About Mid-City Industrial Area

About Mid-City Industrial Area. . , Stinson Boulevard was the first parkway created in Minneapolis. In 1885 James Stinson donated land, from Division Street (now East Hennepin Avenue) to East Broadway Street, for the parkway. At the time, Stinson Boulevard marked the east edge of Minneapolis and sat in undeveloped countryside. Areas on the bluff to the east, near Lauderdale, were platted for residential development. In 1907 Columbus School was built at Hoover and Winter Streets NE to serve the potential residential population there and in the east Como neighborhood., The Mid-City Industrial Area (north of you) that extends from East Hennepin Avenue to New Brighton Boulevard, and from three blocks west of Stinson Boulevard to the city limits at 33rd Avenue, was designated as the Minneapolis Industrial Area in 1913, when Minneapolis began to limit land uses to restricted residential or industrial areas. Prior to 1913 this had been open land used for farming. The consortium of railroads called the Minnesota Transfer Railway laid track along Traffic St. NE, parallel to East Hennepin Ave., with spurs to future industrial plants and warehouses., It was only after World War I that the Mid-City Industrial Area developed. In the 1920s the giant Northwestern Terminal Company complex rose along Stinson Boulevard and Kennedy Streets NE; Cream of What built its new plant at Stinson and Broadway; Glidden Paint Co. and other manufacturers built factories along the north east side of East Hennepin Avenue. General Mills had its Research Laboratories at 2010 East Hennepin Avenue from 1930 to 1958., Nicollet-Stinson streetcars turned up Stinson from East Heppenin Ave. taking workers from all over the city to and from their jobs., Columbus School , 1922. Photo courtesy of Minneapolis Public Schools, Northwestern Terminal Building , Normal and Peel, 1935. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society, Employees on the steps of the General Mills Research Laboratories , Norman and Peel, 1938. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. , [reverse] , The center and the eastern part of the Mid-City Industrial Area had a different history, involving a city parkway and a huge gravel pit., By 1924, Minneapolis Superintendent of Parks Theodore Wirth had arranged the construction of Francis Gross (formerly Armour) public golf course and the extension of St. Anthony Boulvard along the east edge of the city to East Hennepin Avenue. South of East Broadway Street, St. Anthony Boulevard followed the route of today's Industrial Boulevard, but on the high bluff., The lower end of the parkway was undone in the early 1930s to permit the owner of a large gravel pit to the west of it to continue excavation of the hill. Wirth then designed Ridgway Parkway to connect St. Anthony Boulevard with Stinson Boulevard. Beginning in the 1960s, industrial transition and freeway construction changed the character of the area. The warehouses and trucking enterprises that now occupy the former gravel pit were constructed after the pit was closed in the 1960s., Recent modernization of some 1920s factories has led to new uses, including housing., Arial view of gravel pit , 1962. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey, Cream of Wheat Company , 730 Stinson Boulevard , Charles P. Gibson, ca. 1928. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society, Glidden Paint Company , 1901 East Hennepin Avenue , Norton and Peel, 1958. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society. , Text provided by the Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA)