 1940s, agriculture and the activities related to it constitut- ed Minnesota's basic industry. Historically, Stillwater has functioned as a farm trade cen- ter for an agricultural hinterland that included much of Washington County and St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Early writers noted that Stillwater's rise as a lumbering center created a ready market for agricultural produce. "The country around Stillwater is a good agricultural country," wrote Bond in his 1857 guidebook. "At the present time the home demand far exceeds the supply. Choice farms can be obtained in the immediate neighborhood ..."32 Enterprising locals established farms within the present city limits, some of which remained in operation into the next century, such as the forty -acre spread known as Marsh's Field, which extended from Hancock south to Fairview Cemetery, and from Fourth Street to Holcombe. Pioneer subsistence agriculture in the Lower St. Croix Valley was diversified and focused on small grains and herding. Wheat, oats, rye, and sorghum were introduced generally and did well; local farmers also raised potatoes and garden vegetables. Cattle, hogs, and poultry were imported and formed the basis of numerous large stock farms. In good years, a part of this produce found its way into the shops in Stillwater, where the grocers normally relied upon shipments from St. Louis, Prairie du Chien, St. Paul, Hastings, and Chicago to keep their shelves stocked. By the 1860s, spring wheat was the dominant cash crop: indeed, its production was so attractive that many farmers neglect- ed other phases of farming altogether. As wheat production increased, Stillwater entrepre- neurs built mills and warehouses to process and store grain, most of which was trans- shipped to Hastings or Minneapolis. Most notable among these "King Wheat" mills were the Union Elevator Company (1870), Townshend Roller Mill (1872), Stillwater Flour Mills (1877), and Staples' St. Croix Flouring Mill (1877). The collapse of "King Wheat" in the' 1880s led to the diversification of farming throughout the region and the natural advantages of the Lower St. Croix Valley for live- stock raising were quickly realized. The development of the modern farming system was the result of improved railroad networks and the growth of large urban markets, which 32Minnesota and Its Resources, p. 159. 45 reduced shipping costs and created demand for beef, pork, and dairy products. The two decades between the panic of 1893 and the beginning of World War I are generally rec- ognized as the "golden age" of agriculture in the Middle West, and Stillwater shared in the region's agricultural boom. After 1880-1890, dairying was the main farm enterprise in much of Washington and St. Croix counties. (For many years, the Twin City Milk Producers Association was head- quartered in Stillwater.) In the late -nineteenth century, dairymen shipped farm -separated cream to Stillwater, where it was converted to butter and cheese. After 1905, most dairy farm operators sold whole milk rather than separated cream and most of this product was consumed as fluid milk or cream, with only a very small portion turned into butter and cheese. To increase their incomes, farmers also looked to Stillwater as a market for poultry, eggs, meat animals, fruits, and vegetables. Although the domestic market for dairy products expanded after 1890, advancements in farm mechanization, new health and sanitation regulations, development of motor transportation, the farm -to -market road system, and rural electrification led to a steady decrease in the number of dairy farms (and farmers). As a result, Stillwater declined as a service center for farm families but retained its farm trade center functions. Since the turn of the century, Washington County has also been a functional part of the Corn Belt, a region characterized by the cultivation of small grains, livestock raising, and cattle and hog fattening. Corn, soybeans, oats, wheat, and forage crops form the basis of this farming system. Corn, the dominant crop, is grown primarily as feed for live- stock fattened on the farm, but is also sold off -farm for cash. Since the 1950s, soybeans have replaced wheat as the region's principal cash crop. Historically, Stillwater has func-. tioned as a local market for corn, soybeans, wheat, and oats; it has never been an impor- tant livestock market or shipping point. In the twentieth century, Stillwater's mills have focused on the production of concentrated feeds, rather than flour for human consump- tion. Stillwater also served its agrarian neighbors in other ways. City directories list farm implement manufacturers and dealers, feed mills, veterinarians, and land agents special- izing in farmlands; undoubtedly, a share of the business done by the town's banks, insur- ance offices, shipping agents, blacksmiths, and lumberyards was also devoted to agricul- ture. Stillwater met rural people's civic and social needs with the courthouse, law offices, schools, churches, and clubs. The Washington County Agricultural Society, organized in 1870 at Cottage Grove (where the county fair was held annually until 1873), was moved to Stillwater in 1874 when Isaac Staples succeeded in moving the event to a site near the Webster field racetrack in Stillwater, where a fairgrounds and buildings were erected. The fair moved to Lake Elmo in 1875, but returned to the Stillwater area in the early twenti- eth century. Major Bibliographic References Andreas, Alfred Theodore. Illustrated Historical Atlas of Minnesota. Chicago, 1874. Jarchow, Merrill E. The Earth Brought Forth: A History of Minnesota Agriculture to 1885. St. Paul, 1949. Stillwater City Directories. Titles and publishers vary. 1876-1990. U. S. Bureau of the Census. United States Census of Agriculture: Minnesota. 1925, 1930, 1935, 1940. 46 Chronological Limits This context begins with rise of commercial agriculture in the Stillwater hinterland after the Civil War (1861-1865) and terminates with the end of the "golden age" of agri- culture on the eve of World War One (1914-1918). Geographical Boundaries Because much of the land outside of the original platted area was farmland at one time or another, the city limits encompass the boundaries of this study unit. However, historic properties associated with commercial agriculture are probably concentrated in the downtown commercial district. Property Types Scattered through the downtown commercial district and the waterfront area are an unknown number of historic properties that illustrate the agricultural history of Stillwater, Washington County, and the surrounding region. Many of these properties are ulieady included in the National Register, but others have not been identified, or have not been evaluated with respect to their agricultural history values. Some farmstead buildings are probably preserved as urban residences. Because so many nineteenth and early twentieth century townspeople kept animals for food or draft purposes, an unknown number of former stables, barns, and related types of accessory buildings are also extant. Commercial building types significant as agricultural product processing and storage facilities include flour mills, elevators, breweries, warehouses, and dairies. Representative Properties Commander Elevator/Woodward Elevator, 403-407 S. Main St. Harvest States Co -Op, 401 S. Main St. Wolf Brewery and Caves, 335 S. Main St. Preservation Planning Goals Preservation surveys in all HPPAs should be alert to the presence of former agricultur- al buildings and structures. Background research will address the land use histories of individual tracts before they were urbanized. With regard to the conceptual limits of this historic context, archival research should define Stillwater's central -place role as a farrn trade center, delineate changes to its agri- cultural hinterland over time, and identify specific properties which may represent land- marks in regional agricultural history. The historic context of agricultural support busi- nesses (e.g., banks, farm implement dealers, blacksmiths) should also be explored as additional historical data accumulate as part of the comprehensive survey program. 47 HISTORIC CONTEXT VII: LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN STILLWATER (1860s-1930s) Overview Light manufacturing is by far the oldest and most important industrial activity in Stillwater. Most of the early industrial development was based on exploitation of the region's natural resources (lumber mills, flour mills, brickyards, etc.). Later industrial activ- ity was more diversified (machine shops, foundries, etc.) but gradually declined after World War I. Historical Theme Stillwater is in many ways a product of the Industrial Revolution in the United States, a period (cu. 1790-1870) characterized by a shift away from household industries toward the factory system. This revolution was made possible by the development of the national railroad transportation system and the introduction of new technologies which made large-scale manufacturing enterprises profitable. Taking the whole period of Stillwater's historic development, lumbering and the industries dependent upon forest products loom largest in the city's industrial profile and absorbed a disproportionately large share of its labor and capital resources from the 1840s to the 1880s. Flour milling and other indus- tries linked to late nineteenth century agricultural expansion followed: in fact, the decline of the lumber industry seems to have been a determining factor in the diversifica- tion of Stillwater's industrial base between 1880 and 1920. Setting aside the industries linked to lumbering and agriculture (discussed above), manufacturing in Stillwater prior to 1890 was dominated by a small but diverse group of small-scale merchant capitalists. Household manufacture of durable goods for family needs had largely disappeared by 1860 and was never important in Stillwater, where small factories or shops producing light consumer goods such as clothing, bricks, shoes, tools, cigars, and furniture were the norm. Small shop industries also included black- smiths, job printers, and boat builders. These small industries catered largely to the local market in what was essentially an economy of farmers, merchants, and lumber mill workers. Chiefly a sawmill town and trade center, by the end of the nineteenth century Stillwater had developed a small but important industrial base. "The lumber industry in Stillwater has received the lion's share of attention from historians," writes Roberts in her study of the riverfront: but from the 1850s to the 1930s Stillwater was also a renowned manufacturing town. Local capitalists ... many of whom made initial fortunes in lumbering, diver- sified into manufacturing, wholesaling, and flour milling. These non -lumbering activities not only gave some spice to the makeup of Stillwater, but kept it from becoming little more than a small village when lumbering declined.33 33Roberts and Fried, Historical Reconstruction, p. 39. 48 Some idea of the scale of Stillwater's industrial activity can be gleaned from the city directories published between 1876 and 1914, which show Stillwater industries producing books, boots and shoes, bricks, buttons, carriages, cigars, clothing, marine motors, paper boxes, pianos and oruans, pottery, railway freight and passenger cars, rock crushing machinery, rugs, sewing machines, stoves, tractors, and wagons. There were several blacksmiths, printers, foundries, machine shops, and boatworks, a munitions factory, and several farm machinery factories. Among the largest "smokestack" industries were — The Frederick Steinacker brickyard, established in 1859 in Ramsey and Carter's Addition. Steinacker employed between 300 and 400 men and manufactured around 200,000 brick annually until 1875, when the company moved to the lower end of Sunfish (Lily) Lake and expanded production to 500,000 brick annually; by 1880 the firm was firing 900,000 bricks each year. Seymour, Sabin & Co. was founded in 1868 as a general contractor using state prison inmate labor in the muuiufactuie of doors, sash, millwork, moldings, office furnishings, blinds, tubs, buckets, and cooperage, employing about forty convicts and equal number of civilians. In 1874 the company shifted to agricultural imple- ment manufacturing and marketed the popular "Minnesota Chief" thresher. In addition to its production facilities, Seymour, Sabin & Co. also owned its own sawmill (later sold to C. N. Nelson Lumber Company), foundry, machine shops, blacksmith shop, wagon shop, and cooper shop. Although it had as many as 600 men on the payroll, the company went bankrupt shortly after founder Dwight M. Sabin's death in 1876 and was succeeded by Northwest Manufacturing & Car Co. The Northwestern Manufacturing & Car Co, founded in 1882, manufactured rail- road rolling stock and agricultural machinery (threshers, separators, binders). Located across from the prison on North Main, the factory employed 600-700 men during its heyday in the 1880s but failed after the panic of 1893. Minnesota Thresher, a spin-off of the old Northwestern, used Northwestem facilities from 1887 until 1902, when it, too, failed. George Atwood's Twin City Forge & Foundry manufactured iron casings and barges in peacetime, but was most profitable as a munitions maker during World War One, when it employed 2500 workers. The ironworks went out of business in 1930, a casualty of the Great Depression. As Stillwater industries grew, so did the demand for investment capital for land, build- ings, and machinery. Between the 1850s and the 1900s, Stillwater's lumbering interests reaped great profits, some of which were saved or invested in other enterprises. This process of "capital deepening" resulted in the development of financial institutions and was essential for later industrial growth because it made start-up capital readily