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Brewery Opening Map

Map Monday: US Brewery Openings by Month

By on October 8, 2018 in History, Maps

Via Twitter, and the Chief Economist of the Brewer’s Association, comes this map of US brewery openings grouped by month, starting in 1900 to the present day. Animated map of U.S. brewery openings grouped by month. The explosion in the last few years is incredible. pic.twitter.com/SaPFuNXICl — Bart Watson (@BrewersStats) August 31, 2018 Cheers!

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Driverless Cars and the Cult of Technology

By on September 7, 2018 in Cars, Culture, Development, Environment, History, Traffic, Transportation, Trends

We constantly hear that driverless cars are just around the corner. We’re told they will revolutionize transportation and enable us to continue using our car-based transport and land-use system. If they’re made by Tesla, they’ll be powered by magic, solar-powered, super efficient batteries and we’ll all be able to keep living our hyper-mobile, hyper-consumptive lifestyles […]

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In 1923, You Could Buy Pedestrian Insurance for 75 Cents

By on August 21, 2018 in Bicycling, Cars, Health, History, Media, Safety, Streets, Walking

If you subscribed to the Minneapolis Daily Star in 1923, you could get a year’s worth of pedestrian insurance for an extra 75 cents.   The add-on deal was just what it sounds like: insurance coverage for injuries (including fatal injuries) you might incur while walking across the street. The offer, through the North American Accident […]

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The Abandonment and Rescue of Landmark Center in Saint Paul

By on August 20, 2018 in Architecture, History

In 1969, demolition of one of the most elegant Richardson Romanesque-Chateauesque-Style public buildings in the Upper Midwest seemed imminent. The federal government had declared the nearly vacant Federal Courts and Post Office Building (later named Landmark Center) in downtown St. Paul to be surplus property. Many public officials and business leaders in the city saw […]

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‘One Killed Here’: Early 20th-Century Minneapolis Traffic Safety Campaigns

By on August 13, 2018 in Cars, Education, History, Media, Public Policy, Streets, Traffic, Walking

The advent of automobiles and accompanying pedestrian casualties shook up Minneapolis. Over the first half of the 20th century, the city saw a series of public awareness campaigns led by municipal government and local newspapers, with slogans that evolved from “Safety Over Sorrow” and “One Killed Here” to “Traffic Victims” and “Safest Big City … […]

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A History of Minnesota’s Highways, Part 6

By on August 9, 2018 in Freeways, History, Infrastructure

This is Part Six of an ongoing series of the history of Minnesota’s trunk highway system. Part One covered the early days of government and privately built roads. Part Two covered the events leading up to the establishment of the trunk highway system in 1920. Part Three covered the coming of the U.S. numbered highways and the 1920s improvement projects.  Part Four covered […]

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‘I Am King of the Streets Because I Am Only a Pedestrian’

By on August 8, 2018 in History, Streets, Walking

  “I am king of the streets because I am only a pedestrian.” That was the philosophy of a self-described lowly municipal employee during his 15 minutes of fame in an article on an inside page of the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune in 1916. Horace E. Johnson sauntered city streets as he wished, the newspaper reported, and […]

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Map Monday: Cycle Tracks from Minneapolis, 1896

By on August 6, 2018 in History, Maps

Via the collections of the Minnesota Historical Society comes this map of the principal cycle runs out of Minneapolis in 1896. It is taken from the Minneapolis Times. It is available for purchase as a reprint from MNHS, but beware its current accuracy or safety.

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The Story of Rice Park

By on August 3, 2018 in History, Parks

Through provident circumstances, Rice Park has been able to maintain the whole of its land and its remarkable features while its surrounding buildings have maintained their handsome architectural solidity, preserving strong edges to the park. In this aspect, these stalwart edges meet architectural historian Christopher Alexander’s statement, in his book A Pattern Language, that “The […]

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The Story of Saint Paul’s Selby Avenue Tunnel

By on July 31, 2018 in History, Streetcars

As Saint Paul’s population grew in the late 19th Century, people began moving out of the city’s core and into residential areas adjacent to downtown. The Selby Avenue streetcar line was built in 1888 to provide people with transportation from their homes on top of the hill to the offices, factories, and shops downtown, and to […]

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