Saint Paul is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the county seat of Ramsey County, and the state capital of Minnesota. The origin and growth of the city were spurred by the proximity of Fort Snelling, the first major United States military installation in the area, as well as by the city's location on the northernmost navigable port of the Upper Mississippi River.
Fort Snelling, originally known as Fort Saint Anthony, was established in 1819, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers in order to establish American dominance of the fur-trading industry on the rivers. As the whiskey trade started to flourish, military officers in Fort Snelling banned distillers from the land the fort controlled. Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, a retired French Canadian fur trader turned bootlegger, was a particular source of irritation to military officers. In 1838, Parrant moved his bootlegging operation downstream about to Fountain Cave, in the north bank of the river near what is now Saint Paul's West Seventh Street neighborhood. There, Parrant established the area that became known as "L'Œil de Cochon" (French for "Pig's Eye"), and the location began to be settled by fellow French Canadians, as well as others exiled from Fort Snelling. An 1837 treaty with local Native Americans secured the city for white settlement. In 1841, the settlement was named Saint-Paul by Father Lucien Galtier, a priest from France, in honor of Paul the Apostle. By the early 1840s the area had become important as a trading center, a stopping point for settlers heading west, and was known regionally as Pig's Eye or Pig's Eye Landing. The Minnesota Territory was formalized in 1849 with Saint Paul as its capital. Saint Paul was incorporated as a city in 1854, and in 1858, Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd state of the union with Saint Paul as its capital.
Natural geography played a role in Saint Paul's settlement and development as a trade and transportation center. The Mississippi River valley surrounding the city has numerous stone bluffs lining both sides of the river. Saint Paul developed around Lambert's Landing, the last easily accessible point to unload boats coming upriver, some downstream from Saint Anthony Falls, the geographic feature that defined the location of Minneapolis and its prominence as the "Mill City". This made Saint Paul a gateway to the Upper Midwest for settlers westbound to the Minnesota frontier or the Dakota Territory. In 1858, more than 1,000 steamboats unloaded cargo and passengers at Saint Paul. The Saint Anthony Trail, a cart and wagon road, led from Saint Paul to the Red River valley. The trail was followed by numerous railroads headquartered in Saint Paul, such as the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway, which are today part of the BNSF Railway. For well over 100 years, Saint Paul was a frontier town and a railroad town. By the late 20th century, the city became more influenced by commerce, as well as its role as the state capital. It has been called "The Last City of the East".
The city's character has been defined by its people, beginning with Indigenous people such as the Kaposia band of the Mdewakanton Dakota, who have for centuries called the area that is now Saint Paul their home. Throughout its history, first-generation immigrants have been a dominant force in Saint Paul, introducing their languages, religions, and cultures. The influx of peoples is illustrated by the city's institutions, built by French, French Canadian, German, Swedish, Irish, Czech, Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Italian, Mexican, Somali, and Hmong people.
Geological history
During Upper Cambrian and Ordovician time, about 505 to 438 million years ago, shallow tropical seas covered much of then-equatorial southeastern Minnesota.Mossler, J. and Benson, S., 1995, 1999, 2006, Fossil Collecting in the Twin Cities Area. Minnesota at a Glance: Minnesota Geological Survey: University of Minnesota. During this time, the sedimentary rocks that constitute the bedrock of St. Paul were deposited. The most visible of these are the to thick layer of St. Peter Sandstone, the lowest layer of sedimentary rock above the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, which is overlain by a thin— to thick—layer of Glenwood Shale and capped by a thick layer of Platteville Limestone. These units are overlain by the fossiliferous Decorah Shale, which is in some places completely eroded and in others up to thick, and exposed at the brickyards, a popular fossil hunting location in Lilydale Park.Official Lilydale Park Fossil Hunting Webpage All the units exposed on the surface in St. Paul are of Ordovician age. Marine fossils can be seen embedded in limestone structures, such as the Henry Hastings Sibley House.
About 20,000 years ago, the area was covered by the Superior Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet, which left the St. Croix moraine on the Twin Cities as it receded. Later the Grantsburg Sublobe of the Des Moines Lobe also covered the area. These thick layers of ice cut through the Platteville limestone cap rock with tremendous force, forming tunnel valleys, and released glacial meltwater. The result was a series of troughs in the limestone, which were filled by glacial till and outwash deposit as the glaciers receded. Sometimes the sediment was mixed with huge chunks of ice, which left voids, or kettles, in the soil. These kettles later filled with water and became Lake Como and Lake Phalen.