avail- able. The telegraph, telephone, and other late nineteenth century advances in communica- tions technology formed the basis of the information system that was essential to indus- trial development. First put into service in 1844, the telegraph developed side by side with railroads and reached Stillwater in 1863. The telephone, patented in 1876, transformed communications and eventually superseded the telegraph — Stillwater was connected to the Bell Telephone Exchange in 1880 and by 1908 there were about twelve hundred local subscribers. The need for speed and efficiency in the office and factory led to other inno- vations, such as the ticker tape machine, perfected in 1867; the typewriter, invented in 49 1867 and in mass -production by the 1870s; carbon paper, patented in 1872; and the mimeograph, invented in 1890. Vocational schools came into being to teach typing, shorthand, and other office worker skills as well as the traditional industrial arts. Stillwater's industrial expansion brought not only progress but pain as well. The envi- ronmental cost of industrialization is all too evident in the contemporary photographic record, which depicts belching smokestacks and a St. Croix befouled by industrial wastes. Industrial development shaped the lives of ordinary working people, who customarily labored 12-hour shifts six days a week performing what were often monotonous, alienat- ing, and physically demanding tasks for low wages. In many cases, factory work was as dangerous as it was dehumanizing: boredom, fatigue, or simple carelessness extracted a high human cost and until the middle decades of the twentieth century worker's compen- sation was unknown. Both skilled and unskilled workers faced periodic unemployment and tended to bear the brunt of the periodic economic panics (i.e., depressions). Relativ,ly few factory workers were women, except during the two world wars, although by the 1890s many jobs traditionally held by men, such as food processing, cigar mak- ing, and clerical work, were increasingly filled by women. Children were commonly employed at factory work and this unconscionable exploitation did not end until well into the 1900s. Most unskilled workers lived in substandard housing, which in some cases was provided by their employers, as in the case of part of the Northwestern Manufacturing and Car Co. work force, who lived in company houses on Maple Street. The hi,tory of organized labor in Stillwater before the 1940s is obscure, but it is apparent that Stillwater's working class population did not organize themselves with any- thing like the systematic effectiveness of the factory owners. Surveying the local histories and city directories, it appears that there were several small craft organizations but no large labor unions. It would seem fair to characterize them as local, exclusively male, and weakened by small membership and divided power. Workers' strikes were informal and spontaneous, occurred intermittently in good economic times as well as during depressions, and were joined by union and nonunion workers alike. Throughout the his- toric period, local government and civic leaders firmly sided with the business communi- ty against workers. By the time the "new industrial order" arrived in the 1920s, much of Stillwater's industry was already extinct. The increasing importance of general manufacturing over lumber milling after 1880, and the decline of Stillwater industrial output generally after 1920, is reflected in the U. S. census of manufactures. Manufacturing from agricultural raw materials (including forest products) predominated during the early decades of the town's growth; only in the 1880s and 1890s did machine shop products become important. Construction and repair of transportation -related products was also important. From cursory analysis of census data and background historical information it seems that local manufacturing was expanding during the 1850s, until the Panic of 1857 brought development to a screeching halt. The post -Civil War boom led to the establishment of a number of small factories and shops, but the Panic of 1873 again retarded industrial development. Industrial development was particularly healthy during the 1880s and despite the depression caused by the Panic of 1893 Stillwater manufactures continued to increase in number, if not in size. Undoubtedly, much of the stimulus for this manufacturing boom came from the rapidly expanding domestic market and improved railroad connections with markets and 50 sources of raw materials. Manufacturing declined rapidly after World War One and the Great Depression of 1929-1935 sealed the fate of the remaining factories, so that a review of the Polk city directories published between 1937 and 1970 indicates an essen- tially static industrial climate. Major Bibliographic References Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary. Stillwater Business Ventures, 1860-1937. Stillwater, 1978. Easton, Augustus B. (ed.). History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago, 1909. Stow, Susan G. Chamber Chronicles: A Compiled History of the Stillwater Area Chamber of Commerce. Stillwater, 1991. Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote (comps.). History of Washington County and the St. Croix Valley. Minneapolis, 1881. Chronological Limits This historic context focuses on the period from the end of the Civil War (1865) to the beginning of the Great Depression (1929). An important factor in the chronology of Stiliwater's industrial history is the recurrence of irregularly spaced economic booms and slumps. 1847, 1857, 1873, 1893, 1903, 1907, 1920, and 1929 were "crisis" years in American economic history and also form convenient subdivisions for local industrial history as well. Geographical Boundaries The distribution of industrial and manufacturing sites in Stillwater was influenced by the location of transportation facilities and this contributed to the clustering of industrial sites along the river. Besides those industrial sites located within the boundaries of the Stillwater Commercial Historic District, non -lumbering and non-agricultural manufactur- ing businesses were located historically in the Schulenburg and Dutchtown HPPAs. Property Types Property types associated with this historic context do not include sites, buildings, or structures historically used by lumbering or agricultural operations. Contextual industrial property types include factory buildings, accessory buildings and sheds, office buildings, and storage structures for raw materials and finished products. The factory is the focus of manufacturing culture and most other kinds of industrial buildings or structures were originally constructed to serve or assist factories. Most factory buildings appear to have been constructed of brick or stone, often accompanied by wood frame accessory struc- tures, following utilitarian vernacular architecture forms. Historic reuse of factories, including partial demolition and reconstruction, for nonindustrial purposes appears to have been commonplace, making evaluation problematic. Archeological deposits associated with industrial sites contain information which can contribute significantly to an understanding of StiIlwater's manufacturing and labor her- itage. Factory sites can be rich sources of data for industrial archeologists, historians, architectural historians, and interpreters. 51 Industrial workers' housing should be evaluated primarily within the context of Stillwater's residential neighborhoods. Company houses' associative values with industri- al enterprises is of secondary importance to their historical and/or architectural signifi- cance as parts of Stillwater's housing stock. Representative Properties Simonet Furniture & Carpet Co., 305 S. Main St. Territorial/State Prison, N. }lain St. Preservation Planning Goals Preserving the remnants of Stillwater's industrial past poses special challenges and problems. Most factories were occupied and used for industrial purposes for a relatively short period, and then, if they were not torn down, the buildings were converted to other uses. Factory workers lived generally quiet, simple lives and they left little written record of their.experiences. Many of those industrial sites which survived the decline of Stillwater as a manufacturing center did not survive waterfront redevelopment and urban renewal. The archeological potential of the riverfront sites documented by Roberts and Fried should be evaluated on the basis of intensive archival research and archeological survey. Continuing preservation surveys in the Schulenburg and Dutchtown HPPAs will docu- ment industrial sites, buildings, and structures for evaluation within this historic con- text. 52 Stillwater Downtown Commercial District boundaries. From Norene Roberts' Intensive National Register Survey of Downtown Stillwater, Minnesota (1989). (City of Stillwater) 54 HISTORIC CONTEXT VIII: DEVELOPMENT OF DOWNTOWN STILLWATER (1850s-1940s) Overview Stillwater was founded as a frontier entrepot and developed rapidly as a central place serving the needs of a large and diversified hinterland. The architecture of the central business district reflects changes in Stillwater's economic development and individual buildings document the histories of locally significant business entities. Historical Theme The historic context of Stillwater's downtown business district, including the riverfront and adjacent neighborhoods, has been detailed by Roberts in her Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront, Intensive National Register Survey of Downtown Stillwater, and the National Register inventory -nomination documentation for the Stillwater Commercial Historic District. The following paragraphs are largely a distillation of the information contained in these reports. In 1843-1844, when McKusick, et al., determined to found the town of Stillwater, they recognized that the location commanded the trade of the entire St. Croix Valley. Less than a decade later, the first governor of the new territory of Minnesota predicted that Stillwater would become "the central mart of the opulent valley of the St. Croix." The proprietors laid out the town on the narrow terrace and natural levee between Lake St. Croix and the bluffs: the resulting settlement was elongated parallel to the St. Croix and was only a street or two wide. The pioneer lumbermen selected the choicest lots for their offices and residences; other entrepreneurs acquired building lots nearby for stores, hotels, and other businesses, which soon crowded the waterfront. The initial development boom was described by Warner and Foote: In 1844, Stillwater consisted of a few cabins and shanties rudely constructed. For many years the business of the town exceeded the buildings to do it in. Everything indicated a temporary camp for lumber business. Before many years it became evi- dent that an active town was to spring up there. In 1853, a demand for building lots arose, which developed in 1855 into a regular boom, lasting two years, and quite a village was the result. In 1855, the population did not exceed one thou- sand, accommodated, it is said, by about ninety houses. In 1857, the dwellings numbered three hundred and forty eight, and forty five buildings were occupied by stores, hotels, etc. The population was estimated at about 2,500.34 Stillwater may have been first and foremost a lumber town, but its central -place func- tions were well developed in other areas as well. In her intensive National Register survey of the downtown commercial district, Roberts states: The economy of Stillwater [post 1870] was a picture of health. Never solely a retail and distribution node for the surrounding agricultural area, Stillwater had boiler makers, carriage manufacturers, dye works, cooperages, boat builders, agricultural implement manufacturers, foundries, flour mills, and lumber mills. These concerns were located both north and south of the central business district and along the Washington County, p. 547. 53 I I S I I I I1 1 1 1 waterfront east of Water Street ... The current core of the business area today south of Commercial Street was the scene of a variety of retails concerns: dry goods stores, clothiers, hardware con- cerns, drug and jewelry' stores, grocers, book sellers, confectioneries, cigar stores, meat markets, and shoe stores.35 Population growth and decline closely parallel the patterns of activity in Stillwater's downtown business district. A cursory study of census statistics for Stillwater between 1850 and 1960 reveals three tendencies. First, a rapid increase in population between the 1850s and the 1880s, In 1880, Stillwater's population peaked at something close to 16,000 and the town was a thriving center of industry and commerce. This was followed by a period of out -migration attributable to the decline of the lumber industry; by the time of the 1920 census, the 1880 high-water population mark had been halved and by the 1940s there were only about 7,000 inhabitants within the city limits. Finally, there has been a post=World War II population boom, triggered by the expansion of the Twin Lities metropolitan area into the western St. Croix Valley. Downtown Stillwater, the normal center for the commerce of the St. Croix Valley, was somewhat handicapped by its geography. Forced to meet the competition of other St. Croix Valley towns (e.g., Hudson, Bayport) for trade, Stillwater's regional importance was overshadowed by St. Paul and Minneapolis. The shift of the lumber industry westward, the drain of population, and the lack of developable land downtown all contributed to the river town's stagnant economic growth between the world wars. Malin Bibliographic References Roberts, Norene A. Intensive National Register Survey of Downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. Unpublished report, 1989. and John A. Fried. Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront: Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota. Unpublished report, 1985. Stillwater Commercial Historic District National Register of Historic Places Form. Chronological Limits The National Register of Historic Places inventory -nomination form sets the dates circa 1860s to 1940s for the Downtown Commercial District. Geographical Boundaries The physical limits of this context are coextensive with those of the Stillwater Commercial Historic District (see Map 4). Property Types The dominant historic property type is the commercial building. Most of the extant commercial buildings were constructed during the 1890-1915 period. For buildings con- structed after circa 1870, brick was increasingly common as the building material of choice. However, wood frame commercial buildings were probably the most numerous, especially for smaller utilitarian stores, shops, warehouses, and outbuildings. For large 351ntensive National Register Survey of Do•A-town Stillwater, Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1989), p. 26. 55 brick buildings, flat or low-pitched gable roofs with false -fronts were the norm; frame buildings nearly always had gable roofs. Plans tended to be functional with relatively lit- tle specialization of building types; stores, factories, offices, and warehouses alike tended to be generally rectangular, one to three stories in height, with symmetrirnl fenestration. Although freestanding buildings were the norm, commercial blocks and rows of uniform buildings with shop entries at street level and one or two stories above devoted to office or residential space were common after circa 1880. 1 he most ambitious commercial buildings had impressive facades embellished with details in the Renaissance and Romanesque revival styles, particularly Greek Revival and ltalianate forms. The archeological potential of downtown Stillwater has not been assessed, but it seems likely that some nineteenth century properties exist as partially disturbed cultural deposits or ruins. Representative Properties The following properties are included in the Stillwater Commercial Historic District which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places: Joseph Wolf Brewery, 335 S. Main St. McKusick Block, 282 S. Main St. Simonet's Furniture Sr Carpet Co., 305 S. Main St. Mosier's Block, 317 S. Main St. Staples Block, 320 S. Main St_ Lumbermen's Exchange Building, 328 S. Water St. Lowell Inn, 221 S. Second St. Jassoy Block, 212 S. Third St. Preservation Planning Goals The entire National Register district has been subjected to intensive survey for architec- tural resources, but no archeological work has been done beyond Roberts and Fried's pre- liminary assessment of the waterfront for the Corps of Engineers. Wherever archival research indicates the likely presence of historic archeological remains dating from the 1860s-1940s period, every reasonable effort should be made to assess their condition through archival research and on -site monitoring of construction in archeologically sensi- tive areas. The Stillwater Downtown Plan, adopted in 1988, had as its image goal the enhance- ment and retention of the downtown area's historic rivertown image. One of the objectives of that plan was to preserve buildings and structures that are listed in or eligible for nom- ination to the National Register. This goal was met in 1989 when sixty-three properties were locally designated within the Downtown Commercial Historic District. In 1991, the district was placed on the National Register. The Stillwater HPC will continue to manage the historic resources within this district under the regulations proscribed in Subdivision 22.10 of the City Code. 56 HISTORIC CONTEXT IX: DEVELOPMENT OF RESIDENTIAL NEIGHBORHOODS IN STILLVVATER (1850s-1940s) Overview Stillwater's historic residential neighborhoods developed between ca. 1850 and 1940. Individual houses, accessory buildings, churches, stores, shops, schools, streetscapes, and public open spaces document the histories of individuals, families, groups, and the com- munity as a whole; these properties also exhibit the characteristics of various national architectural styles and periods, as well as some regional/local vernacular forms. Most important in terms of historic preservation are the unique physical characteristics that give each part of town its own sense of time and place. Historical Theme The histories of Stillwater's residential neighborhoods have yet to be written. Given the time and funding limits of the historic context project, it was not possible to summa- rize the information contained in oral history and in scattered written works about every- day life in Stillwater's residential districts, nor is it possible to evaluate the cultural resource value of hundreds of residential and commercial buildings in neighborhoods which have not yet been subjected to systematic preservation surveys. The following paragraphs are offered as a general overview of the history of Stillwater's residential development and a framework for future historic context research at the neighborhood scale. Historically, Stillwater has always been a special place with a unique St. Croix Valley river town identity, its own established cultural forms and lifeways, social rules and con- ventions, neighborhood rivalries and group animosities. Its essential character is small- town and Middle Western. An important aspect of Stillwater's historic character are the residential neighborhoods which form the reservoir of human resources from which the city has derived its existence and function, and continues to draw much of its sense of place. Like the city itself, the neighborhoods have tended to be viewed by their occupants as "different" from each other, and these differences are seen to be rooted in their respec- tive histories. In the late twentieth century, this highly localized expression of urban her- itage still exists and is said to be responsible for much of Stillwater's "community spirit." Neighborhood identity was engendered partly by the cultures of different ethnic groups, but is perhaps most evident in the localized influences and adaptations seen in neighbor- hood architecture — for example, the concentration of large, well-built nineteenth centu- rYhouses of style on the North Hill's are an eloquent statement of that area's "aristocrat- ic" personality, In terms of historic preservation, the sense of neighborhood identity is preserved in the form of houses; churches, schools, fraternal organizations, shops, and Parks; it is also maintained through the lore of community history, myth, and legend. 57 1 1 • • cm. OF STILLWATER, NI INN ESOT.N Stillwater's major residential neighborhoods. 58 Areas along the bench -like glacial terraces overlooking Lake St. Croix were the first in Stillwater to receive intensive residential development because of their proximity to the waterfront. Lumbering, immigration, and the arrival of the railroads triggered the devel- opment of mixed residential and commercial areas along Lake St. Croix, particularly downtown, on North and South Hill, and to the north of the original platted area in what came to known as "Dutchtown" (see Map 5). Who were the occupants of Stillwater's historic neighborhoods? Census data show that Stillwater's population has always been a blending of many ethnic elements, principally Old Stock American and Western European, and the flow of immigrants through the St. Croix gateway provided cultural heterogeneity. The earliest townsfolk were transplanted Yankees from New England, followed by other native Americans and foreign emigrants. Beginning in the 1840s, many Europeans emigrated to the United States and were attracted by the undeveloped lands of Minnesota. Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians came to Washington County in great numbers: during the middle and late nineteenth century, hundreds per year walked over the Stillwater levee or disembarked at the Union Depot, usually en route to someplace else. A significant number did not move on but stayed in Stillwater, where the native American majority teamed to accommodate a diversity of people and lifeways (those associated with the Northwest European culture area, at any rate). One writer described the city's population mix in 1870 as "four -tenths American, two -tenths Irish, two -tenths German, one -tenth Scandinavian, one -tenth French, Scotch, &c."36 The peak of immigration was reached by the 1890s and the arrival of foreign -born newcomers to Stillwater declined steadily thereafter. After the Old Stock Americans and Anglo-Irish immigrants, the most important for- eign group were the Germans, who began their migration to Minnesota during territorial times and continued to come in significant numbers throughout much of the nineteenth century. They were mainly members of the urban proletariat or rural laborers, with a sig- nificant minority of tradespeople and mechanics, and they collectively (and individually) had a pronounced impact on the local cultural and business scenes. Once in Stillwater, they formed churches and fraternal organizations, sponsored celebrations of German cul- ture, and established outlets for ethnic food, drink, and entertainment. Whatever their ethnic makeup, Stillwater households were basically nuclear in struc- ture and census records suggest a rough average of six persons per household in the urban population during the late -nineteenth century, when` the single-family house seems to have been the norm. Household size declined steadily after 1910. Throughout the period under study, a married couple plus minor children formed the typical if not statistically average household unit. Among all social classes, old people were commonly cared for by the families of their grown children. The most important variants on this pattern of nuclear families occupying single-family dwellings were temporary boarders and individuals in service( i.e., male or female servants); transients dwelling in boarding houses or hotels; and the extended families of the underclass housed in tenements. Most upper class families and many middle class households maintained "servants' quarters" (carriage houses or attic rooms) and this practice did not die out until the early decades of the present century; and during the mid -nineteenth century, merchants often boarded their apprentices at home. 36W. McClung, Minnesota As 1t Is in 1879 (St. Paul, 1870), p. 269. 59 Stillwater, like most cities, has always had its hierarchy of places to live. North Hill acquired a reputation of somewhat disproportionate scale when Stillwater was young: it was stamped early with the brand of Victorian era capitalist optimism and as the city grew this became the image of the town. In his reminiscences, Paul Caplazi called the North Hill the "aristocratic part of Stillwater."37 Because of the steep slopes, development on North Hill required extensive grading and many home sites are terraced. "The effect of these attractive places, and the public buildings on the rising bluffs, when seen from the lake is very striking" noted Warner and Foote.38 By all accounts, life on North Hill during the two decades before and after the turn of the century was full, human, pleas- ant, and varied. Today the neighborhood, with its fine homes and churches perched like citadels along the edge of the bluffs overlooking the downtown, gives the impression of settled age and established tradition. North Hill's counterpart was the South Hill, the neighborhood between Willard and Hancock streets, -which emerged in the late -nineteenth century as a residential district occupied mostly by mill workers, mechanics, and tradespeople, but with a generous sprinkling of wealthy capitalists. During the boom years, land prices in Stillwater multi- plied with astonishing speed and farsighted individuals like Socrates Nelson bought farm- land and proceeded to subdivide their tracts into blocks and lots, which were offered as the new land base for the expanding urban population. South Hill started out as "Nelson's field" and was the site of a large dairy in the 1870s-1880s. Local histories tell us that the locality was known to the earliest settlers as "Zion Hill" and was later rechris- tened "Government Hill" after the construction of the county courthouse. The cultural dichotomy between Stillwater's largest neighborhoods began early, as their respective residential districts came to be identified as enclaves for the social and economic elite in the case of North Hill or as a bastion of working class values and tastes. Over the decades, these qualities became deeply rooted in Stillwater lore, so that a hun- dred years later the two neighborhoods are still viewed (however inaccurately) as repre- senting a division between the upper and lower class segments of Stillwater's population. Local mythology notwithstanding, both the North Hill and the South Hill neighborhood possess unusual charm and personality. The West Hill neighborhood, a wedge-shaped tract between the North and South Hill neighborhoods, was bounded on the north by the ravine beginning at Fourth and Myrtle and running northwest toward Laurel Street, thence west to McKusick Lake; and on the south by the ravine running from Fifth and Myrtle west to Ramsey and Greeley. For most of the twentieth century, the West Hill neighborhood was an important enclave of Italian immigrant culture. Dutchtown (originally called "Charlottenburg") was the working class neighborhood north of downtown. Most of the residents worked in the mills and factories, or were employees of the prison. The district includes many "company houses" built by the Northwestern Manufacturing & Car Company . As Stillwater's industries expanded, laborers found housing in the temporarily unoccupied zone north of Schulenberg's Addition to the original town plat, where the dictates of topography made land cheap and house building precarious. Squatter shanties and isolated clusters of ramshackle working class houses slowly agglomerated through the late nineteenth century, when the 37I eminiscences of Life in Stilleater (unpublished manuscript, 1944), p. 9. 38tvashington County, p. 555. 60 area resembled a kind of rustic slum. Collectively, these settlements were regarded as eye- sores by the Yankee gentry on North Hill, but they served an important social function and were thus tolerated, for Dutchtown was a kind of clearinghouse for immigrants and belweei] ciiw loot/ uriu 19LV nearly anyone not of xiuuuie ciciss status V1 above wllc, came to Stillwater resided there, at least temporarily. In spite of its nickname, the neigh- borhood was to a large degree ethnically mixed: there were always large numbers of Germans as well as Irish, Scandinavians, and Americans of Anglo-Saxon descent; also present, according to the census rolls, were Italians, American Indians, African Americans, Hispanics, and Eastern Europeans. Within these neighborhoods are found a patchwork quilt of smaller neighborhood "subcultures," characterized by their residents' ethnicity, religion, occupation, by date of initial occupancy, and other cultural and historical factors. Examples of these subcultures are the ethnic Italian enclave near the Laurel Owen street intersection and the concentra tion of mill workers' houses in "Slab Alley" on South Main Street. Spatially, these subcul- tures range from clusters of a few buildings at a particular intersection to whole city blocks and they serve to break the city up into a mosaic of small and different micro - neighborhoods, each with its own characteristic sense of time and place. For conservators of the built environment, the most obvious criterion for neighborhood subculture identifi- cation is the age, size, and quality of the housing stock and the mix of non-residential land uses (schools, churches, parklands, etc.). Between the mansions of the wealthy elite and the tenements of the working poor are the homes of the common people of Stillwater. Although disparate in culture and means, ordinary.folk shared a belief in the "American dream" of home ownership and improve- ment. The more idealistic and financially well-off applied this belief to commodious, well-built homes erected by contractors using plans copied out of pattern books; others made do with cheaply fabricated, mass-produced shelter. Indeed, most of the popular house types of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries are to be found in Stillwater's resi- dential neighborhoods. Particularly prevalent are the vernacular Gable -Front and Gable - Front -and -Wing forms which reflect the building booms of the 1870s and 1890s, and the massed plan bungalows from the 1900s-1930s. Stillwater's neighborhoods were not only places where people lived but where they met and joined together for a variety of religious, educational, social, political, economic, and cultural activities. Pioneer church services were held in private homes and the first church building in town, erected by the Presbyterians, appeared in 1850 or 1851. Historically, Stillwater churches tended to be clustered geographically, serving city-wide congregations, and were not built expressly as neighborhood institutions. Some were, however, essential nodes for neighborhood life and the attendant buildings grouped around the church (parsonage, school, playground, etc.) formed a symbiotic relationship between the religious institution and the surrounding neighborhood. Among the earliest settlers, education was a primary interest and in the middle decades of the nineteenth century the New England tradition of free public education was transplanted in Stillwater. Although there were always private and parochial schools, education in Stillwater was dominated by the centralized public school system and schools were often the only significant public buildings in residential neighborhoods. 61 School District No. 1 (later redesignated No. 9) was organized in Stillwater in 1850 and become a special district in 1863. The first Central School, historically the centerpiece of the school system, was built in 1869 on South Hill the courthouse. Its successor, Stillwater High School, was completed in 1887 and served the city until it was destroyed by fire in 1957; the West Wing was added to the campus in 1927 and remained in use until 1993. Smaller graded schools were dispersed in neighborhoods across the city: the Schulenburg School on North Second Street (1869), the Lincoln School at Second and Laurel (1873), the Greeley School (also known as the West Primary School) on South Greeley (1875), Garfield School on Laurel Street (ca. 1890), and the Nelson School on South First Street (1897). There were also private schools, including those affiliated with the German Catholic (1871) and Lutheran (1873) churches. In 1939, as part of a Federal relief public works project sponsored by the Works Projects Administration (W.P.A.), an East Wing was added to the High School for use as a junior high. Washington School was completed the same year and was also a W.P.A. undertaking. For public schools, utilitarian and wood frame construction were the norm in the early days, but brick schools became the stan- dard during the late nineteenth century. Masonry school buildings constructed in the twentieth century typically followed well -established forms for civic architecture, although the only school building upon which the taxpayers were willing to lavish the funds necessary for architectural sophistication was the High School. Organizations devoted to cultural, political, and benevolent activities abounded. These groups required centers for their public functions, places where members could assemble to see each other, and be seen. Some examples from a long list of clubs, soci- eties, orders, and groups: Freemasonry in Stillwater dates from 1849; the Stillwater Gesangverein, a German choral society, began in 1859; the Young Men's Christian Association arrived in town in 1872. Many of these organizations had their own meeting halls, clubhouses, or rooms scattered throughout the residential districts, most often housed in commercial buildings. The major commercial and financial needs of Stillwater's inhabitants were tradition- ally met by the businesses located in the downtown district. However, there were a num- ber of smaller businesses widely scattered through the residential neighborhoods which supplemented the downtown business district. As the rise of the city coincided with and stimulated the development of neighborhoods, residential streets became more important as locations for commercial buildings, usually of modest proportions and often clustered together at the intersections of important thoroughfares. In fairly rapid succession and in competition with one another, neighborhood business establishments came into being to provide goods and services. By ca. 1940 the freestanding wood frame or brick corner store, two stories in height with shops on the ground level and apartments upstairs — probably based on a Greek Revival prototype and seen in small towns, rural hamlets, and large cities throughout the United States — was a common aspect of the Stillwater neighborhood landscape. These corner groceries, hardware stores, bars, and filling sta- tions contributed significantly to the identity of each neighborhood. This dispersed com- mercial development was a piecemeal process and some residential neighborhoods had few shops; and because of the historically unstable nature of most small business, com- mercial buildings tended to be occupied by a succession of tenants engaging in a variety of enterprises. 62 The rich fabric of Stillwater's residential neighborhoods was to a great extent the result of local builders' access to quality building materials. The first dwellings and out- buildings were constructed from the wood of indigenous trees (tamarack, oak, elm) or stone, but the early exploitation of the northern pineries and the establishment of sawmills soon provided local builders with an inexhaustible supply of cheap lumber. in addition to forest products, clay for making bricks was available locally and a number of Stillwater houses were constructed wholly or in part from red brick; cream -colored brick and cement brick fired at St. Paul or Chaska was also used extensively. Limestone and sandstone were also quarried locally and were an important building material, although relatively few stone masonry dwellings were built. Concrete block became popular after ca. 1910 for foundations and retaining walls. Stamped tin was used in houses of style and in commercial and public building interiors. Cast iron from local forges was some- times applied to cornices, window caps, railings, and porch columns. Because of its expense, use of copper as a residential roofing material was limited to the homes of the elite. Wooden shingles were the most common roofing material for all types of buildings constructed before ca. 1900; afterward, houses were roofed with asphalt or asbestos shin- gles or, in rare instances, with metal sheets. Major Bibliographic References Andreas, Alfred T. Illustrated Historical Atlas of Minnesota. Chicago, 1874. Caplazi, Paul. Reminiscences of Life in Stillwater. Unpublished MS. Easton, Augustus B. (ed.) History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago, 1909. Larson, Jerome W. Stillwater Reflections and Lincoln School Days. . Unpublished MS. Larson, Paul Clifford. Stillwater's Lumber -Boom Architecture: An Annotated Photographic Essay. Unpublished report, 1989. Peterson, Brent T., and Dean R. Thilgen. Stillwater: A Photographic History, 1843—I993. Stillwater, 1992. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Censuses of the United States: Minnesota. National Archives Microfilm, 1850--1890. Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote (comps.). History of Washington County. Minneapolis, 1881. Chronological Limits Stillwater's earliest residential neighborhoods began to take shape shortly after the platting of the original townsite in 1843, but real neighborhood identity probably did not exist prior to the 1850s, when the town started to take on the character of an established, settled place. The context ends with World War Two, after which neighborhood dynamics shifted radically in response to new economic, social, and political forces. Geographical Boundaries The Stillwater city limits define the general geographic limits of this historic context. As a means of facilitating local preservation planning, the city has defined sixteen his- toric preservation planning areas (HPPAs), which correspond (roughly) to the historic pat- 63 tern of residential development (see Map 1); a seventeenth HPPA comprises the down- town district. Generalized neighborhood locations are exhibited on the accompanying context map, which makes no pretense at establishing functional or thematic bound- aries. (A note of caution: while preservation planners will need to drow boundaries around historic neighborhoods, they should not forget that the real neighborhood bound- aries exist in people's minds and may not be apparent physically.) Property Types This historic context covers a broad range of architectural property types, including single and multiple family dwellings, commercial buildings, churches, schools, and out- buildings. The single family dwelling is the basic cultural form in Stillwater and the char- acteristic landmark of the neighborhoods. As noted above, because of the widespread adoption of national house -building forms during the nineteenth and twentieth cen- turies, there is relatively little ethnic or "folk" architecture in Stillwater. Very few struc- tures remain from the pioneer era (1843-1865). The great majority of the dwellings in the city were built in the national vernacular forms popular between circa 1870 and 1940.39 The dwellings constructed during the pioneer phase of Stillwater's development con be dealt with fairly quickly because most of these rude cabins, shacks, and shanties did not outlast the first generation's occupancy of the site. These were essentially small, crudely constructed, one-story buildings built chiefly of squared logs or framed with sawn lumber. Actual single- or double -pen log cabins — built as temporary shelters — were probably not the norm even during Territorial times. The typical circa 1860 residential building was a simple frame house — present-day observers would probably be tempted to call them "shacks" — with two rooms on the ground floor and a tiny attic or loft under the gable roof. Very few examples of this type of house survive intact, but they can be described from old photographs and lithographs. Most were torn down, incorporated into new construction, or converted to accessory uses. Descriptions of residential buildings in late nineteenth century Stillwater imply a transition to vernacular or popular architecture. These were balloon -framed buildings of modest size with clapboard siding, multipaned windows, and fired brick chimneys. Most were simple, gable -roofed story -and -a -half cottages with ells and small porches. Some of these early dwellings form the core of later, more impressive residences, which tended to grow in stages, with additions to meet the changing needs and rising expectations of the owners. Vernacular house types present in Stillwater include specimens of the Gable -Front and Gable -Front -and -Wing ("Gabled Ell") families; various I -House and Massed Plan forms; the American Four -Square ("Corn Belt Cube") type and a variety of vernacular houses incorporating elements from the Greek Revival and Gothic Revival orders; and the omnipresent bungalow of the twentieth century. Buildings of style include examples of the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and Italianate, used for both residential and commer- cial construct -ion; Late Victorian houses in the Queen Anne, Second Empire, and Shingle styles; and various specimens of Eclectic houses in the Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, Craftsman, and Prairie Model. Mid -twentieth century dwellings include a wide range of 39Vernacuiar architecture con best be understood as common buildings based upon traditional notions of convenience and utility, combing functional construction with the free use of native or ordi- nary materials. These relatively simple buildings sometimes exhibit decorative details mimicking architectural period styles such as Queen Anne or Colonial Revival. See: National Register Bulletin 31: Surveying and Evaluating VemacularArc�:recfure. minimal contractor -built houses. Non-residential buildings located in neighborhoods include examples of Gothic Revival, Italianate, and other Romantic orders represented by churches and italianate style commercial buildings; and a variety of post-industrial ver- nucului forms liousinu schools, offices, aroceiy and hardware stores, gasoline service sta- tions, laundries, and other enterprises. V v It should be emphasized that most of these residential and commercial buildings do not conform perfectly to any one particular architectural style or type. The architectural norm is a hybrid of period styling and the influence of a variety of vernacular forms -- important considerations in evaluating an individual building's design/construction sig- nificance. Preservationists must also recognize that nearly all of Stillwater's nineteenth and early -twentieth century housing, of whatever style or type, is likely to have been altered in one way or another in response to the changing needs of the owners and the dictates of fashion. The two most important single variants are probably the one-story addition to the rear of the house and the enclosure (through glazing and/or weather- boarding) of porches. Removal of secondary -roofed parches and large-scale alteration of exterior finishes (especially siding) probably represent major losses of design integrity in most situations. The types of historic properties believed to be present in Stillwater's residential neigh- borhoods span all five of the major historic resource categories: buildings (including groups of buildings), sites (cultural and archeological), structures, objects (e.g., statuary), and districts (including landscapes). In trying to identify and inventory historic resources in Stillwater's neighborhoods, preservation planners should not overlook outbuildings, transportation structures (streets, sidewalks), landscape features, and potential archeolog- ical deposits associated with previous uses of the land. Representative Properties St. Michael's Catholic Church. Trinity Lutheran Church. Ascension Episcopal Church. Edward Taylor House, 657 S. Broadway St. lassoy Block, Third and Chestnut St. Nelson School, 1018 S. First St. William Sauntry House and Recreation Hall, 626 N. Fourth St. and 625 N. Fifth St. Mortimer Webster House, 435 S. Broadway St. Penny -Brunswick House, 114 E. N. Chestnut St. Andrew Allenson House, 611 N. Fifth St. Albert Lammers House, 1306 N. Third St. Roscoe Hersey House, 416 N. Fouth St. Austin Jenks House, 504 N. Fifth St. 65 Preservation Planning Goals Stillwater's residential neighborhoods have significant historic preservation potential and include districts, buildings, and sites which warrant preservation as functional parts of the modern city. Unfortunately, the database for making decisions about which proper- ties should be registered as heritage preservation sites is incomplete. No one knows how many potential historic homes exist within the city limits, but the total number of pre- I950 dwellings is believed to be more than four thousand, and of this number, it would not be unreasonable to expect five to ten percent to be of historical significance. Evaluation of individual properties' significance will require comparative data provided by a comprehensive inventory of the community's cultural resources — very little survey work has been done to date in the city, outside of the downtown National Register district and documentation of a handful of scattered architectural landmarks. By the same token, the details of each neighborhood's historic context is not readily accessible by preservation planners. Lastly, relatively little is known about the local architects, builders, and contractors who produced the architecture preserved in Stillwater's old neighbor- hoods. These information gaps can be filled only through a comprehensive, systematic program of local preservation survey work. The experience of cities comparable to Stillwater has shown that preservation surveys can be dune at many different scales and applying a variety of identification methodolo- gies. Reconnaissance surveys for characterizing a neighborhoods' historic resources in general terms are the first step in the survey program, followed by intensive survey of individual historic properties. Guidance for Stillwater's neighborhood surveys is provided by National Park Service in National Register Bulletin No. 24, which discusses the recon- naissance/intensive survey approach: Reconnaissance and intensive survey are often conducted in sequence, with recon- naissance being used in planning intensive survey. They are also sometimes com- bined, with intensive survey directed at locations where background research indi- cates a likely high concentration of historic resources and reconnaissance directed at areas where fewer resources can be expected. They can also be combined with reference to different resource types: for example, in a given area it may be appro- priate to conduct an intensive survey of buildings and structures but only a recon- naissance with reference to archeological sites, while in another area archeological sites may require intensive survey while buildings need only a 'once over lightly' examination.4° Identification goals are presented below in the form of a prioritized list of Historic Preservation Planning Areas (HPPAs) where surveys need to be carried out before evalua- tion decisions can be made. It should be stressed that planning area boundaries are somewhat arbitrary and some historic neighborhoods probably overlap two or more HPPAs. However, as a planning tool, the HPPA offers the best available framework for organizing survey, evaluation, and registration activities is a systematic, cost-effective manner. Neighborhood surveys should be conducted in stages by HPPA in accordance with the following priority schedule. In practice, decisions about which areas to survey at any given point in time may be based on pending development projects which may affect historic resources within a particular HPPA. The recommended order of survey is as fol- lows: 40Derry, et al., Guidelines for Local Surveys, pp. 12-13. 66 1) North Hill Original Town HPPA 2) South Hill Original Town HPPA 3) Sabin HPPA 4) North Hill HPPA 5) Greeley HPPA 6) South Hill HPPA 7) Dutchtown HPPA 8) Staples HPPA 9) Schulenburg HPPA 10) Forest Hills HPPA 11) Lilly Lake HPPA 12) Sunny Slope HPPA 13) Fair Meadows HPPA 14) Oak Glen HPPA 15) Deer Path HPPA 16) Croixwood HPPA The "Neighborhoods" historic context will need to be refined, modified, added to, and elaborated as surveys proceed. The results of neighborhood surveys will be presented in the format of the National Register of Historic Places Multiple Property Documentation Form (MPDF); development of a historic neighborhood MPDF may also be appropriate. Surveys may not result directly in National Register nominations or local registration, but all survey results should be integrated into a comprehensive inventory of local historic properties, which will form the basis for future decisions about identification of heritage sites, evaluation of significance, and registration requirements. 67 HISTORIC CONTEXT X: STILLWATER CITY, WASHINGTON COUNTY, AND STATE GOVERNMENT (1840-1940s) Overview There is a strong localization of the development of public facilities within Stillwater, which has always functioned as an important regional public service center. Geographical and political factors seem to have been prominent in determining the loca- tions of courthouses, armories, schools, libraries, and other civic buildings, which tradi- tionally have tended to be clustered. Historical Theme From the beginning, Stillwater has functioned as an important center for governmen- tal activities at the federal, state, and county levels. Territorial jurisdiction over the St. Croix Valley was kaleidoscopic, with Dakotah/Stillwater falling under the jurisdiction of the Wisconsin Territory counties of Crawford (1839-1840) and St. Croix (1841-1848) before it became the seat of Washington County, Minnesota Territory in 1849. The initial presence of the Federal government in Stillwater was the post office, com- missioned in January 1846, and social and economic importance of this institution in the town's development can hardly be overstated. The first mails were carried by steamboat: by 1861, Stillwater enjoyed daily mail boat service via Prescott and Taylors Falls. In 1864 a three -times -a -week stagecoach line began operating between Stillwater and St. Paul; daily mail service between Stillwater and St. Paul was inaugurated in 1866. It is impor- tant to note that until the 1860s, the mails were Stillwater's only regular link with the outside world, and government postal policies encouraged the perfection of cheap, effi- cient cross-country communication. Between 1847 and 1883, rates were reduced from three to two cents per half -ounce, and such innovations as free mail delivery, the railroad post office (every railroad was a mail route), and the money -order system were instituted during the 1860s. Rural free delivery (R.F.D.) commenced in 1896 and parcel -post in 1913 — no figures are available, but substantial numbers of Stillwater residents must have shopped in the catalogs published by the mail-order houses of Chicago and St. Paul. By the last decades of the nineteenth century, poor and working class families came to rely upon the post office as a kind of bank, putting their extra earnings into the postal sav- ings certificates (a forerunner of the U. S. savings bond), which appeared in 1910. In 1903, the government built a new, modern post office at the corner of Myrtle and Second Street, which remained in use until 1967. The United States Government also housed Its district land office in Stillwater between 1849 and 1858 and maintained a succession of armories in town, the first built in 1855. Stillwater was from an early date recognized as having political importance in the development of Minnesota as a territory and state. On 6 August 1846 Congress enacted legislation enabling the citizens of Wisconsin to organize a state government and Wisconsin was admitted to the Union with its present boundaries on 29 May 1848. That 68 part of the former territory Tying west of the St. Croix was left outside the state, "a no- man's Iand without law or government ... without corporate existence."41 In response to this predicament, the leading citizens of the west bank of the St. Croix assembled at Stillwater on 4 August 1848 and issued a call for a convention to adopt the necessary steps for the creation of a new territory, to he called "Minnesota." The "Stillwater Convention" was duly held on 26 August and produced a memorial to Congress, which was delivered by Henry 1l. Sibley, who went to Washington as the fictional delegate from the no -longer -extant Wisconsin Territory. After much jawboning over the name and boundaries, Congress moved to create the new territory, and on 3 March 1849 a bill for the organization of Minnesota Territory passed. Alexander Ramsey, a loyal Whig from Pennsylvania, was confirmed as President Zachary Taylor's nominee for the governorship of the new territory and assumed office in June. Washington County, named for George Washington, was established on 27 October 1849 and was one of the nine original coun- ties created by the first territorial legislature. The "exciting event" of the legislative session was the contest over the location of the territorial capital, university, and prison. After considerable debate, the prison was locat- ed at Stillwater by the act of the legislature passed on 1 November 1849, and in 1851 the first prison buildings were erected on a 400-square foot lot in Battle Hollow behind a 14- foot stone wall. The prison opened in 1853 to considerable fanfare; however, there were no inmates until the second year and the cells had to be filled with prisoners from coun- ties which lacked their own jail facilities. Administrative authority over the prison was vested in a board of inspectors (forerunner of the state board of corrections), which advised the warden, a legislative (later gubernatorial) appointee charged with operating the facility. Development of the prison was financed with federal funds, which also cov- ered operating costs. Stillwater's rise as one of the leading cities in Minnesota was in many ways linked with the penitentiary. Minnesota became a state on 11 May 1858 and the penitentiary passed from Federal to state control. As Minnesota's population grew, so did the number of malefactors, and in a succession of improvements -mandated by the state legislature the Stillwater prison grounds were enlarged and new buildings were raised between 1858 and 1889. The state prison was a "reformed" institution modeled after New York's Auburn prison system, which provided for solitary confinement at hard labor and sepa- rated sleeping, eating, and working areas. Discipline tended to be lax and punishments were degrading. Inmates left their cells to work together in the prison factory under the rule of silence. They were employed principally in the manufacture of wooden tubs, buck- ets, and barrels (later expanded to the production of shoes and twine) and were allowed to keep their earnings after paying their board. Although its inmates worked long and hard — receipts amounted to $50,000 in 1870 — the penitentiary usually operated at a loss to the state. An interesting footnote to the history of the, old prison was the state's attempt to make it self-supporting, so that the citizens would not have to be taxed for the incarceration of criminals. Out of this philosophy of self-support rose the pernicious prac- tice of leasing convict labor to private contractors. This practice was widely regarded as a great evil (at ]east outside the boardrooms of Stillwater's manufacturers) but was not out- lawed until 1895. A new state prison was built at Oak Park in 1908 and the Battle Hollow facility was closed, its buildings and grounds sold off and converted to industrial uses. 41 Folwell, Minnesota, I:236. 