Mill District, Minneapolis

The Great Mill Disaster (also known as the Washburn A Mill explosion) occurred in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States in 1878. The disaster resulted in 18 deaths. The explosion occurred on the evening of Thursday, May 2, 1878, when an accumulation of flour dust inside the Washburn A Mill (the largest mill in the world at the time) led to a dust explosion that killed the fourteen workers inside the mill. The resulting fire destroyed several nearby mills and killed a further four millworkers. The destruction seriously impacted the city's productive capacity for flour, which was a major industry in the city at the time. Following the blast, Cadwallader C. Washburn (the mill's owner) had a new mill, designed by William de la Barre, constructed on the site of the old one. This building was also later destroyed, and today the building's ruins are a National Historic Landmark and operated as part of the Mill City Museum.

The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards. The Guthrie Theater has performed in two main-stage facilities. The first building was designed by Ralph Rapson, included a 1,441-seat thrust stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, and was operated from 1963–2006. After closing its 2005–2006 season, the theater moved to its current facility designed by Jean Nouvel. In 1982, the theater won the Regional Theatre Tony Award.

Mill Ruins Park is a park in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, standing on the west side of Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River and running from 3rd Ave. S. to about 9th Ave. S. The park interprets the history of flour milling in Minneapolis and shows the ruins of several flour mills that were abandoned. The park is the result of an archaeological study of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1983, a project was being considered to extend West River Parkway along the west side of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. Scott Anfinson, then the municipal county highway archaeologist for the Minnesota Historical Society, developed a plan to assess archaeological sites along the riverfront. A number of test excavations along the route revealed a wide variety of sites containing items of interest. In the Bassett's Creek area, for example, the foundations of two sawmills and the remains of a railroad roundhouse were found, while near Hennepin Avenue, the investigation found the footings of the Great Northern Railway Union Depot and the tower bases of the first and second Hennepin Avenue Bridges. In the milling district, archaeologists found clues suggesting that there were still extensive remains of the foundations of the mills and waterpower system.The first round of archaeological surveys in the 1980s was intended to save the ruins from destruction as a result of road construction projects. Later, in the 1990s, the focus shifted from environmental impact assessment to exposing ruins for their interpretive value. As the ruins were made visible to the public, the goal was to create assets for education, tourism, and commercial development. The excavations for Mill Ruins Park began in 1998 and continued through 2001. The process also involved stabilizing the remains of the Washburn "A" Mill, which had burned in 1991. The Washburn "A" Mill became part of the Mill City Museum.Along with the remains of about 20 flour mills and other industrial buildings, the park also contains two stone piers and several iron girder piers that held a trestle for the Minneapolis Eastern Railroad. The tailraces from the waterpower canal are also clearly visible, and the water flow has been restored through the canal. Signs posted along the walkways interpret the ruins and the history of the area.

