Exploring never gets old for me. It was Saturday afternoon and time to get out of the house. Making my way through the smoke from Canada’s wildfires and the really strange streets of the Tangletown neighborhood in Minneapolis, it was time to find the Washburn Water Tower.
It’s long walk to the top but worth it! (Photo by Chad Smith)
The first observation was Tangletown is the right name for that neighborhood. Whoever put those streets together maybe had one too many drinks with dinner. Nonetheless, it was time to find the tower, and for a good reason.
It looked like a structure you’d see somewhere near a castle in any one of the Lord of the Rings movies. But let’s delve into a bit of history first.
The 110-foot concrete cylinder was constructed in 1932 and sits at the top of a hill in Tangletown. A book titled “Secret Twin Cities, a Guide to the Weird, Wonderful, and Obscure” was the perfect exploring manual. It points out that if you aren’t within a block of the structure, you’ll never see the tower because it’s hidden by a combo of dense residential areas and tall trees.
Look at how intricate that carving is! (Photo by Chad Smith)
The reason for preserving the old structure was the intricate details builders put into constructing the tower, which is no longer used to supply water. Encircling the top of the tower are eight-foot tall, five-ton eagles with spread wings that look ready for takeoff.
A bit further down the cylinder, it looks like knights are standing guard outside the walls of a castle. Closer to the base are 18-foot tall, eight-ton “guardians of health” holding a perpetual vigil with swords. At a time when Minnesota was in the middle of a deadly typhoid outbreak, the guardians were symbolic protectors of a clean water supply.
Photo by Chad Smith
The tower had a capacity of 1.35 million gallons of water, which it faithfully supplied to the neighborhood until the 1990s. Three men from the neighborhood designed and engineered the structure John Daniels was the sculptor, William Hewitt was the project engineer, and Harry Wild Jones was the lead architect.
Get out and get to exploring. The massive medieval tower is located at 401 Prospect Avenue in Minneapolis, and there’s no charge to get up close and personal with the “tower guards.”
“The Eagles have landed!” (In my best Merry and Pippin voice from LOTR!Lonely sentries guarding the Washburn Water Tower
Boom Island Park in Minneapolis is one of my favorite places to explore in the Twin Cities. In fact, it was the first place I went to when I got bit by the exploring bug. Well, now that Derrick moved to Minnesota, it’s time to start showing him some of my favorite places in the Twin Cities (and there are a LOT of them).
Boom Island Park in Minneapolis and what remains of the island it used to be. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The park actually gets its name from the island that it once was. The island was named for the booms that were used to separate logs floated down the Mississippi River to sawmills powered by St. Anthony Falls (another of my favorite spots). Each log cut along the tributaries of the Mississippi River was “branded” by each lumber company that put its own stamp on the end of is logs.
One of the things I love about Boom Island Park is the big city is on one side, the green (it will be at some point!) and the wide open space of the park on the other side. (Photo by Chad Smith)
They were separated using the stamps and directed to the right mill by men working from Boom Island. The sawmills at the falls were eventually replaced by flour mills. What remains of those flour mills makes up Mill Ruins Park, yet another great place to explore in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.
What I love most about the park, besides just how big it is, is the fact that it’s set up next to the Mississippi River. You’ve got the big city on one side, and the open areas of the park on the other side.
My son Derrick appears to be pondered the Mississippi River. He is deep like that :). (Photo by Chad Smith)
The land ceased to be an island a while ago due to a buildup of silt and sawdust. It was bought by the park board with funds from the state legislature through the Metropolitan Council in 1982. The land was bought from a construction company for $2.6 million. That land had been targeted for acquisition in the 1978 plan for the development of the central riverfront as a park by the Riverfront Development Coordinating Board.
At one point, the RDCB even considered converting the land to an island once again, but they decided against it because of the cost. The first phase of the park was dedicated in 1987.
Isn’t this a remarkable old bridge at Boom Island Park? (Photo by Chad Smith)
One of my other favorite parts of the park is an old railroad bridge, originally built in 1901 to Nicollet Island, was converted into a bicycle and pedestrian bridge. The bridge was repaired and restored in 2018.
And here is the old railroad bridge. The MOTHER LODE for this old urban explorer.
Photo by Chad SmithOne of my favorite places to go hiking! (Photo by Chad Smith)What I was most surprised at that day is how many people took hiking trips up and down the tracks. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Anoka’s abandoned amphitheater is a sidewalk width away from the busy traffic on 169. (Photo by Chad Smith)
An abandoned amphitheater? Who could resist that?!
Anoka was my next stop on the exploration schedule to check out an old, abandoned amphitheater. With a hat tip to Brendon Maness for the tip, Derrick and I jumped in the car for a quick drive north on 169 and literally almost ran into the amphitheater as it’s a sidewalk away from 169 itself. Bet the traffic noise made for an interesting background to the entertainment folks put on there, back in the day?
My first impression of the amphitheater was an obvious one: this thing has been around a LONG time. The structure was put together back in 1914 on the banks of the Rum River in Anoka. The really interesting part to me is its name: the Windego Park Auditorium and Open-Air Theater. At first, I thought it was Wendigo. Do you know what a Wendigo is? I bet you do if you’re a monster movie buff like me.
The abandoned amphitheater in Anoka, Minnesota, was first built in 1914. (photo by Chad Smith)
The old theater is currently listed in the National Register of Historic Places and had to be a great place to watch a program back then. The location on the bank of the Rum River is beautiful.
Anoka’s citizens back then had a notable interest in outdoor entertainment and recreation. Thaddeus P. Giddings, a promoter of music education who’d been organizing community singalongs in the summer of 1913, took over organizing the programs and entertainment at the amphitheater.
Another gentleman named William Gray Purcell designed the amphitheater, and I thought he did a bang-up job. The stage sits on the flat part of the riverbank, and, as you can see in the pictures, the seats are on the sloping hillside. It had room for an audience of up to 1,600 people in its heyday.
At one time, the abandoned amphitheater held 1,600 people. (Photo by Chad Smith)
At one time, the seating was covered by a colorful retractable awning system designed to protect patrons from the weather. That had to be a must-have during summertime storms and heat waves, am I right? A curved back wall at one time included a box office, entrance doors, and a projection booth, but that part no longer stands.
The orchestra pit was located at the foot of the bleachers. The stage area was off to the left and was nothing more than a flat part of the riverbank. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The theater was used for amateur plays, historical pageants, and other local community musical or meeting events. However, the theater would only thrive as long as Giddings was on hand. Giddings began spending summers at his music camp located in Michigan, and the amphitheater fell into disuse, with the exception of an occasional gathering.
In 1979, Anne Bronken, a University of Minnesota Landscape Architecture Department student, designed a plan to restore the amphitheater. Community organizers patched the concrete and did some cleanup work. A restoration planned as recently as 2010 didn’t happen. Today, the amphitheater has only its seating and orchestra pit left standing, and both are in a deteriorated state.
The view from the amphitheater. The Rum River is in the background and had to make for a fantastic setting to watch a play or concert. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Here’s a complete look at the main campus as it stands today.
“Anoka State Mental Hospital” – It’s been abandoned since 1999. Just saying the name evokes memories of every single scary movie you’ve watched in recent history, such as those Friday the 13th movies we used to watch as kids. However, like many other abandoned places in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, it seems to be coming back to life.
The abandoned Anoka State Mental Hospital is slowly being brought back to life. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Some of the buildings are still in rough shape, and those are easy to pick out by the plywood in all the windows. Others are in the process of being renovated, and a couple are used now as veterans’ homes. The first thing that jumped out at me was how BIG the campus is. Lots of large brick buildings got built in the shape of a half-circle. It’s enormous!
The brick buildings have every right to look like they’ve been through a lot: they have. A minnpost.com article says the fourth Minnesota state hospital for the insane opened in 1900. The place was quite different from the other three institutions; the Anoka State Mental Hospital was the first to be built in Minnesota according to the cottage plan. The goal was to reduce the institutional feel of the place for its chronic patients.
It was a bright and sunny day when I walked the grounds of the Anoka State Hospital grounds. (Photo by Chad Smith)
They say overcrowding was a big problem at Minnesota’s mental health institutions operating in Rochester, Fergus Falls, and St. Peter. To help alleviate the overcrowding problems, the planning commission chose 650 acres right near the scenic Rum River in Anoka for a fourth site.
Building the hospital got started in June of 1899, and the first 100 patients (all men) were transferred to the facility on March 14, 1900. The facility began to expand in 1905, adding several cottages, as well as farm and service buildings. By 1917, ten cottages, an auditorium, and a new administration formed in a semicircle at the completed facility.
However, like many mental institutions across the country, history wasn’t always a good thing for the facility. A dramatic series of articles exposed some horrible conditions at the hospital in the mid-1900s. State officials became determined to do something about the problem.
Still some work to do at the Anoka State Hospital. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The atlasobscura.com website says, on Halloween night in 1949, they held a bonfire on the grounds of the Anoka State Mental Hospital. It must have been a big fire as around 359 straitjackets, 196 cuffs, and 91 straps, all different forms of restraints used on the patients, were destroyed. Governor Luther Youngdahl and other officials used the event to show the world that the facility was moving toward more humane forms of treatment.
Conditions did improve for the patients, thanks to the development of new drugs and institutional reforms. Some unfortunate incidents that compromised community safety around the hospital took place here and there over the next several decades. The Anoka State Mental Hospital closed in 1999, and the patients got moved to a nearby facility.
They really don’t want people exploring in their buildings anymore. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Crookston Lumber Company wasn’t actually located in Crookston, Minnesota, but in Bemidji. It was a big company that processed a lot of lumber during the boom in Minnesota during the 1900s. Crookston Sawmill #1 opened up in 1903.
Lumber barons back in the second half of the 1800s poured millions of dollars into lumber claims in northern Minnesota. Can you imagine being able to pour millions of dollars into ANYTHING back during the 1800s?
There isn’t much left of the Crookston Lumber Company in Bemidji, Minnesota. However, what’s left and the operation’s history are very interesting. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Thomas Shevlin and Frank Hixon purchased several claims and a sawmill from lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker, calling the operation the Crookston Lumber Company. They opened up 13 logging camps, with each housing as many as 100 lumberjacks.
The year 1903 was when the first sawmill took off. They opened up the lumber mill in a beautiful spot on the south shore of Lake Bemidji. The owners hired 450 mill workers and ran an around the clock operation that is said to have processed 40 million board feet of prime lumber during its first year in existence. Kind of impressive, isn’t it?
I was a little taken aback by how green Lake Bemidji was. Not sure what caused it? (Photo by Chad Smith)
Some competition came along in 1905 for the CLC in the form of the Bemidji Lumber Mill. The location sprang up on the southeast side of Lake Bemidji, so we’re taking very close to the CLC. It didn’t take long for CLC to annex the competition, buying the Bemidji Lumber Mill and naming it Crookston Sawmill #2. Went out on a creative limb, didn’t they?
The height of the operation peaked around 1910 as the Crookston Sawmill drew honors as the second-largest sawmill in the nation. However, the good times weren’t going to last much longer.
This is the remains of Mill #1, which burned down and was rebuilt in the early 1900s. Mill #2 burned down a few years later and wasn’t rebuilt. (Photo by Chad Smith)
As the calendar turned to 1914, fortune took away her smile as Sawmill #1 burned right to the ground. The owners would go on to rebuild the structure soon after the incident. A few short years later, Sawmill #2 also burned to the ground, but the owners would choose not to rebuild the facility.
The end was in sight just a decade later when another fire destroyed about 24 million board feet of prime lumber on November 9, 1924. The retail value on the destroyed white pine was $750,000, an insane amount of money in the early 1900s. The truly-unfortunate piece to the story is 2,000 employees immediately found themselves with no jobs.
The end came in October of 1928 when the Crookston Lumber Mill shut down for good. As it turns out, most of the prime lumber in Minnesota had been harvested, so investors moved their operations out to the Pacific Coast.
This small site is all that remains of what once was the second-largest lumber mill in the United States. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The city of Bemidji sure made a nice little park out of the remains of a once-grand structure. I only wish we didn’t have people who felt the need to tag a building like that. While I usually admire good street art in the Twin Cities, it just doesn’t belong at a place like this. Plus, the fast-food wrappers and empty cigarette boxes don’t add much to the ambiance.
Nevertheless, I still recommend you go see the place.
Anyone familiar with my exploring knows I like taking colorful pictures of street art. This is not the same. We really didn’t need to tag a small sandstone building like this, did we? (Photo by Chad Smith)I’ve seen vegetation grow in the strangest places, including up through a sandstone structure. (Photo by Chad Smith) The Crookston Lumber Company site sits on the southern Shore of Lake Bemidji. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Old Brewery exploring was something I couldn’t pass up. Exploring Minnesota took me to the south this weekend, stopping in Mantorville to check out the ruins of the old brewery caves. There isn’t a lot left of the old four-story, sandstone structure, but admittedly there’s more than I thought I’d see. The once-proud structure is losing the battle to Mother Nature, as you may imagine.
The gated entry to the old brewery. As near as I can figure, what’s inside here was the brewhouse, but don’t quote me on that. (Photo by Chad Smith)
There doesn’t seem to be a ton of information on the brewery online. One source who seemed to know what they were doing says what’s leftover is actually the second brewery built in Mantorville. The original brewery appears to have been built in 1858, entirely out of sandstone quarried out of the bluff directly behind where the structure was built.
The Dodge County Brewery reach four stories at its pinnacle and produced upwards of 7,000 beer-filled barrels a year at their peak in the late 1800s. Reports say the brewery was fortunate in avoiding so many of the fires that claimed other early breweries that began in Minnesota around the same time.
If I pegged it right, this was in the inside of the brewhouse. It’s in rough shape. I did NOT stay in there long at all. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Two 40 X 70 caves were used to store the aging beer and keep the barrels ice cold. The brewery ran purely on steam power during its lifetime. Only a shell of the building remains, but there is one cooling room still intact.
Like many of the other Minnesota breweries, when Prohibition rolled around, that pretty much ended the business. There was some bootlegging during the dry years. When Prohibition was repealed, they tried to crank up production again. New owner Otto Schuman took over the brewery and ran it as a pop factory. But it wasn’t to be. Even though the brewery had some of the largest and most advanced technology of any brewery in the state, Schuman shut down the factory for good in 1934.
The only complete cooling/storage cave I could find left. This is where they stored the beer barrels to keep them cold and age them properly before selling the beer to distributors. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The brewery was partly demolished in 1942. The site did contribute a lot of recovered metal to help the effort in World War 2, but that appears to be its last significant contribution.
Not sure just how long these structures will remain standing. Lots of crumbling down.
Be alert and watch where you step out there. This shot is from the hill above the brewhouse. The littered floor is where I first entered the place and wouldn’t want to accidentally fall into that hole. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Love when structures are made out of sandstone. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Hobbies. I’ve never really had much time for them through the course of my life and I’m honestly not sure why as I sit here and write. Too busy trying to make ends meet? Too lazy? The truth, as it is with most everything in life, is probably somewhere in the middle.
Probably shouldn’t be surprised that this was one of the first things I found while walking through the shelter-belt, reliving some old memories. (photo by Chad Smith)
I’ve never really been the adventurous type. Always seemed to want to play it safe and never do anything other people might find unexpected. Then, I moved to the Twin Cities and discovered urban exploring. It’s been a rather eye-opening experience since adding it to my still-growing list of hobbies.
I saw people going to places very few others went to. That spoke to me and I honestly wasn’t sure why at first. Then, as I got a little further into the hobby, it started to dawn on me through the feedback I got mostly through Facebook. “I really enjoy following your explorations,” is something I heard on a regular basis.
This old girl was far and away my favorite old vehicle that I discovered during a Saturday afternoon exploration. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Plus, I got feedback from people I didn’t expect. The City Administrator at Rushford, Minnesota, Tony Chladek, is a busy fella (and does a great job) but he mentioned during a phone call how much he enjoys my urban exploring photography. He said the same thing I get in a lot of feedback; “I really enjoy following you into places not a lot of people go.”
Just how strange IS my brain? The first thing I thought of was a conversation I had about a place we used to like to eat in Watertown, South Dakota. “What was the name of that place that had the old Wagon Wheel out front,” I had asked. “The Wagon Wheel,” came the answer. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The current Secretary of Agriculture in Minnesota, Thom Peterson, is a long-time Facebook friend who also mentioned he likes following my explorations. It was funny how he mentioned it after we’d finished an interview for a newspaper article I was writing.
While going through abandoned places, I find it a lot of fun to try and picture what life must have been like back in the day, all those years ago. How different things must have been three decades ago? And, how similar some things might have been as well.
That’s what hooked me into it. Going places that other people don’t typically get to go. But it’s even more than that. It’s the history behind some of these places that also fascinates me too. Spent an afternoon a while back exploring the Pokegama Sanatorium near Pine City, Minnesota. One of the most interesting things I found there was documentation and medical papers that went back as far as 30 years.