69 County government has been a dominant force in the development of Stillwater since the construction of the first courthouse in 1840. As discussed above, until 1840 what is now Washington County was part of Crawford County, Wisconsin Territory. This region was part of the original Northwestern Territory ceded to the United States by Virginia in 1784 and was attached to Michigan for judicial purposes. On 20 November 1841, Joseph R. Brown succeeded in passing an act in the Wisconsin territorial legislature organizing St. Croix County, with its seat of government at Brown's Dakotah townsite. The embryo county seat got off to a bumpy start with its first (and only) session of district court, a tale told and retold in half a dozen early narrative histories. According to Professor Folwell: In the very year of the organization of the new county of St. Croix, 1840, judge David Irwin of Madison, Wisconsin, was assigned to hold court there. He reached the county seat by way of the Fox -Wisconsin portage and Fort Snelling. On his arrival he found a sheriff in attendance, but Clerk Brown was absent, there were no jurors, and, so far as known, no cases awaiting trial. After passing a night on the floor of an unfinished log cabin:, and faring on venison and fish seasoned with the salt he had brought in his pocket, the judge departed on the morrow never to return. Years passed before there was any further effort as nisi prlus in A: i nnesota.42 This pioneer courthouse was the "Tamarack House" built by Joseph Brown in 1841 and was located near where Schulenburg and Boeckeler's lumber mill stood in the 1870s. This building, which was never afterward used for judicial purposes, was eventually torn down and the material used in the construction of another building downtown. In January 1846 the Wisconsin legislature designated Stillwater as the county seat of the new St. Croix County but attached the region to Crawford County, with its county seat at Prairie du Chien, for judicial purposes. Creation of the Minnesota Territory brought the federal courts to the St. Croix Valley and the first United States district court holden in Minnesota territory was held at Stillwater during the June term of 1848: there being no courthouse, court was held at John McKusick's- store. With the organization of Washington County in 1849, Stillwater was reestablished as a county seat and after state- hood the role played by the county govemment in civil affairs was enlarged. Counties are the ancient institution which represent the principal governmental sub- divisions in the United States, both geographically and politically. The central organ of Washington County government since its founding has been the five -member elected board of commissioners, comprised of members elected from county districts and vested with both legislative and administrative powers (i.e., taxing, licensing, regulating, zon- ing, appointment of county officers). In addition to the board of commissioners, elected county officials include the sheriff, clerk of court, treasurer, assessor, and recorder, all of whose offices have been traditionally housed in the county courthouse. Also located at Stillwater and working under the auspices of the county commissioners were the county highway department, health and welfare departments, surveyor, and assessor. In addi- tion to these county offices, the county seat has also housed the district court and local branch offices of federal and state agencies operating in such fields as agriculture, public health, and welfare. In 1847, John McKusick donated a parcel of land in Stillwater for a courthouse and jail. A contract was let and construction began the following spring, but building was suspended for several months,pending Congressional action on establishing Minnesota's 42/bid., 1:234. 70 boundaries. Work resumed and the courthouse was completed in 1849, the first court- house in the territory. In 1867 the county commissioners awarded a contract for a new courthouse to be built on a city block situated atop Zion Hill, donated by Socrates Nelson. The new courthouse, designed by Augustus F. Knight of St. Paul, cost $.55,2.57 and was completed late in 1869; the jail opened in March 1870. Its differentiated plan of offices, courtroom, record vaults, and jail accommodated the growing scope and complexity of county government and institutional authority. In details and ornamentation, its impres- sive appearance lent went and authority, so that the courthouse was at once evidence and stimulus for a swelling public pride. It still stands today, a proud reminder of Stillwater's heritage as the seat of government of Washington County. The constitution and functions of municipal government in Stillwater were deter- mined by the charter of incorporation granted by the state legislature on 4 March 1854. Stillwater's charter provided for annual elections of a mayor and council and divided the town into wards which elected representatives to the city council. Stillwater city govern- ment was first housed in crowded, unimpressive quarters on Main Street until a new city hall and jail were erected 1880s on Third Street north of Myrtle, at edge of commercial district (the site occupied by the new U. S. Post Office). There were also a jail, storage buildings, and a fire station nearby. There does not seem to have been much corruption in the conduct of city government, but from time to time great inefficiency prevailed in the delivery of basic public services. During the nineteenth century, Stillwater's city fathers periodically plunged their community into indebtedness by subscribing to rail- road companies or financing improvements. The main functions of the city government before circa 1940 included operation of the public school system, street paving and repair (generally neglected before the automobile age), fire and police protection, upkeep of the water system, public sanitation, and contingent expenses. Revenues were derived from property and poll taxes, licenses, and fines from the municipal court. The council passed such typical ordinances as those regulating the sale of spirituous liquors and prohibiting livestock from running at large. The history of the municipal police is not particularly well detailed in the narrative histories, at least until the late nineteenth century. To keep the peace, the city had a small constabulary, augmented by the county sheriff's force and the militia. Their main function seems to have been to enforce laws of nicety for the benefit of the economic and cultural elite and to protect valuable private and public property against theft, burglary, and arson. The 'police had little impact on controlling the transient crowds of rowdy lum- bermen who populated the city's saloons and brothels: in 1858 a brawl downtown got so far out of hand that the mayor had to call out the local militia to disperse a drunken mob at bayonet point. A more or less professional force seems to have emerged by the early 1900s, uniformed and armed with revolvers, patrolling on foot and sounding the alarm via a system of callboxes. The first city jail and police station was built in 1879 at Myrtle and Third and was in use until 1900, when a new city hall was built. Like all nineteenth century river towns, Stillwater was particularly vulnerable to fire and several early conflagrations prompted the city council to invest in fire fighting appa- ratus. By 1872 Stillwater had the protection of volunteer fire companies equipped with horse-drawn fire engines. By the turn of the century, fire stations were distributed throughout the city and manned by teams of full-time paid firemen. 71 A great increase in public safety came with the widespread use of gas lighting. Coal gas gradually replaced wax candles, whale oil, camphine, and kerosene as the sources of illumination and in May 1874 the Stillwater Gas Light Company was organized as a joint stock company and granted the exclusive rights to manufacture and sell gas in the city. The company started laying gas mains along the principal thoroughfares that sum- mer and was eventually supplanted by electrical lighting. A major problem faced by the city was to obtain and distribute an adequate supply of clean drinking water. Until late in the nineteenth century, water for domestic use was obtained from wells, cisterns, streams, and Lake St. Croix. After the 1870s, water from McKusick Lake was distributed through wooden (later cast iron) pipes; this system was regularly improved and extended and was a subject of considerable civic pride. However, as advanced as Stillwater was with its water and gas works, its sanitary sewer system was medieval until just before the turn of the century. Cistern -flushed water closets were stan- dard in all of the genteel houses and public showplaces after 1860, but the outdoor privy was the norm in some residential neighborhoods until the 1890s and the main thorough- fares of the town were little more than equine latrines in the pre -automobile era. A municipal sewer system with cast iron pipes and brick mains was installed in stages from the 18 )s on. Belure the middle decades of the twentieth century, most people who became sick were attended in their own homes by physicians and nursed by relatives. Benevolent soci- eties aided their members in times of illness and some aided the sick gratuitously. Stillwaterhada hospital, opened in 1880 and operated by the city in a residential neigh- borhood about a mile and a half southwest of the central business district. The story of Stillwater public schools seems to have been typical of the development of education in Minnesota. While the first schools were held in private homes, by 1848 the settlement could boast of its first schoolhouse, occupied by a private school, which was located at Third and Olive Streets. The local public school board was established in 1850 and for some years rented classroom space in a downtown commercial building. In 1869, the town erected its first public schoolhouses, the Central and Schulenburg schools. In 1887 the school board built Stillwater High School — described as "an ornament to the city and monument to the enterprise of citizens — on Government Hill, opposite the Washingto. t County Courthouse. Graded elementary schools (e.g., Lincoln, Nelson, Greeley, G,:rfield, Schulenburg) were a feature of neighborhoods throughout the city. Stillwater also provided cultural advantages for its citizens in the form of a lyceum and a public library. The lyceum movement, which had originated in New England in the 1820s, spread to Minnesota with the first wave of Yankee pioneers in the 1840s. In 1858 a Lyceum was organized in Stillwater which offered a small circulating library in addition to public lectures. The Stillwater Lyceum gave hospitable reception to a number of prominent lecturers during the 1850s and 1860s but passed out of existence after the Civil War. The growth of Stillwater in the last three decades of the nineteenth century was accompanied by a remarkable expansion of the municipal public library. The Stillwater Library Association was organized 1859, an outgrowth of the lyceum movement, and occupied several locations until 1902, when, with the help of industrialist Andre Carnegie's largess, it found a permanent home in the fine Classical Revival Style edifice on Fourth Street. 72 Major Bibliographic References Dunn, James Taylor. "The Minnesota State Prison During the Stillwater Era, 1853-1914," ir_ Minnesota History Vol. 37 (1960), pp. 137-151. "Minnesota's Oldest Courthouse," in Minnesota !History Vol. 38 (1962), pp. 186-189 Easton, Augustus B. (ed.). History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago, 1909. Folsom, William H. Fitly Years in the Northwest. St. Paul, 1888. Quackenbush, Orville F. The Development of the Correctional, Reformatory, and Penal Institutions of Minnesota: A Sociological Interpretation. Ph.D. dissertation, 1956. Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote (comps.). History of Washington County and the St. Croix Valley. Minneapolis, 1881. Chronological Limits DakotahfStillwater was the seat of government in St. Croix County, Wisconsin Territory, from 1840 until 1849, after which it was the county seat of Washington County - The context ends arbitrarily fifty years before the present. Geo9ranhical Boundaries 1 Historically, governmental buildings in Stillwater have been clustered together on Government Hill. Roberts in her survey of the downtown National Register district, notes: Over the years, the City of Stillwater has retained the area around Third Street and Myrtle for most of its government buildings. A block away at Fourth and Mulberry, the Carnegie Library was erected in 1902 ... During the 'teens, a study done by the Minnesota landscape firm, Morel and Nichols, suggested that this area be retained for city functions. Based on their recommendations, the new Stillwater Armory ... was built at the northwest corner of Chestnut and Third in 1921-22. The Federal Government located its 1903 Post Office ... at the northeast corner of Myrtle and Second Street. The new replacement post office ... was built in 1967 on the site of the old city hall at the northwest comer of Myrtle and Third.43 Governmental properties are found primarily in the North Hill Original Plat and Downtown Commercial District HPPAs. Property Types Property types associated with this historic context include civic buildings constructed by and used for county and city government; related private buildings used by lawyers, title abstract companies, etc; and the sites of non -extant civic buildings. The Territorial/State Prison locality and the Historic Washington County Courthouse on Government Hill are the two most significant public buildings in Stillwater, both in terms of their architecture and historical associations. Both are based upon well -established nineteenth century designs. For public buildings, brick has always been the common building material, although early civic architecture was dominated by wood frame construction. The old prison was by far the largest assemblage of buildings constructed from locally quarried limestone. 43Notionat Register Survey, pp. 31-33. 73 Late nineteenth and twentieth century buildings, such as the Carnegie Library, used ash- lar masonry and brick to suggest weight and permanence. Municipal buildings (city hall, firehouses, pump houses, etc.) and schools tended to be utilitarian and modest in scale and generally lacked impressive stylistic embellishments. Unlike most commercial build- ings, important civic structures tended to be oriented with their long sides facing the street. Architectural tastes favored provincial versions of Federal, Classical Revival, and Neoclassical modes; post-1920s buildings favored the Renaissance Revival and Moderne modes. Representative Properties Washington County Courthouse, W. Pine St. and 5. Third St. Carnegie Library, 200 N. Fourth St. Old City Hospital, 1121 N. Fourth St. Third Street Pump Station, 204 N. Third St. Post Office, Myrtle and Second St. Ten-itorial/State Prison, N. Main St. Territorial/State Prison Warden's House, 602 N. Main St. Preservation Planning Goals Properties directly associated with local, state, and Federal government will be identi- fied and evaluated as surveys are undertaken throughout the city. Most of the major gov- ernmental properties have already been registered; others have been identified but not completely evaluated. The Territorial/State Prison locality, after years of not -so -benign neglect, has become a focus of concern for preservationists. This property will be subject- ed to intensive survey, including archeological investigation, and documented for local designation. 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY Note: An asterisk ['I in the left margin denotes that a source is unpublished and available in a special col- lection or non-Iibrnry repository i Amundsen, Craig, et al. Stillwater Downtown Plan. Prepared for the City of Stillwater by BRW, Inc., SEH, Inc., and IMA, Inc. December 1988. Andreas, Alfred T. Illustrated Historical Atlas of the State of Minnesota. Chicago: Andreas Atlas Co., 1874. Beardsley, Wendell G. And It Carne to Pass: A History of the First United Methodist Church, Stillwater, Minnesota, 1841-1984. Robbinsclale: Patriot Printers, 1985. Blood, Tom, et al. Washington County Courthouse, 1885. [Stillwater]: privately printed, 1976. Bond, I. Wesley. Minnesota and Its Resources. Chicago: Keen & Lee, 1857. Buck, Anita Albrecht. Steamboats on the St. Croix. St. Cloud: North Star Press, 1990. 'Caplazi, Paul. Reminiscences of Life in Stillwater. Unpublished manuscript, 1944. St. Croix Collection, Stillwater Public Library. `Chatelain, Verne E. Joseph Renshaw Brown, Pioneer. Unpublished manuscript, 1929. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. `Clarke, Lewis M. Map of McKusick and St. Paul Ravines, Showing Original Water Courses and Water Sheds, Stillwater, Minnesota. Stillwater City Engineer Office, February 1888. Stillwater City Hall. Disabled American Veterans Auxiliary, Chapter 17. Stillwater Business Ventures, 1860-1931. Stillwater, 1978. Dobbs, Clark A. (comp.). Historic Context Outlines: The Pre -Contact Period Contexts. Minneapolis: Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, n.d. [Prepared for Minnesota History in Sites and Structures: A Comprehensive Planning Process.] . Historic Context Outlines: The Contact Period Contexts. Minneapolis: Institute for Minnesota Archaeology, n.d. [Prepared for Minnesota History in Sites and Structures: A Comprehensive PIanning Process.] Dunn, James Taylor. "The St. Croix Valley Welcomes the Iron Horse." Minnesota History 35 (1957), 358-364. . "The Minnesota State Prison During the Stillwater Era, 1853-1914." Minnesota History 37 (1960), 137-151. . "Minnesota's Oldest Courthouse." Minnesota History 38 (1962), 186-189. . The St. Croix: Midwest Border River. Rivers of America Series. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965. Durant, Edward W. "Lumbering and Steamboating on the St. Croix River." Minnesota Historical Society Collections 10:2 (1905), 645-675. [Reprint ed., Minnesota Historical Society, 1979.] Easton, Augustus B., ed. History of the St. Croix Valley. 2 vols. Chicago: H. C. Cooper, Ir., & Co., 1909. [Washington County. 1:207--489.] Folsom, William H. Fifty Years in the Northwest. E. E. Edwards, ed. St. Paul: Pioneer Press Co., 1888. [Washington County pp. 355-431.] 75 . "History of Lumbering in the St. Croix Valley, with Biographical Sketches." Minnesota Historical Society Collections 9 (1901), 291-324. Folwell, William Watts. History of Minnesota. 4 vols. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1921-1930. Galbraith, Frank H. Galbraith's Railway Mail Service Maps: Minnesota. Chicago: McEwen Map Co., 1897. Gibbon, Guy E. The Sheffield Site: An Oneota Site on the St. Croix River. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1973. (ed.). Oneota Studies. University of Minnesota Publications in Anthropology No. 1. Minneapolis, 1982. Glaser, Emma. "How Stillwater Came to Be." Minnesota History 24 (1943), 195--206. Griffen, James B. "Eastern North American Archaeology: A Summary." Science 156 (1967), 175-191. . *Holmes, Patye & Buechner. Farrintong, Thomas, Steele & Holcombe's Addition to Stillwater, M.T. Lithograph plat map, n.d. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Pau]. Holmquist, June D. (ed.). They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1981. *Holstron, Diane Rose. A Research on the Stillwater Manufacturing Co. Unpublished manuscript, 1981. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. Jarchow, Merrill E. The Earth Brought Forth: A History of Minnesota Agriculture to 1885. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1949. Johnson, Elden. The Prehistoric Peoples of Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1969. [Revised 2nd edition, 1978.] Johnston, Patricia Condon. Stillwater: Minnesota's Birthplace in Photographs. Photographs by John Runk. Afton: Johnston Publishing, 1982. Kennedy, Roger G. "Houses of the St. Croix Valley." Minnesota History 38 (1963), 337-352. Kroon, Al, and Charlie Salmore. "Remember Twin City Forge?" Historical Whisperings (1978). [Newsletter of the Washington County Historical Society.] Landes, Ruth. The Mystic Lake Sioux. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968. Larson, Agnes M. "On the Trail of the Woodsman in Minnesota." Minnesota History 13 (1932), 349-366. . "When Logs and Lumber Ruled Stillwater." Minnesota History 18 (1937), 165-179. . History of the White Pine Industry in Minnesota. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949. *Larson, Jerome W. Stillwater Reflections and Lincoln School Days: Memories of Growing Up in Stillwater, Minnesota. Unpublished manuscript, 1982. St. Croix Collection, Stillwater Public Library. *Larson, Paul Clifford. Stiliwater's Lumber -Boom Architecture: An Annotated Photographic Essay. Unpublished manuscript. [19891. Report prepared for Rivertown Restorations, Inc., Stillwater. State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul. McDonough, Richard L., et al. The Old Washington County Courthouse, 1866-1974. [Stillwater?]: pri- vately printed, 1974. 76 Merritt, Ray H. Creativity, Conflict, and Controversy: A History of the St. Paul District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1979. Mitchell, William A. "Stillwater, Minnesota — Its Industries and Prospects." Wood and Iron 2 (1882), 163-1 6.5. Morrell, Anthony U., and Arthur Nichols. Plan of the City of -Stillwater. Minneapolis: Morrell Er Nichols, Landscape Architects, 1918. Newman, Mildred A. The Rutherford Neighborhood, 1845-1965. Stillwater: Croixside Press, 1969. Peterson, Brent T., and Dean R. Thilgen. Stillwater: A Photographic History, 1843-1993. Stillwater: Valley History Press, 1992. Pratt, George B. The Valley of the St. Croix, Picturesque and Descriptive. Neenah (Wis.): Art Publishing Co., 1888. Prosser, R. S. Rails to the North Star. Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1966. Quackenbush, Orville F. The Development of the Correctional, Reformatory, and Penal Institutions of Minnesota: A Sociological Interpretation. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1956. Quimby, George 1. Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes: 11,000 B.C_ to A.D. 1800. University of Chicago Press, 1960. Rector, William Gerald. Log Transportation in the Lake States Lumber Industry 1840-1918. American Waterways Series 4. Glendale (Cal.): The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1953. *Roberts, Norene. Intensive National Register Survey of Downtown Stillwater, Minnesota, Final Report prepared for the Stillwater HPC by Historical Research, Inc., Minneapolis, August 1989. State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul. and John A. Fried. Historical Reconstruction of the Riverfront: Stillwater, Washington County, Minnesota. Prepared for the St. Paul District Army Corps of Engineers by Historical Research, Inc., and Associated Architects and Engineers, Inc., July 1985. State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul. Robinson, Doane. The History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1967. [Reprint of 1904 edition.] *Rogers, Lawrence E. Pioneer Lawmen of Stillwater 1840-1900. Unpublished term paper, Metro State University, 1984. St. Croix Collection, Stillwater Public Library. Roney, E. L. Looking Backward. A Compilation of More than a Century of St. Croix Valley History. Stillwater: privately printed, 1970. Rosenfelt, Willard E., ed. Washington: A History of the Minnesota County. Stillwater: Croixside Press, 1977. Roufs, Timothy G. The Ashinabe of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Phoenix: Indian Tribal Series, 1975. *Runk, John. Collection. Unpublished photographs. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. St. Croix Collection. Scrapbooks and vertical files in the Stillwater Public Library. Sanborn Insurance Atlas. "Stillwater, Minnesota." 1884, 1888, 1891, 1898, 1904, 1910, 1924, 1956, 1961. Sanborn Map Publishing Company, New York. Shepard, Myron. Sectional Map of Stillwater, Minnesota, from Accurate Surveys by Myron Shepard. St. Paul: Pioneer Press Co. Lith., 1878. *State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO). Inventory files: Washington County. Records of local 77 historic preservation surveys on file in the State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul. [Includes National Register, historic buildings, and archaeological site files as well as miscellaneous doc- uments relating to local historic properties] _. Minnesota History in Sites and Structures: A Comprehensive Planning Process. Unpublished historic context outlines for the Pre -Contact, Contact, and Post -Contact periods. State Historic Preservation Office, St. Paul. Stillwater Association of Public and Business Affairs. General Industrial Survey: A Presentation of Facts Relating to Stillwater, Minnesota. Stillwater, 1925. Stilhvater City Directory. [Title and publishers vary.] 1876, 1881-1882, 1884,1887, 1890-1891, 1892-1893, 1894-1895, 1908-1909, 1917, 1942-1943. Stillwater Planning Commission. Updated and Revised Comprehensive Municipal Plan. Prepared by the Washington County Planning Department and Design Planning Associates, Inc. August 1979. Stoltman, James B: (ed.) Prehistoric Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley. Davenport (la.): The Putnam Museum, 1986. Stow, Susan G. Chamber Chronicles: A Compiled History of the Stillwater Area Chamber of Commerce. Stillwater: Croixside Printing, 1991. Swain, Harry, and Cotton Mather. St. Croix Border Country. Prescott: Trimbelle Press, 1968. Thilgen, Dean R. Valley Rails:A History of Railroads in the St. Croix Valley. Stillwater: privately print- ed, 1990. U. S. Bureau of the Census. Federal Population Censuses: Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Censuses of the United States: Minnesota. National Archives microfilm. . United States Census of Agriculture: Minnesota. 1925, 1930, 1935, 1940. Washington. U. S. Geological Survey. Stillwater Quadrangle. 7.5 Minute Series (Topographic). Photorevised 1980. Uphain, Warren. Minnesota Geographic Names: Their Origin and Historic Significance. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1969. [Reprint of 1920 edition.] Van Koughnet, Donald E. "Pioneer Industry in Minnesota." Minnesota Alumni Weekly 31 (1932), 475, 456. War Department Corps of Engineers. The Middle and Upper Mississippi River: Ohio River to Minneapolis. 3rd edition. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1948. [includes maps of St. Croix River.] Warner, George E., and Charles M. Foote, comps. History of Washington County and the St. Croix Valley. Minneapolis: North Star Publishing Company, 1881. Warren, William W. History of the Ojibway Nation. