This list is of the properties and historic districts which are designated on the National Register of Historic Places or that were formerly so designated, in Hennepin County, Minnesota; there are 190 entries as of April 2023. A significant number of these properties are a result of the establishment of Fort Snelling, the development of water power at Saint Anthony Falls, and the thriving city of Minneapolis that developed around the falls. Many historic sites outside the Minneapolis city limits are associated with pioneers who established missions, farms, and schools in areas that are now suburbs in that metropolitan area.
Historical background
Hennepin County
Father Louis Hennepin was the first European explorer to visit and name Saint Anthony Falls, the tallest waterfall on the Mississippi River, in 1680. While the falls were familiar to the Ojibwe and Sioux Indians who lived in the area, Father Hennepin spread word of the falls when he returned to France in 1683. The land east of the Mississippi came under England's control in 1763, and then became American territory after the American Revolutionary War in 1783. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the western side of the falls became American territory as well.[1]
Zebulon Pike explored the Mississippi River in 1805 and made a treaty with the Sioux to acquire land on either side of the Mississippi River from its confluence with the Minnesota River to Saint Anthony Falls. The United States did not do much to occupy the land until 1819, when Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth was ordered to establish a military post in the area. The following year, Colonel Josiah Snelling established a permanent fort at a blufftop site overlooking Pike Island and the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. The fort, first named Fort Saint Anthony and later Fort Snelling, became an island of civilization in the wilderness.[1]
In 1837, Franklin Steele established a claim for the land on the east side of Saint Anthony Falls. Within the next ten years, he established a sawmill at the falls, and lumbermen from the north began cutting trees and sending them to Steele's sawmill. In 1849, Steele subdivided his property and filed a plat for the town of Saint Anthony. Sawmilling and early flour milling attempts proved successful, and by 1855 the fledgling town of Saint Anthony had more than three thousand residents.[1] The west side of the river was part of the Fort Snelling military reservation until it was released for development in 1854. In 1849, John H. Stevens obtained 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land on the west side of the falls in exchange for maintaining a ferry at the falls. Hennepin County was established in 1852, and the settlement on the west side of the river was given the name Minneapolis, as coined by Charles Hoag. The two towns prospered as a result of industries and businesses based around the falls, but business was better on the west side of the falls. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, and three years later it merged with the village of Saint Anthony.[1]
Eventually, flour mills overtook sawmills as a dominant industry at the falls. In 1860, flour production stood at 30,000 barrels; it reached 256,100 barrels in 1869. By 1874, Charles A. Pillsbury and Company owned five mills at the falls, and in 1879, Washburn-Crosby Company (now General Mills) owned four mills. The former Washburn "A" Mill building on the west side of the falls exploded on May 2, 1878, but its owners quickly rebuilt the west side district, including a new, larger Washburn "A" Mill. Meanwhile, in 1880, Pillsbury began building the huge Pillsbury "A" Mill on the east side of the falls. It had a capacity of 4,000 barrels per day when it first opened.[2] Improvements in milling technology made it possible to grind the tougher spring wheat into a finer product, producing Minnesota "patent" flour, the finest bread flour in the world at that time. By 1900, Minneapolis was grinding 14.1 percent of the world's grain.[3]
Hospital building constructed in five phases 1910–1958, reflecting the growing specialization and sophistication of the medical industry in the 20th century. Also a contributing property to the Stevens Square Historic District.[7]
Adjoining 1900 and 1904 buildings exemplifying the Sullivanesque style influencing large industrial and commercial properties at the turn of the 20th century.[8]
Headquarters 1942–1968 of Minnesota's first and most influential chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous, based in an 1887 house with 1916 and 1950 additions.[9]
1929 example of the open-spandrel concrete arch bridges developed in the Twin Cities area in the late 1920s; also noted for providing a key connection between two river communities. Extends into Anoka County.[12]
1920 joint office building for design professionals, noted for its exceptional Renaissance Revival architecture by Hewitt and Brown and association with several leading architects, engineers, and interior designers.[13]
Minneapolis's oldest intact school, dating to 1886; representative of the 19th-century emphasis on education through its castle-like architecture and origin during a frenzy of construction by Minneapolis Public Schools.[20]
1883 Carpenter Gothic/Stick style house and outbuildings built by the manager of the Minnetonka Mills Company, the first mill west of Minneapolis and nucleus of the first town in western Hennepin County.[22] Now a house museum and park.
