Local city information for Saint Paul, MN

Saint Paul (, abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital and second most populated city in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the north bank of the Mississippi River, downstream of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city. Known as the "Twin Cities", these two cities form the core of Minneapolis-Saint Paul, the sixteenth largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.2 million residents. The city's population at the 2000 census was 287,151. Saint Paul serves as the county seat of Ramsey County, the smallest and most densely populated county in Minnesota.

Founded near historic Native American settlements as a trading and transportation center, the city rose to prominence when it was named the capital of the Minnesota Territory in 1849. Though Minneapolis is more nationally recognized, Saint Paul contains important institutions and the state's political activity. Regionally, the city is popular for the Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild, and for the Science Museum of Minnesota. As a business hub of the Upper Midwest, it is headquarters for companies such as Ecolab and Lawson Software.

The settlement originally began at present-day Lambert's Landing but was referred to as ''Pig's Eye'', when Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant established a popular tavern there. When Fr. Lucien Galtier, the first Catholic pastor of the region, established the Log Chapel of St. Paul (shortly thereafter to become the first location of the Cathedral of St. Paul), he made it known that the settlement was now to be called by that name, as "St. Paul as applied to a town or city was well appropriated, this monosyllable is short, sounds good, it is understood by all christian denominations...".


Burial mounds in present-day Indian Mounds Park suggest the area was originally inhabited by the Hopewell Native Americans about two thousand years ago. From the early 17th century until 1837 the Mdewakanton Dakota, a tribe of the Sioux, lived near the mounds after fleeing their ancestral home of Mille Lacs Lake from advancing Ojibwe. They called the area I-mni-za ska dan ("little white rock") from the exposed white sandstone cliffs.

Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a U.S. Army officer named Zebulon Pike negotiated for approximately of land from the local Dakota tribes in 1805 for the establishment of a fort. The territory was located on both banks of the Mississippi River starting from Saint Anthony Falls in present-day Minneapolis to the confluence with the Saint Croix River. Fort Snelling was built on the territory in 1819 at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, which formed a natural barrier to both Native American nations. The 1837 Treaty with the Sioux ceded all local tribal land east of the Mississippi to the U.S. Government. Taoyateduta (Chief Little Crow V) moved his band at Kaposia across the river to the south. Fur traders, explorers, and missionaries came to the area for the fort's protection. Many of the settlers were French Canadians and lived nearby. However, as a whiskey trade flourished, military officers banned settlers from the fort-controlled lands. Pierre "Pig's Eye" Parrant, a retired fur trader-turned-bootlegger who particularly irritated officials, set up his tavern, the Pig's Eye, near present-day Lambert's Landing. By the early 1840s, the community had become important as a trading center and a destination for settlers heading west. Locals called the area ''Pig's Eye (French: L'Oeil du Cochon) or Pig's Eye Landing'' after Parrant's popular tavern.

In 1841, Father Lucien Galtier was sent to minister to the Catholic French Canadians and established a chapel on the bluffs above Lambert's Landing named for his favorite saint, Paul the Apostle. Galtier intended for the settlement to adopt the name Saint Paul in honor of the new chapel. In 1847 a New York educator named Harriet Bishop moved to the area and opened the city's first school. The Minnesota Territory was formalized in 1849 and Saint Paul named as capital. In 1857, the territorial legislature voted to move the capital to Saint Peter. However, Joe Rolette, a territorial legislator, stole the physical text of the approved bill and went into hiding, thus preventing the move. On May 11, 1858, Minnesota was admitted to the union as the thirty-second state with Saint Paul as the capital.

That year, more than 1,000 steamboats were in service at Saint Paul, making the city a gateway for settlers to the Minnesota frontier or Dakota Territory. Natural geography was a primary reason the city became a landing. The area was the last accessible point to unload boats coming upriver due to the Mississippi River valley's stone bluffs. During this period, Saint Paul was called "The Last City of the East." James J. Hill constructed and expanded his network of railways into the Great Northern Railway and Northern Pacific Railway, which were headquartered in Saint Paul. Today they are the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

On August 20, 1904, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes damaged hundreds of downtown buildings causing USD $1.78 million (1904) in damages in the city and ripping spans from the High Bridge. In the 1960s during urban renewal, Saint Paul razed western neighborhoods close to downtown. The city also contended with creation of the interstate freeway system in a fully built landscape. From 1959 to 1961, the western Rondo neighborhood was obliterated by the construction of Interstate 94 and brought attention to racial segregation and unequal housing in northern cities. The Rondo Days celebration annually commemorates the African American community.

Downtown had short skyscraper booms beginning in the 1970s. The tallest buildings were constructed in the late 1980s such as Galtier Plaza (Jackson and Sibley Towers), The Pointe of Saint Paul condominiums, and the city's tallest building Wells Fargo Place (formerly Minnesota World Trade Center). The 1990s to 2000s continued the tradition of ushering in new immigrant groups. As of 2004, nearly 10% of the city's population were recent Hmong immigrants from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar.

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