The J.I. Case Building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota was a warehouse and branch headquarters of the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company. The building was part of a new warehousing development in Minneapolis, because wholesalers were starting to outgrow the warehouse district on the north side of downtown. Former Minneapolis mayor William Henry Eustis was promoting a new warehouse district on the south side of downtown, and had attracted some farm implement companies by the early 1900s. The J.I. Case Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021 for its role in commerce and in community planning and development. Jerome Increase Case founded the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company in Racine, Wisconsin in 1842. The company acquired a reputation for good customer service and high-quality products. Their products were sold by independent jobbers, as well as a network of company-owned distribution houses known as "branch houses". The J.I. Case Implement Company, a jobber, initially started sales at a warehouse at 308-310 Third Avenue North, in the traditional warehouse district. By 1900, they had expanded their warehouse space, but they needed more space than was available in that district. Minneapolis was becoming a major hub for the distribution of farm machinery, and by 1908 it was the largest distribution point in the world. By 1915, the dollar volume of farm implements sold in Minneapolis exceeded the dollar volume of the flour and grain trade. William Henry Eustis was promoting a new warehouse district on the south side of downtown, but there were some seedy elements in that part of town. An alley south of Washington Avenue between Park and Chicago Avenues was known as "Fish Alley", because a fish market had previously been located there. It was surrounded by overcrowded apartment buildings and was known for drinking parties and fights. Residents were warned, "It isn’t safe to go into the alley, unless you have a gun and policeman with you, and then you are not safe." There was also a dance hall and four saloons facing Washington Avenue on the block. By 1906, only one saloon remained, as a result of an effort to clean up the area, and fighting was reduced, but Fish Alley was still known for criminals and loose women. Some redevelopment was occurring in the area, though. The Great Northern Implement Company (also known as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Building) built a location west of Park Avenue on Third Street. Advance Thresher built an architecturally distinguished structure on the east side of Park Avenue at Third Street, and Emerson-Newton Implement Company built a building immediately adjacent to Advance-Thresher. In the spring of 1903, Case purchased several properties on Washington Avenue between Park and Chicago Avenues. By September 1903, Case applied for a building permit for a "large $125,000 building". Construction did not begin immediately, though, because the company was preoccupied with a warehouse fire that destroyed 110 threshing machines, a new headquarters building in Racine, and a new thresher made entirely of steel. By September 1906, the company was finally ready to build, so they applied for a building permit for a brick warehouse with three stories and a basement, 70 feet (21 m) tall and measuring 115 feet (35 m) by 132 feet (40 m) with an estimated cost of $50,000. They selected the firm of Kees and Colburn, who had designed the Advance-Thresher and Emerson-Newton buildings on the same block. The building was completed by October 1907. By the late 1950s, farming was facing a change. 850,000 farms had been lost between 1954 and 1959, and other farmers bought out the land of those farms that folded. With fewer farmers and larger farms, the sales of agricultural implements had dropped 25 percent by 1960. Downtown Minneapolis was also changing, with more traffic and older buildings that had accumulated deferred maintenance during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1959, Case moved its branch office to a building on Minnesota State Highway 55 in Eagan, Minnesota. The downtown Minneapolis building became a warehouse for Minneapolis House Furnishings. In the early 1990s, the building was remodeled to house offices and a restaurant, the Old Spaghetti Factory, which opened in 1994. The Old Spaghetti Factory closed in 2019.

The Advance Thresher/Emerson-Newton Implement Company buildings in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, are a pair of buildings designed by Kees and Colburn. The two buildings are united under a common cornice and appear to be a single structure. However, the two buildings were actually built four years apart. The Advance Thresher Company building was built in 1900 and has six floors. The adjacent Emerson-Newton Plow Company building was built in 1904 and has seven floors.The architecture of the buildings was influenced by Louis Sullivan. They are ornamented with terra cotta details that are more Classical Revival in nature. The buildings were renovated into offices in the 1980s. They are listed on the National Register of Historic Places for local significance in architecture for exemplifying the Sullivanesque style influencing large industrial and commercial buildings at the turn of the 20th century.

Downtown East is an official neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Within Downtown East is the Mill District, which contains former industrial buildings left over from the days when Minneapolis was the flour milling capital of the world. Many of these old mills and factories are being converted to housing, bringing a residential population to a neighborhood that beforehand didn't have many residents. Because of this, the Mill District in Downtown East is one of the fastest growing areas of the city.Its boundaries are the Mississippi River to the north, Interstate 35W to the east, 5th Street South to the south, and Portland Avenue to the west. It is bounded by the Downtown West, Elliot Park, and Cedar-Riverside neighborhoods. The Marcy-Holmes neighborhood is on the other side of the river, but there is no direct automobile connection between the two neighborhoods. There is a pedestrian and bicycle connection via the Stone Arch Bridge. Downtown East was home to the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, where the Minnesota Twins (MLB baseball), Minnesota Vikings (NFL football), and Minnesota Gophers (NCAA University of Minnesota football) have all played home games. As of 2009, the Minnesota Golden Gophers moved into the new TCF Bank Stadium on the University of Minnesota Campus. Additionally, the Minnesota Twins moved into new Target Field at the start of the 2010 season. In 2016, U.S. Bank Stadium opened on the Metrodome's former site. The neighborhood is also home to the Mill City Museum, Mill Ruins Park, Gold Medal Park and the Guthrie Theater complex, which abandoned its old location near Loring Park during the summer of 2006. The neighborhood is served by U.S. Bank Stadium Station of the METRO light rail system.

The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Building, also known as the Northern Implement Company and the American Trio Building, is a warehouse building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. PPG Industries of Pittsburgh constructed the structure. It was designed by thearchitectural firm Kees and Colburn and shows strong influences of architect Louis Sullivan. The arches in the top floor windows are modeled after Louis Sullivan's designs, which in turn were influenced by Henry Hobson Richardson's Richardsonian Romanesque style. The corners of the building are subtly chamfered in at the bottom and rise toward a flaring cornice at the top, echoing John Wellborn Root's design of the Monadnock Building in Chicago.The building has now been converted to loft apartments.

Gold Medal Park is a 7.5-acre (3.0 ha) park in the Downtown East neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Opened in May 2007, the park was designed by landscape architect Tom Oslund and is owned by the city of Minneapolis. It takes its inspiration from the Native American mounds that are found throughout Minnesota, and its name from Gold Medal flour, a product of General Mills. It consists of a 32-foot-high (9.8 m) mound, reached by a spiral walkway rising out of a green lawn with 300 trees. The park, just east of the Guthrie Theater, provides the Mill District neighborhood with some rare green space.Built on a strip of land next to the Guthrie Theater and the Mississippi River, the park features specially designed luminescent benches, a prominent 32-foot (9.8 m) mound and mature trees brought in from as far away as New Jersey. The William W. and Nadine M. McGuire Family Foundation leased the land for 10 years, starting in 2007, from the city of Minneapolis and the Guthrie, each of which owns about half of the property. In 2014, the Gold Medal Park Conservancy purchased the majority of the parkland owned by the Guthrie, then secured a 50-year lease for the rest of the land, owned by the City of Minneapolis.Across the street from the park and adjacent to the river is Remembrance Garden, which is a tribute to the victims of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge collapse. It was dedicated on August 1, 2011, the fourth anniversary of the collapse.

Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company Elevator A also known as the Ceresota Elevator and "The Million Bushel Elevator" was a receiving and public grain elevator built by the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company in 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The elevator may have been the largest brick elevator ever constructed (brick construction being relatively uncommon) and ran on electricity. The elevator was the source for the Crown Roller Mill and Standard Mill. Those mills closed in the 1950s but the elevator continued in use for grain storage until the mid 1980s. The building is a contributing property of the Saint Anthony Falls History District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1987 the elevator was converted to 92,081 square feet (8,555 m2) of office space. That required removing the vertical bin structure and creating floors without destroying the building walls. Before the conversion the building was documented to Historic American Engineering Record standards. Conversion was sensitive to the building history and the building is still a contributing property. About 2015 the building was converted to Millers Landing Senior Living.

Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA) is the largest and most comprehensive independent nonprofit book arts center in the United States. Located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, MCBA is a nationally recognized leader in the celebration and preservation of traditional crafts, including hand papermaking, letterpress printing and hand bookbinding, as well as the use of these traditional techniques by contemporary artists in creating new artists' books and artwork.

The Stone Arch Bridge is a former railroad bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the only arched bridge made of stone on the entire Mississippi River. It is the second oldest bridge on the river next to Eads Bridge. The bridge was built to connect the railway system to the new Union Depot, which at that time was planned to be built between Hennepin Avenue and Nicollet Avenue. The bridge was completed in 1883, costing $650,000 at the time ($18.9 million today). 117 Portland Avenue is the general address of the historic complex. Located between the 3rd Avenue Bridge and the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge, the Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883 by railroad tycoon James J. Hill for his Great Northern Railway, and accessed the former passenger station located about a mile to the west, on the west bank of the river. For a time, the bridge was dubbed "Hill's Folly" until the value of Hill's new bridge as a passenger rail link became evident.The structure is now used as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 as a part of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District, (District #71000438). The bridge was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1974.

The following are all the contributing resources to the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, thus these properties are on the NRHP. The "period of significance" of the District was 1858–1941. The district's archaeological record is considered to be one of the most-endangered historic sites in Minnesota.