100 years ago the Twin Cities were among the top railway centers in the US. Today the only passenger stations are NorthStar commuter in Minneapolis and Amtrak at St Paul Union Depot. Let's visit all the lost train stations, starting with downtown Minneapolis. There were 15! 🧵
0/ Minnesota's first rail service began July 2 1862, connecting the east side of St Anthony Falls with steamboat landings in St Paul. Technically this side of the river wasn't Minneapolis yet, because that wouldn't happen until 1872, but it's on the timetable so we'll count it.
1/19 The 1st train "station", not much more than a shack on wood planks, stood on Main Street SE between Maple and Walnut (today's 7th and 8th Streets SE), directly in front of today's Stone Arch Apts. The 10-mile trip to St Paul took 45 minutes, less time than the Green Line
2/ The 2nd terminus in town, the FIRST inside Minneapolis itself, was built in 1865 by the Minnesota Central Railway, to points southeast via Fort Snelling. This was a more substantial frame building at S 2nd Street and 5th Ave, where today's Marriott Residence Inn is now.
3/ The Minnesota Central was eventually bought by the Milwaukee Road, which built a pretty Victorian confection a block south at Washington Ave and S 4th Street in 1876. This served several lines and was the first to connect to such exotic places as Duluth and Chicago
4/ Milwaukee Depot was replaced again in 1899 by a grand Spanish Revival that still stands today, less its ornate cupola that blew off in 1941. The last train left here in 1971. Redeveloped into a hotel in 2001, it has one of the nation's only surviving truss-roof train sheds
5/ On the west edge of downtown, the St Paul & Pacific Railroad built a bridge across the river at Nicollet Island in 1867 to points west. Their new Minneapolis station was a combo passenger/freight affair located in the current railway trench near the T3 North Loop building.
6/ Soon afterward a group local businessmen, fed up with the price-gouging railway companies, started their own: The Minneapolis & St Louis. In 1873 they built a competing line parallel to the StP&P, with a passenger station right at T3 where the Cedar Lake Trail is today.
7/ The first M&StL station was replaced in 1892 with a more substantial one 2 blocks north at N 4th and Washington, now the parking lot next to Hewing Hotel. Pictured below is a celebration to see off the Minneapolis City Council on a trip to LA. Bon Voyage!
8/ In 1879 the scrappy Minneapolis, Lyndale, & Minnetonka Railway began running small steam trains out to stations at Nicollet/31st, Lake Calhoun, Lake Harriet, Minnehaha Falls, and Excelsior. Trains departed every 30 mins at a street terminus on Marquette Ave at Washington.
9/ More railroads moved into the North Loop. In 1884 the Northern Pacific built a branch line through downtown via the U of M campus over Bridge No. 9, with a passenger station at the corner of N 2nd Street and N 8th Ave, where the Star Tribune printing plant is now.
10/ That same year the Minneapolis & Pacific Railway, later bought by the Soo Line, built a similar North Loop passenger terminal along N 2nd St at N 6th Ave, where River Station Condos are now. In 1892 they rebuilt it 2 blocks further east at the corner of N 4th Ave, today's Heritage Landing.
11/ During the building boom many companies were vying to get stations into downtown Minneapolis. The Chicago & Great Western was late to the game but negotiated a deal to run on NP's track into a new station at S 10th and Washington Ave, at today's Bridgewater Lofts. The Omaha Road stopped here too
12/ If all this seems difficult for passengers, it was. Local business interests hit up magnate JJ Hill to fix the mess and create one efficient downtown station, though not every line opted in. Union Depot opened to great fanfare in 1885, served by the magnificent new Stone Arch Bridge behind it.
13/ By 1900 the electric interurban era had arrived. In 1908 the Minnesota Northfield & Southern Railway, best known as the Dan Patch, built a station just west of Target Field stadium. Other railways also stopped there, including the Electric Short Line and Anoka & Cuyuna Range Railroad
14/ Before visiting the last station, let's mourn the end of the Interurbans. Once the fastest way to reach Anoka, Edina, Wayzata, Bloomington, Lakeville, etc, they were all gone by 1947. Where Dan Patch Depot once boarded passengers is now an abandoned bus stop under Ramp A in the median of I-394
15/ The last Minneapolis train station was the grandest. Old Union Depot, an engineering marvel in its day, was ugly and soon outdated. JJ Hill's business was also now an empire and he wanted an edifice to match. The new Great Northern Station opened on Hennepin Avenue in 1913.
16/ The station's austere neoclassical style bespoke serious railroading inside. All mainline passenger trains in Minneapolis were rerouted here, except for competitors Milwaukee Road, Rock Island and Soo which kept their operations at the Milwaukee depot on Washington Ave.
The Dan Patch Line's 1908 station was at 54th St and Nicollet, just outside of the city limits, on account of being kicked out of the city and forced to give up the track they had laid inside the city limits to the TCRT. That depot was built in 1916 by the Electric Short Line Railway.
Also, up until it went into receivership following the death of Dan Patch (and his owner) in 1916, it was known as the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester & Dubuque Electric Traction Company.
At which time it hadn't made it to Dubuque, Rochester, or St. Paul, and it never electrified.
