History - Uptown, Minneapolis

History
Since the 1800s, the Uptown area of Minneapolis was home to a wide range of activities. In the 1830s, an area on the east side of Lake Calhoun was home to a Dakota village. Settlement from Minneapolis moved outward in the 1870s, with a farm house and farming activities occurring in the north section of Uptown. A large hotel on the east side of Lake Calhoun drew those from the city by a street railway from the late 1870s to the late 1880s.

Rapid development in Uptown began in the late 1890s and into the early 1900s as electric streetcars and the real estate speculation drove outward from the city core. Many of the houses in Uptown date from this period. During this time the park system in Minneapolis began to dramatically take shape, creating much of what we enjoy today. Lake dredging and parkways made the lakes more of a pleasant sight and more accessible.

Business Directory
Status: Final data entry sets | Started: Fall 2005.
This project is looking at property addresses and the business names associated with the addresses over time. It will allow individuals to pick a property and follow the businesses located there over time. In addition, it will be possible to look for trends in property and in business types over time.

Newspaper Clippings
Status: In progress | Started: Summer 2005.
This project provides OurUptown.com viewers with an opportunity to reread (or read for the first time) newspaper articles relating to Uptown from years past.

Business Profiles
Status: To be started | Start Date: Fall 2006
From the Rainbow Cafe to the Uptown Theater, Acme Awning Company to Acme Tag Company, Schlampp's Furs to Sim's Mens Wear - Uptown has had one of the strongest business communities in the Minneapolis area. This project will share with you businesses past.

People Profiles
Status: To be started | Start Date: Spring 2007
What's Uptown without people? Not much. This project seeks to share more about influential Uptowners as well as those who maybe didn't make headlines.

The Snyder Family Collection
Snyders operated in Uptown for six decades in Uptown. The drug store first opened in the 1940s at the southeast corner of Hennepin and Lake. It was not until the mid-1970s when Snyders moved to its last Uptown home at 2939 Hennepin Avenue. Check out twelve photos (opens in new window) from the 1970s of Snyders and Uptown, courtesy of Mrs. Snyder and her family.

Uptown Minneapolis
by Thatcher Imboden and Cedar Imboden Phillips
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Year: 2004
Available: Online and in stores
List: $19.99
"One of Minneapolis’ most celebrated communities, Uptown is a distinct group of four vibrant neighborhoods that have long offered a host of cultural treasures to residents and visitors alike. In addition to the entertainment provided by the area's nightspots and lakes, Uptown also has a long history of presenting its residents with a wide range of housing choices, schools, churches and temples, parks, restaurants, and stores. This book uses rare photographs to document and celebrate Uptown’s development from a 19th-century summer retreat and agricultural area into a thriving metropolitan business, entertainment, and residential district."

Uptown Minneapolis

The Lake District of Minneapolis: A History of the Calhoun-Isles Community
by David Lanegran and Ernest Sandeen
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Year: 2004
Available: Online and in stores
List: $19.99
"The Minneapolis lake district, which includes Lowry Hill, Kenwood, Lake of the Isles, and East Calhoun, has always attracted a unique mix of people. Some came to make their fortune, others to live a splendid life in what was then open country. Some came to build comfortable family homes, others to promenade along the lake shores or to revel in outdoor sports and recreation. No matter the year or the season, the lake district has always taken center stage in Minneapolis’s urban life. David A. Lanegran and Ernest R. Sandeen give us the complete history of the area—from the early Native American villages and pioneering missionaries, through the era of the grand resort and the coming of the streetcars, to the park board’s remaking of the lakes and the landscape in 1911. With many vivid photographs and illustrations, the book concludes with historical walking tours of the Lowry Hill, Kenwood, East Lowry Hill, Lake of the Isles, East Calhoun, and Cottage City neighborhoods."

The Lake District of Minneapolis

The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line: A Memory Trip through the Twin Cities
by Aaron Isaacs and Bill Graham
Publisher: Donning Company Publishers
Year: 2002
Available: In stores
List: $12.75
"Until 1954, Twin Citians depended on electrically powered streetcars to take them to work, school, and shopping. The big yellow wooden trolleys provided frequent reliable service to every neighborhood. One of the streetcar lines, the Como-Harriet, was itself a tour of the best of the Twin Cities. Beginning in downtown St. Paul, it traveled past the state capital, Como Park, the State Fair, Dinkytown, downtown Minneapolis, Uptown, and the lakes of southwest Minneapolis on its way to Edina and Hopkins. A small piece of the Como-Harriet survives today at Lake Harriet, operated by the Minnesota Transportation Museum. With vintage photos and childhood memories, The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line offers an intimate tour of the everyday Twin Cities, as they were in 1950. Much has changed since then - but much has not."

The Como-Harriet Streetcar Line