Exemplary Chicago School warehouse/office building designed by Minneapolis architect Harry Wild Jones and constructed 1906–8.[23] Now known as Butler Square.
One of the nation's few surviving factories associated with the early greeting card industry, in use 1923–1942; also noted for its wartime conversion to producing crucial military optics 1942–1946.[24]
Warehouse built 1909–1911 in sections that juxtapose traditional timber framing with newly developed reinforced concrete construction, encapsulating a major shift in early-20th-century warehouse engineering.[30]
Leading example of the Twin Cities' renowned concrete arch bridges of the 1920s, whose 435-foot (133 m) main span was the world's longest of its type upon completion in 1923. Better known as the Franklin Avenue Bridge.[31]
Warehouse occupied 1907–1958 by the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company, one of the nation's leading farm equipment manufacturers. Also noted for anchoring a new warehouse district in a previously disreputable part of Minneapolis.[35]
Leading example, completed in 1929, of the monumental reinforced-concrete arch bridges built to span the Twin Cities' high river bluffs at the beginning of the automobile era; the master work of engineer Kristoffer Olsen Oustad. Now the 10th Avenue Bridge.[36]
Prominent six-building apartment complex constructed 1970–74, a nationally significant example of urban renewal as the first project funded under Title VII. Also noted as a major work of Minneapolis architect Ralph Rapson. Now known as Riverside Plaza.[37]
Two tiny 1902 cottages, unique examples of the simple summer lodgings built in the Minneapolis lake district. Joined as a single residence in the 1970s.[38]
Long-serving commodity marketplace that helped make Minneapolis a major international grain trade center, with three buildings constructed 1902–28. Also noted architecturally for the city's first steel building and one of its few Sullivanesque designs. Renamed the Minneapolis Grain Exchange in 1947.[39]
2.8-mile (4.5 km) trench and 28 bridges built 1912–1916 to separate rail and street traffic, an urban planning accomplishment to improve both safety and industry. Now part of the Midtown Greenway rail trail.[40]
1887 railway station that served as the primary local connection to Minneapolis; one of St. Louis Park's few surviving early buildings and a symbol of its growth.[41] Now a museum.[42]
Minneapolis' oldest surviving railway station, built 1897–9, with an earlier 1879 freight house. Also significant for their architecture, association with the milling district, and preservation of one of the nation's few remaining truss-roofed train sheds.[43] Now a commercial complex known as The Depot.[44]
Nationally influential modernist church built 1948–9; the master work of major 20th-century architect Eliel Saarinen, with a 1962 addition by his equally prominent son Eero Saarinen.[45]
Commercial building with an event hall, constructed in 1917 and expanded multiple times. Anchor of a prominent 20th-century commercial district in Longfellow, Minneapolis.[49]
1908 streetcar and restored .5-mile (0.80 km) track, a working remnant of the Twin Cities' major public transit system until 1954.[50] Now operated by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum.[51]
Suburban residential district established in 1922, one of Minnesota's first comprehensive planned communities and the prototype for Edina's housing developments. Also noted for its homogeneous Period Revival architecture.[52]
Island with 14 turn-of-the-20th-century summer cottages, representative of the era's rise in white-collar jobs, inter-urban rail transit for commuting, and the adoption of seasonal residences among Minnesota's middle class.[53]
Rare surviving example of a southern Hennepin County farmhouse, built in 1879 and expanded in 1910; owned by a noted local horticulturalist and diarist (1834–1921).[54]
Only surviving example of the Twin Cities' once-common Carpenter Gothic cottages, built by master carpenter B.O. Cutter for himself in 1856 and later owned by early Minneapolis leading citizen John Gilfillan (1835–1924).[55]
First Dayton's department store, built in 1902 and expanded multiple times in the 20th century; the flagship location and corporate headquarters of an influential local retailer.[56]
1894 one-room school with its original outhouses, embodying local efforts to provide education in rural Hennepin County. Also known as the Burschville School.[57]
1911 surgical hospital associated with a major evolutionary period in hospitals, and with influential local medical professionals George G. (1858–1928) and Jeanette Eitel (1875–1951).[59]
Two-block business district reflecting Exelsior's early years as a tourist destination and its mid-20th-century suburban diversification, with 32 contributing properties built 1886–1958.[60]
Bank building constructed 1891–92 and remodeled in 1908, significant as a prominent early example of the Beaux-Arts/Neoclassical style that became popular in Minneapolis.[62] Now houses a strip club.
Minnesota's only long-lived mutual savings bank, whose 1942 relocation to this building and prominent 1963 addition also convey the flight from and then stand against mid-20th-century urban decay in downtown Minneapolis as well as the architectural shift from Streamline Moderne to International Style.[63]
1893 fire station representative of late-19th/early-20th-century design during the last years of horse-drawn equipment. Also significant as the site where kittenball, a forerunner of softball, originated among exercising firefighters seeking a more compact form of baseball.[64]
Cemetery established in 1856 whose pioneer and Dakota burials and 1890 soldiers' monument reflect Bloomington's transition from frontier settlement to participant in state affairs like military service.[68]
Military complex established in 1819 and in use till 1946, instrumental in the development of the Upper Midwest and in the transition of the U.S. Army from a small frontier force into a major army.[71] Extends into Dakota County.
National cemetery dating to 1939, one of seven established in the years after World War I in a major expansion of the national cemetery program due to the increased number of veterans and dwindling burial space elsewhere.[72]
4,119-foot (1,255 m) bridge constructed 1925–26, noted for its sophisticated design and original status as the world's longest continuous concrete arch bridge. Extends into Dakota County.[73]
Lavish office building constructed 1927–29 to be Minneapolis's tallest skyscraper; noted for its unique obelisk-shaped design and its embodiment of the conspicuous consumption of the Roaring Twenties.[74]
Church begun by Warren H. Hayes in 1894 and completed by Harry Wild Jones in 1906, the only combined work of these major Minnesota architects. Also a symbol of the community works of the Scottish Rite since becoming the Scottish Rite Temple in 1915.[76]
House and orchard where horticulturalist Peter Gideon (1820–1899) experimented beginning in 1854 to produce winter-hearty fruit trees, succeeding most notably with the Wealthy apple.[79]
One of the nation's few surviving examples of a summer camp for children with tuberculosis, active 1925–1950, with five contributing properties. Also noted for its association with the Glen Lake Sanatorium and philanthropists George and Leonora Christian. Now Camp Eden Wood.[80]
Billboard installed in 1950, a local landmark and the only surviving large, free-standing, 20th-century advertisement for Grain Belt Beer, an enduringly popular Minnesota brand.[83]
1910 commercial/industrial building noted for its highly restrained ornamentation, inspired by the work of influential architect Louis Sullivan. Also known as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Building.[84]
1906 passenger/freight depot noted for its architecture and association with Wayzata's late-19th-century opposition to and early-20th-century embrace of the Great Northern Railway's route along its lakeside downtown.[85] Now houses a museum.[86]
1869 Gothic Revival house of an early Minnesota horticulturalist (1818–1903), who supplied Minneapolis with many of its shade trees and planted the first ginkgo and catalpa trees in the state.[87]
Unusually intact example of the diversified family farms that characterized Minnesota agriculture in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Established circa 1855, with 18 contributing properties mostly built in the 1890s.[88]
Oldest and most intact example—built in 1885—of the pin-connected Pratt truss bridges once common in the area. Now restricted to pedestrian traffic. Extends into Wright County.[89]
14 similar houses built 1886–1898 by contractor Theron P. Healy, exemplifying the phenomenon of upper-middle-class residential blocks designed and built by single contractors during Minneapolis's late-19th-century boom years.[19]
1925 library established entirely through local fundraising led by the Robbinsdale Library Club, symbolizing the self-improvement culture of the early 20th century.[90] Now the Robbinsdale Historical Society Museum.[91]