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1957. {Reprint of 1885 edition.] Weatherhead, Harold. Westward to the St. Croix: The Story of St. Croix County, Wisconsin. Hudson: St. Croix County Historical Society, 1978_ *Woolworth, Alan. A Profile of Joseph Renshaw Brown. Unpublished manuscript, n.d. Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul. Wozniak, John S. Contact, Negotiation, and Conflict: An Ethnohistory of the Eastern Dakota, 1819-1839. Washington: University Press of America, 1978. 78 GLOSSARY American Four -Square - a vernacular house loin' also known us the Corn Bell Cube corn- rnonly built between ca. 1890 and 1940 in both rural and urban situations throughout the Middle West. archeology - the science which deals with the study of past human activities through evi- dence found beneath the surface of the ground. architecture - the art and profession of designing and constructing buildings. Also used to describe the design and construction characteristics of a building or structure. architecture history - the study of architectural styles, periods, forms, architects, and building technologies. It is commonly regarded as a branch of architecture or art history. boom - a floating barrier of logs connected with chains used to prevent floating logs from dispersing. building - term used in relation to any architectural entity constructed principally to shelter any form of human activity, including houses, stores, factories, mills, hotels, schools, churches, and garages. Bungalow - a late nineteenth century architectural movement sometimes referred to as Bungaloid and closely related to the Craftsman Style. Also, the generic term for any small dwelling of modest pretensions built between ca. 1900 and 1940. City Beautiful Movement - the movement in landscape architecture and planning advo- cating the beautification of urban environments through comprehensive planning and the development of parks, boulevards, and other public amenities. Classical Revival --- generic term for several period revival styles of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including Greek Revival and Neoclassical. Colonial Revival - one of the period revival styles of the late nineteenth and early twenti- eth centuries, based on Postmedeival English, Georgian, French, Spanish, and Dutch colo- nial house forms. comprehensive planning - the process that integrates historic preservation with other municipal planning activities. Contact Period - the division in the scale of historic time between the Pre -Contact and Post -Contact periods, covering the interval between the date of initial contact between Native Americans and Europeans in the St. Croix Valley in 1680 and the removal of the Dakota and Ojibwe tribes to reservations between 1851 and 1862. Corps of Engineers - the civil engineering branch of the United States Army responsible for flood control and navigation of the Mississippi River and its tributaries, including the St. Croix. Craftsman - early twentieth century architectural variant of the vernacular Bungalow builder's catalogue house promoted by Gustav Stickley and other leaders of the Arts and Crafts Movement. cultural resource - any work, cultural or natural, that is primarily of interest for its histor- 79 ical, archeological, architectural, cultural, or aesthetic value. district - a concentration of sites, buildings, or structures that are related historically or functionally. Eclectic - a late nineteenth and early twentieth century architectural movement stressing historical interpretations of traditional European and New World colonial houses. Euro-American - the culture of New World Europeans; also used to identify members of any of the ethnic groups in the United States not of Native American or African American extraction. European - in the context of the Contact Period in Minnesota history, any Caucasian or white inhabitant of the French or British colonies. evaluation - the process of determining whether a historic property meets the eligibility criteria established for the National Register of Historic Places or the local heritage land- marks registry. ' Federal - an Early Republic architectural style, also known as Adams or Adamesque; as a revival style, it was a popular form for public and commercial buildings in the early twentieth century. gable -front - a vernacular house form, sometimes referred to as the Mechanics Cottage, constructed in numbers between the Civil War and World War 1. Generally regarded as the predecessor of the Bungalow due to its standard plan and standardized parts. gable -front -and -wing - a vernacular house form also known as the Upright -and -Wing and the Gabled Ell, the most popular house type of the late nineteenth and early twenti- eth centuries in the New England, Great Lakes, and Middle West regions. Good Roads Movement - the movement for improved highways spawned by the bicycle craze of the 1890s and the perfection of the automobile in the 1900s. Gothic Revival - a mid- to late nineteenth century style period subdivided by architectural historians into Early or Carpenter Gothic (ca. 1850s-1860s), Second or Victorian Gothic (ca. 1870s-1880s), and High Victorian or Academic Gothic (ca. 1890s-1930s) phases. Greek Revival - a mid -nineteenth century architectural style period in the Romantic tradi- tion, which reached the zenith of its popularity in the Eastern United States between the 1830s and 1850s. Greek Revival forms persisted in the Middle West up to ca. 1900. Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) - the municipal advisory body appointed by the city council to advise the city on matters relating to historic preservation. The respon- sibilities of the Stillwater HPC include designation and regulation of historic sites and dis- tricts and public education. historic context - in historic preservation planning, an organizational framework that groups information about cultural resources based on historical theme. As used in this document, a broad pattern of historical development represented by cultural resources in Stillwater. historic preservation - the process of applying measures to preserve and protect the form, physical integrity, and cultural resource values of historic properties. historic preservation planning area (HPPA) - an artificial planning district used to orga- nize survey and comprehensive planning activities. 80 historic property - a district, site, building, or structure associated with a particular theme in history, architecture, archeology, or culture. history - the systematic study of the development of an individual, group, institution, or pluce oven line, and the craft of explaining what happened. I -house - vernacular house classification for a simple Eastern United States -derived folk house type of the pre -Civil War period, characterized by its one room deep and two rooms wide floor plan, central hallway, and narrow end walls. Italianate - classification applied generally to specimens of two different style periods: a mid -nineteenth century architectural style also referred to as Italian Villa or Bracketed, prevalent in the United States between ca. 1840 and 1880; and a more flamboyant late nineteenth century variant known as Victorian or High Victorian Italianate. landscape - term, used by geographers and historic preservationists, for the totality of the human habitat, the sum total of topography, vegetation, architecture, and historic pat- terns of land use. levee - the natural levee is the highest ground along a river floodplain, formed during flooding by the deposition of sediment. Over time, an artificial levee was constructed at Stillwater to supplement the work of the natural levee in keeping the St. Croix within its proper channel, and to facilitate the loading and off-loading of steamboats. mill - any building constructed to house machinery for manufacturing or processing. Sawmills process logs into boards and other finished wood products; flour mills grind wheat into flour; gristmills grind primarily corn Moderne one of the Modern Movement architectural styles, popular since the 1930s. National Register of Historic Places - the official list of the nation's cultural resources of national, statewide, and local significance which are worthy of preservation. Properties are listed in the National Register primarily through nominations by the state historic preservation office (SHPO) working with the local heritage preservation commission (HPC). Native Americans - the indigenous peoples of the New World, also known as American Indians. Neoclassical Revival - an Eclectic house subcategory in the Classical Revival period style. oral history - events of the past based on information that has not been written down, but which is transmitted verbally. panic - traditional American term for an economic depression. plat - a map or plan of a parcel of land that has been subdivided; also, the official act of subdividing a tract into building lots. Prairie - a term used to identify specimens of a type of house promoted by the Prairie School, the early twentieth century architectural movement led by Frank Lloyd Wright. Post -Contact Period - the division in the scale of historic time following the Contact Period; locally, the period after the founding of Stillwater by John McKusick and others in 1843. Pre -Contact Period - the division in the scale of historic time preceding the Contact 81 Period; locally, the period before the initial European reconnaissance of the St. Croix Valley, which commenced in 1680. Queen Anne - a Late Victorian architectural style period, including Queen Anne -Eastlake variants, characterized by irregular ground plans and massing with complex roof shapes. The style was popular throughout the United States between ca. 1860 and 1910 and is the most common Victorian era architectural form in Stillwater. ravine - a long narrow depression in the land's surface, smaller than a valley but larger than a gully; several gullies often lead into a ravine, and several ravines may lead into a valley. Renaissance Revival - a Late Victorian architectural style period including Romano - Tuscan, Second Renaissance, and other modes, generally dated to ca. 1880s-I920s. Romanesque - a late Victorian architectural style period that includes the Richardsonian Romanesque variant. Romantic - post -Colonial period architecture based upon classical and medieval prece- dents, including the Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, and ltalianate. St. Croix Triangle - historically, that part of eastern Minnesota between the St. Croix and the Mississippi River, containing the principal nodes of pre-1850s settlement at Stillwater, St. Paul, Taylors Falls, Marine, and Pt. Douglas. This region comprises the modern coun- ties of Washington, Ramsey, Anoka, Chisago, and Pine and was essentially the western half of the St. Croix Valley. Second Empire - a Late Victorian architectural style period, also known as French Second Empire or Mansard, represented in both residential and institutional architecture built in the ca. 1850s-1880s. sense of place - the physical, cultural and historical attributes of a place that give it a distinctive character. Shingle - a Late Victorian architectural style period from the 1870s through the 1890s characterized by lavish use of decorative wood shingles on exterior roof and wall planes. site - the location of an historical event, commonly used to denote an archeological deposit or the location of a vanished building or structure. State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) - agency created in each state and territory by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 that is responsible for implementing Federal historic preservation policy. In Minnesota, the SHPO is part of the Historic Preservation, Field Services, and Grants Department of the Minnesota Historical Society. streetscape - the distinguishing character of a street, including its physical configuration, paving materials, street furniture, and the facades of the buildings fronting on it. structure - term used to distinguish functional constructions such as bridges, roadways, mounds, and railroad grades from buildings. style - in architectural history, building forms characterized by their composition, struc- ture, ornamentation, and general character; also used to encompass the qualities shared by the professionally designed architecture during a particular historic period. subculture - as used in this document, an area within a neighborhood that is distin- 82 guished by its architecture, social or economic status, ethnic background, and historic character. subsistence agriculture - a system of farming that emphasizes production for on -farm consumption, with little surplus fui sale. survey - the process of identifying and documenting cultural resources, including the physical search for and recording of historic properties. terrace - a bench -like platform of land formed alongside a river, above the floodplain (i.e., the area covered by the flood waters of a river), usually formed in the distant past when the river carried a much higher volume of water. vernacular - term applied to buildings, structures, and landscapes constructed by corn- mon people and based on traditional notions of convenience, utility, and aesthetics. Vernacular architecture includes regional folk and popular house building traditions as well as commercial, industrial, and civic buildings constructed from commercially avail- able plans. Victorian - as a division in the scale of time, the era when Victoria was queen of England, 1837 to 1901. In architecture history, the term refers to the picturesque styles (Queen Anne, Eastlake, Stick, Shingle) based on Classical and Medieval precedents which enjoyed wide popularity between the 1860s and the 1900s. zoning - municipal regulations enacted under a city's police power to establish official controls over the uses of buildings and lands in specific areas. 83