Visiting the Lumber Exchange Building in 1903, Minneapolis, Minnesota


I started doing my history adventuring in Los Angeles, in my mid-twenties, because everything there looked so fascinating, and I've continued here in Phoenix, but I've rarely looked back to the place where I grew up, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Time-travel with me. I found the pic at the top of this post while browsing the Library of Congress site, and it's from a 1903 article in the Minneapolis Journal. I did some quick research on the building, which is still there, on 5th Street and Hennepin, was built in 1883, and is considered the first "skyscraper" built in Minneapolis.

I'm sure that I went past it many times as I visited downtown Minneapolis a lot. I watched the IDS building going up, as I've always had an interest in architecture. But the old buildings didn't catch my eye. And that's because there were just too many of them. When I moved out west the old buildings were rare, and caught my eye, but not so in Minneapolis. There are a LOT of them.


Anyway, here we are in 1903, and this building must have been astonishing. Old newspapers had a very coarse line screen (I wouldn't be surprised if it was 55 lpi or less) and so I really can't see much detail in the photo. I can see the two ladies in the foreground, and they seem to be right in fashion with 1903. I wish I could get more detail on the vehicles, but I really can't, not even with Photoshop. The coarse line screen is the reason, not the scan, which is fine. The lady on the right either has the biggest, puffiest, sleeves imaginable, or she's carrying a white box in her left hand - note how much of her friend in black is covered up.

When I was going downtown in the 1970s to meet my friends at the Crystal Court, the Lumber Exchange Building was already nearly 100 years old. Here in Phoenix we really don't have that many old buildings, so it's taking me a bit of an adjustment to appreciate the wealth of history of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis and St. Paul).

I'm having a lot of fun with this new adventure, thank you for coming along with me!


By the way, here's a link to the article at the Library of Congress if you want to read all about lumber in Minnesota in 1903: 

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/mnhi_comfrey_ver02/data/sn83045366/00206537620/1903112601/0525.pdf

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