Statewide Group Needs Your Help To Save History in SW Minneapolis

Preservation Alliance of Minnesota is looking for endangered buildings.

Every city is constantly in the process of tearing down the old and building up the new, and Minneapolis is no exception. From Uptown's new apartment buildings built on old factory foundations to Linden Hills and Fulton residents who tear down their old houses in anticipation of planting their growing families in the neighborhood for the long haul, we often blot out bits of history to meet our current needs, and often do so at great speed. The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, a statewide group dedicated to saving historic buildings, acknowledged as much recently, when it ditched a yearly campaign where it raced to save the state's 10 most threatened historic buildings from destruction. In its place, the PAM is building something called…

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Editor's Notebook

You Won't Believe What Your Neighborhood Looked Like Over 50 Years Ago

Southwest Minneapolis has changed remarkably.

Inspired by reader Andy Gifford's great find last week—photographic evidence of the humble beginnings of Curran's Restaurant—I went digging around the Minnesota Historical Society's photographic archives. The changes are striking. Want more local history and old photos? Check out the Linden Hills History Study Group website.

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James Sanna

9:40 pm on Saturday, February 2, 2013

That's awesome! How much difference is there between the photo and your memories of that block?   more ›

Lyndale Bridge Reconstruction May Turn Up History

What will be uncovered as construction workers excavate 19th century mill ruins?

Minnesotans tend not to talk about long-lost historic ruins very much, probably because they're in such short supply: development has mostly buldozed them over or, in the case of the current Lyndale Avenue Bridge, encased them in concrete.  But now, as work crews begin to dismantle the bridge this winter as part of a $9 million set of road improvements on Lyndale from 56th Street to Minnehaha creek, some of those ruins may be uncovered, according to an article in Finance and Commerce. Historians and archaeologists will be looking for pieces of the original stone bridge across Minnehaha Creek, as well as ruins from an early mill. As Southwest Minneapolis Patch reported earlier this year, Minnehaha creek was once a key driver of the area's …

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