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Excelsior Public School (Excelsior, Minnesota)

1901 establishments in MinnesotaBuildings and structures in Hennepin County, MinnesotaDefunct schools in MinnesotaFormer school buildings in the United StatesNational Register of Historic Places in Hennepin County, Minnesota
School buildings completed in 1901School buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Minnesota
Excelsior Public School
Excelsior Public School

Excelsior Public School is a former school building in Excelsior, Minnesota, United States, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The school was built in the Georgian Revival style between 1899 and 1901 to serve Excelsior during a time of growth in the community. Before this building was built, two other school buildings were located on the site. The first was moved to 321-323 Third Street, and the second was destroyed by fire.The building originally housed grades 1 through 7 in four classrooms on the first floor, and eighth-grade and high school students were on the second floor. At the time of its construction, it was deemed the finest school in rural Hennepin County. By 1908, the school served 308 students, and by 1915 the high school students had moved to a new building on Oak Street.The school bell, mounted in a bell tower, had to be removed from the tower in 1962 because of a decaying structure. It was mounted on a granite pedestal next to the Excelsior Public Library in 1966. In 1964, the school was closed, and later became administrative offices for the Minnetonka School District. The building is currently used for office space.

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Excelsior Public School (Excelsior, Minnesota)
School Avenue,

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Latitude Longitude
N 44.901388888889 ° E -93.564722222222 °
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Old Excelsior School House

School Avenue
55331
Minnesota, United States
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Excelsior Public School
Excelsior Public School
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Christmas Lake

Christmas Lake is a spring-fed lake covering approximately 265 acres (1.1 km2) in the western Minneapolis suburbs of Shorewood and Chanhassen. The lake is crossed by the border of Hennepin and Carver counties, with most of the area lying within the jurisdiction of the former. Christmas Lake is known for its exceptional water clarity, the best in the Minneapolis metropolitan area, with a DNR-reported clarity level of 20 feet (6.10 m). This clarity can be attributed to the fact that Christmas Lake is a spring fed lake with a sandy bottom. Although relatively small in area, Christmas Lake becomes deep (its maximum depth is 87 ft (27 m)) very quickly, forming the basin of a depression that extends all along "the Ridge" (the rim of the lake's basin). The steep nature of the shoreline means that many houses are built far above the lake with railed motorized carts to provide access to the docks at the water level. Although Christmas Lake is located very near to the much larger and more populated Lake Minnetonka, the lake culture is much different, with fewer powerboats and jetskis, although this is slowly changing. Christmas Lake is connected to Lake Minnetonka by an underground canal which can be used to raise the water level of Lake Minnetonka during droughts.Christmas Lake falls under the jurisdiction of the city of Shorewood, Minnesota, although much informal control is maintained by the close-knit community of homeowners, under the aegis of the Christmas Lake Homeowners Association. Neighbors organize an annual Fourth of July boat parade, where boat owners turn their boats into water-borne floats, and parade from dock to dock along the shoreline.

Peter Gideon Farmhouse
Peter Gideon Farmhouse

Peter Gideon (1820–1899) was a farmer near Excelsior, Minnesota, United States, who was responsible for breeding apples that could withstand Minnesota's climate. Gideon's farmhouse, now within the boundaries of Shorewood, Minnesota, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Gideon moved to Minnesota in 1853, near Lake Minnetonka, and experimented with planting pear, plum, cherry, peach, and apple seeds. After ten years of experimentation, the harsh Minnesota winters had killed off all of his trees except for one seedling crab apple tree. Seeking advice from a well-known expert in the field, he started corresponding with apple expert Francis Peabody Sharp in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada who had employed new, successful methods of hybridization starting back in 1844 (see more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Peabody_Sharp). Sharp instructed him on the proper methods for hybridizing apples and buying seeds for colder climates, specifically indicating Bangor, Maine as the place to buy the seeds (Bangor, ME is located directly over the border from Woodstock, Canada). Gideon never told anybody about corresponding with Sharp nor gave him any credit for his expert advice. Gideon, being a transcendentalist, just said "an invisible being" came to him in a dream and told him to get some Russian seeds from a company in Bangor, Maine. There is, however, written evidence of Sharp and Gideon corresponding about these matters. Therefore, thanks to the expert advice of Francis Peabody Sharp, he sent back to Bangor, Maine for seeds and scions, and continued his experiments by grafting a scion onto the crab apple tree. From this experiment, in 1868 he successfully selected a variety of apple that he named the "Wealthy", in honor of his wife. In March 1878, Minnesota established a State Experimental Fruit Farm by act of the Legislature which Gideon ran for eleven years, planting many thousands of apple trees and distributing his best seeds across the state. He had been experimenting unsuccessfully with breeding apples for the colder Minnesota climate. This is what led him to seek out the expertise and advice of Francis Peabody Sharp's on how to grow his fruits in Minnesota, using Russian seeds and using new Sharp's new techniques of hybridization. [1] The state farm was located near Gideon's land on Lake Minnetonka, under the jurisdiction of the University of Minnesota. When the farm closed in February 1889 due to conflicts with the University, Gideon lost his job. Gideon later became the first superintendent of a University of Minnesota agricultural experiment station established in 1878. The station was abandoned in 1889, when he retired, but in 1907 the Minnesota Legislature established a fruit breeding farm between Excelsior and Chaska. The fruit breeding farm later became the Horticultural Research Center, which is now part of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. The center later developed the Haralson apple, introduced in 1922. The Wealthy apple is genetically related to the Haralson, though it took DNA testing to rediscover this fact after extensive hybridization.