Leading 1921 example of the ornate vaudeville theatres of the early 20th century, associated with the entertainment district and popular culture of Minneapolis and with major national chain the Orpheum Circuit.[92] Now the Orpheum Theatre.[93]
Municipal golf course with the city's first clubhouse to be desegregated, in 1952, leading to further civil rights advances by Black golfers in Minnesota, with Hiawatha as a recreational and social nexus.[96]
Factory complex of one of Minneapolis's leading millwork companies, with three buildings constructed 1926–28 representative of the industry's early-to-mid-20th-century facilities.[103]
1923 house whose 1931–1933 occupancy by an African American family in a traditionally white neighborhood sparked one of Minnesota's largest racially motivated protests, a major incident in the broader saga of housing discrimination in Minneapolis.[106]
1921 commercial building representative of 1920s consolidation in the banking industry, housing one of the city's first branch offices of a national bank.[108]
1897 factory and adjacent 1909 warehouse/showroom (expanded in 1922) built for Minneapolis's earliest and largest furniture manufacturer, progenitor of a significant local industry and the anchor of a large furniture-making district.[111]
Minnesota's longest through truss bridge, constructed in 1920 with five camelback sections to cross a wide backwater lake. Also known as the Old Cedar Avenue Bridge.[114]
Surviving three buildings (constructed 1909–1916) of a pioneering women's hospital established by social reformer and women's rights advocate Dr. Martha Ripley (1843–1912).[118]
Minneapolis's first planned community for working class families—platted in 1883—with 32 surviving small houses also noted for their architectural consistency.[119][120]
Landmark brewery complex built 1891–1910, significant for its architecture by several notable architects and as a representative of a major industry of the Upper Midwest.[121]
Long-serving Richardsonian Romanesque government building constructed 1889–1905, called "one of the most impressive nineteenth century public buildings in the state and the Midwest" in its nomination.[122]
1909 maintenance shop of the Minneapolis Fire Department with a 1922 addition, associated with centralization of city operations and the department's conversion to motorized vehicles.[123]
Minneapolis's oldest extant cemetery, dating to 1858 and redeveloped 1928–1936, reflecting both the city's pioneer days and an early historic preservation movement.[124]
Nation's first library purpose-built with publicly accessible stacks, constructed in 1893; a Near North neighborhood landmark and one of Minneapolis's few intact works by Frederick Corser.[125]
30-block warehouse district representing Minneapolis's rise as a major distribution center in the late-19th/early-20th century, with 142 contributing properties built 1865–1930 by leading local architects.[126]
Only operating example of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company passenger boats that served summer residents and tourists around Lake Minnetonka 1906–1926 as an extension of the streetcar system. Scuttled in 1926, raised in 1980, reconstructed and relaunched as a museum ship in 1996.[128]
1879 hall of Minnesota's oldest subordinate Grange, organized in 1873. A longstanding social venue and only survivor of Edina's original four buildings.[129] Now managed by the Edina Historical Society alongside Cahill School.[26]
1889 park surrounding Minnehaha Falls, noted for its urban planning and several historic sites associated with pioneer life, transportation, commerce, and architecture.[130]
State old soldiers' home with 16 contributing properties built 1888–1937, noted for its architecture, influential approach to veteran care, and landscape design by Horace Cleveland.[132]
1928 water tower, linchpin of the municipal water supply system that allowed Minnetonka Beach to grow from an upper-class resort to a community of year-round residents, and a well-preserved example of a once-common early-20th-century design.[133]