Glacial River Warren was a prehistoric river that drained Lake Agassiz in central North America between 11,700 and 9,400 years ago. Lake Agassiz, which was up to 600–700 feet (~200 m) deep, and at various times covered areas totaling over 110,000 square miles (~300,000 km2),Lusardi, Quaternary Glacial Geology , pp. 3-4; Sansome, Minnesota Underfoot, p. 175. The area actually inundated at one time was somewhat less. was formed from the meltwaters of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the Wisconsonian glaciation of the last ice age. This lake's enormous outflow carved a wide valley now occupied by the much smaller Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi River below its confluence with the Minnesota. Blocked by an ice sheet to the north, the lake water rose until about 9,700 years Before Present (BP), when it overtopped the Big Stone Moraine, a ridge of glacial drift left by the receding glacier, at the location of Browns Valley, Minnesota. The lake's outflow was catastrophic at times,Fisher, River Warren Boulders , pp. 348, 350. creating a wide valley to Saint Paul, where the massive River Warren Falls once graced the landscape. Over 1700 years this waterfall retreated upstream and undercut the Mississippi at the site of Fort Snelling. The falls then split. The Mississippi falls migrated upstream to form Saint Anthony Falls and create Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. The River Warren falls receded west in the Minnesota River valley until they reached an older buried river valley about two miles (3 km) west of the confluence, where the falls were extinguished.Waters, The Streams and Rivers of Minnesota, pp. 226-28. The high bluffs on either side of the river represent the channel dug by the River Warren as it carried massive volumes of water through Saint Paul.
First people
About 2,000 years ago, as many as 37 burial mounds were constructed by the Hopewell culture, one of several Native American Mound builders at present-day Indian Mounds Park. The dead were buried with artifacts, indicating a religious tradition. The Hopewell culture's mounds were built in a distinctive fashion, burying the deceased's ashes; the Dakota people later used the same site to bury their dead, wrapping the bodies in animal skins. The Dakota lived near the site of the mounds in the village of Kaposia. Below the mounds was a large cave at the base of the bluff. The Dakota called Carver's Cave "Wakan Tipi" ("sacred lodge", or "dwelling of the sacred"). Petroglyphs of rattlesnakes and bears were cut into the sandstone walls. After the 1837 Treaty of St. Peters, the roughly 200 Dakota living on the bluffs of Saint Paul vacated the area and moved to the west side of the Mississippi River. The land was soon colonized by French Voyageurs, who staked claims to plots on Dayton's Bluff.
Dakota people refer to the area encompassing Saint Paul as Bdóte, which they considered a site of creation.
European-American settlement
England claimed the land east of the Mississippi and France, then Spain, and again France claimed the land west of the river as further territory of New France. In 1787, land on the east side of the river became part of the Northwest Territory. Between the 1780s and 1800s, Spanish traders from St. Louis traded through the region, including Manuel Lisa and José María Vigó (also known as Francisco Vigó). From 1837 to 1848, Saint Paul grew from a few traders of mostly French and French Canadian origins, with tents and shacks on the riverside, to a small town with settlers starting to put down roots; in 1840, the town had only nine cabins scattered between the Upper and Lower Landings. Some were members of Manitoba's failed Red River Colony. They were soon joined by first-generation American pioneers. No structures have survived from this period. In 1841, Father Lucien Galtier established a Catholic chapel, Saint Paul's Chapel, on the bluffs above the landing (near present-day Second Street and Cedar Street), naming it in honor of his favorite saint and because of the pairing with Saint Peter's Church in Mendota, upstream and across the river. While it is said that the area had until that time been called "Pig's Eye" (French: L'Oeil du Cochon) or "Pig's Eye Landing" after the tavern of settler Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, the landing by the chapel gradually became named known as "Saint Paul's Landing" and the chapel's name was gradually applied to the entire settlement. The name Saint Paul was first used in official records at the marriage of Vetel and Adele Guerin on January 26, 1841. In 1847, the Baptist schoolteacher Harriet Bishop came from Vermont (via New York City) and opened the city's first school in a cabin at St. Peter Street and Kellogg Boulevard. There she taught children of diverse ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds and supported the temperance movement. Harriet Island was named for her. In 1849, the Minnesota Territory was formalized and Saint Paul was named its capital. Justus Ramsey's older brother, Philadelphia politician Alexander Ramsey, moved there to become the first territorial governor. In 1850, the city narrowly survived a proposed law to move the capital to Saint Peter when territorial legislator Joe Rolette absconded with the approved bill.
Early boom years, 1849–1860
In the decade following its designation as the territorial capital, Saint Paul's population grew from 900 in 1849 to 10,000 in 1860. William Williams described this boom town during a visit on June 14, 1849: