ONE DAY: ST. PAUL - SECTION ONE

SECTION ONE:

MICKEY'S DINER -

BETWEEN THEN AND NOW

RECOMMENDED TIME WINDOW: 8:30am - 9:30am Disregard if doing A La Carte or going at own pace

START POINT: MICKEY'S DINER 36 7th St. W St. Paul, MN 55103

MICKEY'S DINER

Personal car users: there is free parking available in the skinny lot just to the southwest of the dining car that is Mickey’s Diner.

One Day: St. Paul opens without fade in, fanfare or preamble. Like an early Quentin Tarantino film.

Enter through the front door of Mickey’s Diner, grab a seat in a booth or at the counter.

Say your greetings to the wait staff. Take a gander at the menu. Order your breakfast. Everything and anything on the menu is great and the apotheosis of diner delights. You can’t go wrong.

Now . . . settle in for the day. Take a breath.

Where are we? What happened? WHAT YEAR IS IT?!

Mickey’s Diner is obviously historical. We’re currently sitting in what may be the best place to discuss and consider the history of St. Paul, second largest, second most populous and capital city of Minnesota. We’re smack dab in the middle of the city, in a vessel that came from smack dab in the middle of the city’s timetable of existence.

Built in 1937 by the Jerry O’Mahony Diner Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, sent by rail, opened in 1939, Mickey’s Diner is on the National Register of Historic Places. It is a perfect representation of Great Depression and World War II era eateries, one of the best and last examples of its type in the Midwest. 

The back of the menu does a better job at describing their history, but I would like to add that this place served as a location for numerous films and TV shows, including The Mighty Ducks, Jingle All the Way and Prairie Home Companion; Man v. Food, Rachel Ray’s Tasty Travels and Unwrapped.

Now, let’s discuss about a time further back than 1939. Let’s go back . . . to 1805, right after the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. The beginning of the actual origin, the catalyst that set in motion Western Expansion in this neck of the woods.

Zebulon Montgomery Pike was tasked with setting up forts in the new land granted by the Purchase around the Mississippi River for two main purposes: 1) To deter the British from setting up fur trading in these sectors, and 2) To be a go-between, placating the Native Americans while helping white settlers settle in.

Pike found two locations for forts, both at confluences of rivers: the St. Croix and the Mississippi, and the Minnesota and Mississippi. This latter later became Fort Snelling, the spark from which all of the Cities and the State flamed into being.

He purchased the land from the confluence up the Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, in what is now Minneapolis, plus nine miles stretching on either side of the river, for $2000 worth of trading goods and sixty gallons of liquor (the land was actually worth $200,000).

1819 saw the construction of Fort Snelling, and shortly after, settlers began taking advantage of nearby river shoreline, setting up the first settlement in the area, Mendota (a derivation of Bdote or Mdote, the Dakota word for the area of the Mississippi/Minnesota confluence and what is now the Twin Cities; a place of creation, the center of the Dakota universe, from which all things came to be). The American Fur Company built a trading post here in 1823. Steamships began landing with visitors and trading supplies that same year.

The area 5 miles downriver from the fort, at the extreme bend of the river, became known as Pig’s Eye Landing, after Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant, a retired French Canadian fur trader turned bootlegger, who set up his bootlegging operation there, in 1837. It was a natural landing spot on the river, and was considered the head of navigation on the Mississippi, due to an extremely hard to pass gorge just north of Fort Snelling (this has since been cleaned of rocks and debris, and due to the Ford Dam built in 1917, is easily passable by commercial ship).

Fur traders (especially emigres from the Red River Valley, in now northwestern Minnesota, having lost work up that way), took to this locale, as well as westward expanding settlers looking to get an early start on possible land speculation once the Native Americans ceded more land. Trade was good at the Fort and in Mendota, which was easy enough to get passed down to Pig’s Eye.

Father Lucien Galtier, a priest from France, came upriver to bring Catholicism to these frontiersmen. He admitted being a bit taken aback by the depravity (namely, drinking!) of the inhabitants, including the soldiers at the fort. He especially set to correct the errant ways of the emigres in Pig’s Eye, and constructed a church on a bluff above. He called it the Church of Saint Paul to go with the church in Mendota, the Church of Saint Peter (this latter church still stands in Mendota, whereas the Church of Saint Paul is long gone). Officials decided to call Pig’s Eye Saint Paul instead to reflect this new maturity of soul and outlook.

There is some dispute to the truth of the story of Pig’s Eye becoming St. Paul. Most likely, “Pig’s Eye” had moved docks downriver a number of times, and had one near current Pig’s Eye Lake. One letter was mailed from there, and had to have a return address, and the author probably made a tongue in cheek reference to mailing it from “Pig’s Eye”. Parrant disappeared in the early 1840’s. He was just a fun character that certain publications, chiefly, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, had fun with and used to dress up the origins of the St. Paul name to entice newcomers from the East Coast to come visit and live in the new frontier. Including making up the story of having Lucien Galtier declaiming from his church atop the white bluffs that the city was now St. Paul, God Be Praised!!!! In reality, the area surrounding Fort Snelling and the river was known as St. Peter, and Galtier named his church St. Paul to go along with residing in St. Peter (Peter and Paul). A post office was built near the St. Paul parrish, and was known as the St. Paul Post Office. It was just a convenient name, really, to use for the area. I can see why people stuck to the more dramatic story of Catholicism righting the vices wrought by a bootlegging ne’er-do-well.

By the early 1840s the area became an important hub for trade and a stopping point for people flocking to settle the west. It was the last stop they could make by the river before setting off on foot and wagon.

The documentation written with the making of the Minnesota Territory in 1849 declared Saint Paul the capital, manifesting into being a city that hadn’t even been built yet! In 1854 Saint Paul was incorporated as a city, and in 1858, once Minnesota became a state, it remained the capital.

Since then, St. Paul has been a mecca of commerce and finance. Its placement at the head of navigation for so long allowed for exponential growth, along with being so close to Minneapolis. The two cities during the 1800’s and early 1900’s were in a constant sibling rivalry of oneupmanship, like hands climbing a baseball bat to see which team bats first.

As the cities grew to meet at the Mississippi River, the rivalry dissipated. They now encompass the core of the Twin Cities metro, a metro of seven counties that all share a unique form of regional government, the Metropolitan Council, the only one of its kind in the nation. It deals with “public transit, wastewater treatment, water supply and monitoring, planning for future growth, regional parks and trails development, and affordable housing for low-income households” (“Becoming the Twin Cities: Swindles, Schemes, and Enduring Rivalries” by Drew M. Ross). Operating outside of municipal and county government, they inform legislation, and officials defer to them. A novel system of symbiotic trust. It can be argued that the Met Council’s existence is one of the top entities making up the glue keeping the Twin Cities together as one entity . . . as well as another entity that is the focus of the next section on this Loreway . . . more on that soon.

With this last, I’ll leave you be for a while. Your food should be ready soon!

Once finished, I’ll meet back up with you at 9:30am for Section 2! Enjoy breakfast in the heart of St. Paul!!!

CLICK HERE TO BEGIN SECTION TWO: COMO PARK - THE MIDDLE GROUND!