1874 Italianate house with wood siding cut and textured to look like stone, one of Minneapolis's few surviving specimens exhibiting this style and aspirational middle-class pretense.[136]
1901 seminary turned campus center, noted for its integrity and longstanding importance as an educational institution. Now Augsburg University's Old Main.[138]
Exceptionally intact and well crafted barn built circa 1912, a rare vestige of the working farms established by wealthy estate owners around Lake Minnetonka in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.[140]
Well-preserved subdivision on the former urban fringe, reflecting the explosion of the middle class, adoption of automobiles, and popularity of period revival architecture in the 1920s and 30s.[141]
Formal academic campus at the University of Minnesota, the state's largest City Beautiful complex, with 19 contributing properties planned in 1910 and gradually built through 1971.[143]
Office and factory complex of Northrup-King, the nation's largest seed wholesaler for much of the 20th century, with seven contributing properties built 1916–1947.[144]
Minneapolis's first mixed-use development with office, retail, entertainment, and hotel space; opened in 1963 and expanded in 1966, playing a key role in revitalizing downtown.[145]
Factory complex built 1904–1915 for leading national underwear brand Munsingwear. Also noted for the first frameless reinforced concrete building in Minneapolis.[146] Now International Market Square.[147]
Headquarters built in 1924 for Minnesota's largest life insurance company, dating to 1885. Also significant for its Beaux-Arts architecture.[148] Now 430 Oak Grove apartments.
1910 example of the once-common apartment hotel, a middle-class urban housing option of the early 20th century offering furnished and unfurnished rooms and meals from a central kitchen.[149] Now The Continental group residential housing.
1915 water tower associated with Osseo's community planning and development, and one of a dwindling number of examples of a style commonplace between 1890 and 1940.[151]
World's first known example of a cylindrical reinforced-concrete grain elevator, built 1899–1900 as a prototype of a structure which came to be widely used across North America's grain producing regions.[154]
1975 Modernist urban park plaza designed by M. Paul Friedberg and Associates. Also significant as a major component in the 1960s–70s revitalization of downtown Minneapolis.[155]
1909 car dealership symbolizing the sudden growth of the early automobile industry; also associated with leading local dealer Harry E. Pence (1867–1933).[156]
Only intact major facility of Minneapolis's milling district, completed in 1881 and for many years the world's largest and most advanced flour mill.[158] Also a contributing property to the St. Anthony Falls Historic District.[159]
1911 commercial building significant as an influential early example of concrete frame construction and other advancements in engineering and building techniques.[160]
Unique suburban-like Minneapolis neighborhood with 692 contributing properties built 1884–1968, noted for its landscape architecture over hilly terrain, diverse housing stock, and cohesive social spirit through such innovations as the city's first community association.[163]
Ruins of an 1876 farmhouse providing a window on the life and construction techniques of a latter-19th-century German immigrant community on Lake Minnetonka. Preserved within Lake Minnetonka Regional Park.[172]
Warehouse/shop complex dating to 1927, marking the transition of major American retailer Sears from mail-order to brick-and-mortar, and the emergence of motorist-oriented commerce. Now the Midtown Exchange.[173]
Exemplary 1910 Shubert Brothers theatre designed by William Albert Swasey, important in the development of the early fine theatre scene in Minneapolis.[175] Now the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts.
House inhabited by pioneering black female lawyer Lena O. Smith (1885–1966), a prominent figure in local civil rights and activism in the period 1927–1940.[177]
800-acre (320 ha) district surrounding Saint Anthony Falls, nucleus of Minnesota's largest city: early landmark, source of power to Minneapolis's foundational milling industry, and site of the nation's first hydroelectric plant in 1882.[159]
1923 American Craftsman fire station built to blend into a residential neighborhood, representing progressive planning for fire protection and urban design during a period of high growth in Minneapolis.[178]
1914 fire station representing the extension of city services to Minneapolis' last outlying neighborhood, Linden Hills, and the Minneapolis Fire Department's transition to motorized equipment.[179]
Minneapolis' most cohesive example of high-density middle-class housing from the early 20th century, with 54 apartment buildings constructed 1912–1926 around a 1908 park.[180]
1920s garment factory significant as the site of a successful eight-month strike in 1935–36, a major turning point for the labor movement in Minneapolis history.[182]
Complex of 1886 townhouses and 1897 apartments noted for their Renaissance Revival architecture; some of the earliest compact luxury housing in Minneapolis.[185]
Early example of an apartment building catering to middle-class families seeking to live near downtown Minneapolis; constructed in 1899 with ground-floor retail space.[187]
Rare intact summer house from 1887, also symbolizing the development of Lake Minnetonka as an upper-middle-class resort and the underlying economic boom of 1880s Minneapolis.[188]
13 campus buildings constructed 1886–1907, significant for their association with the University of Minnesota's first period of expansion and their designs by several notable Minnesota architects.[192]
Elaborate 1893 mansion designed by notable Minneapolis architect Edgar Joralemon in an eclectic Richardsonian Romanesque/Renaissance Revival mix to symbolize the prosperity of a local business leader.[194]
Seven-building complex dating to 1879, associated with major innovations in the flour milling industry and the growth of General Mills.[196] Also contributing properties to the St. Anthony Falls Historic District.[159] Main building is now the Mill City Museum.[197]
Seven mansions built 1884–1912, associated with the second generation of prominent Minneapolitans and embodying the fashionable architecture of the period by notable local architects.[199]
1879 shipwreck, the nation's best preserved remains of a "model barge", a little-documented design pointed at both ends so it could be towed in either direction.[200]
Example of the distinctive two-story section houses built and maintained by the Great Northern Railway for employee housing, constructed in 1902 and expanded in 1944.[201]
Leading work by the leading architect of a period of major church construction in Minneapolis, built 1890–91 using Warren H. Hayes' adaptation of the Akron Plan and other innovative features.[202]
Church built 1896–97 for one of Minneapolis' oldest and most influential congregations, significant for providing social and community services since their establishment in 1857.[203]
1910 house/office and surrounding park associated with Theodore Wirth (1863–1949), nationally renowned landscape architect and influential superintendent of the Minneapolis park system.[206]
State-of-the-art 1928 bread factory, epitomizing the rise of industrial bakeries and the era's shift in consumer preferences to mass-produced, store-bought bread.[209]
bNames listed on the National Register may differ from the current or most common names of the structures. For example, the Washburn "A" Mill is now known as the Mill City Museum.[221]
^Anfinson, John O. (Spring 2003). "Spiritual Power to Industrial Might: 12,000 Years at St. Anthony Falls". Minnesota History. 58 (5): 252–269. ISSN0026-5497.
^Danbom, David B. (Spring 2003). "Flour Power: The Significance of Flour Milling at the Falls". Minnesota History. 58 (5): 271–285. ISSN0026-5497.
^ abNumbers represent an alphabetical ordering by significant words. Various colorings, defined here, differentiate National Historic Landmarks and historic districts from other NRHP buildings, structures, sites or objects.
^The eight-digit number below each date is the number assigned to each location in the National Register Information System database, which can be viewed by clicking the number.
^Hess, Roise and Company (2010-08-09). "Cedar Square West Statement of Significance"(PDF). National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: Cedar Square West. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2015-05-28. Retrieved 2015-03-11.
^Nelson, Charles W.; Susan Zeik (1977-01-10). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory -- Nomination Form: Hewitt, Edwin H., House". National Park Service.