Got a tip from a Facebook friend and fellow urbex (slang for urban exploring) enthusiast about a bunch of abandoned vehicles tucked away in a shelter-belt near the Mazomani Trail that I had recent explored. I sure found a number of vehicles that had been stashed away a long time ago.
Far and away the BIGGEST piece of machinery I found abandoned in the tree line. Thought for a crazy moment I’d found the remains of Optimus Prime. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Man, did walking through a shelter-belt bring back memories of life on the Gerhold Farm. My brother, Travis, and I spent all kinds of time exploring the tree lines around the entire farm. If I remember right, Grandpa John had his own vehicles stashed away among the trees as well.
Talk about some serious nostalgia that made this soon-to-be 50-year-old smile like he was all of fourteen again. Of course, my wife will occasionally say that me and my grown sons can collectively be 14 years old as well. Not sure that’s a compliment?
Hobbies. We all need one or two. If you don’t have one, get one, okay? Hobbies make life more interesting.
Didn’t everyone’s grandparents drive one of these at one point? (Photo by Chad Smith)
Nature always wins in the end, doesn’t she? (Photo by Chad Smith)
What must life have been like when someone was actually sitting behind the wheel? (Photo by Chad Smith)
Train Depot exploring is something I seriously enjoy. While I do love exploring abandoned structures, it’s a lot of fun to see some of those old buildings redone for use in the present day. I went looking for an old train depot I had heard about in Northfield, Minnesota. I found it, but the “old” depot wasn’t in the shape I expected it to be in.
The building originally dates back to 1888. The depot had an addition built on to it in 1944. The depot’s south wall and roof was removed when the addition was constructed. The building was scheduled for demolition before it was moved but residents didn’t want to lose some of the community’s history. They couldn’t move the new addition because of the cement floor and cement blocks that made up the wall.
You won’t believe just how fast an older white building that was next to the depot came down. Never seen backhoes move quite so fast in my life! 🙂
Some of the bricks that made up the wall in the new addition were salvaged and are already being used to make a sidewalk path on the new site.
According to the information available at the site, I believe the pathway in the foreground was made out of some of the bricks saved from the new addition that couldn’t be moved to the new site. (Photo by Chad Smith)
A group of residents started the Save the Northfield Depot project and moved the structure last January. The old depot was literally moved from the railroad property to a site across the street. The original site has since been graded and cleaned up since then. The new site was chosen because it’s much easier to see. The previous location hid the train depot behind a much larger building.
The depot won’t just sit there and look good, either. Plans are in the works to use it as an information center for visitors. As a side note, I took a drive through the downtown area and it’s picturesque in many spots. Highly recommend a trip through there sometime. But I digress.
They’ve put in a lot of work to refurbish the old train depot in Northfield. It looks to this guy here that the work is going extremely well. Very picturesque old building that looks great! (Photo by Chad Smith)
There will also be a pavilion that residents can use to host events at, as well as an addition for a transit hub, which is a project the city of Northfield will undertake sometime in the near future. A study is in the works on a proposed passenger rail that would connect south to points beyond Minnesota. Northfield would be one of the northernmost stops on the line. The state has even kicked in some money to help fund the study.
Some of their literature I picked up at the site says they’re trying to raise $65,000 for the interior renovation. . The cost could actually be reduced with in-kind materials and labor. They’re also looking for carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and other skilled workers who wouldn’t mind volunteering a little time on the project.
The elderly couple that were outside doing some work on the grounds when I stopped by said this was designed and built by someone in his mid-teens? If I understood them right (hard to hear through their masks, at times), I’d say that was one uber-talented teenager! (Photo by Chad Smith)
Their website is www.northfielddepot.org. They also have a facebook page at facebook.com/northfielddepot. You’ll also find information on twitter at www.twitter.com/northfielddepot.
Place looks fantastic! The old Northfield Train Depot is well on its way to a completely new look and a new purpose in life as a visitor’s information center in Northfield. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Exploration abandoned Army base. The idea set me on fire Sunday morning, and by Sunday afternoon we were hustling to find one of the best exploration options the Twin Cities has to offer. Much more successful than the day before.
Let me say off the top, the three of us had tried to find this place before. I got a tip from a fellow explorer through the Abandoned Minnesota Facebook Page and we were off to the races. It’s called the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant, and there was so much more to it that we ever thought. Here’s the first video, with pics and the plant’s history down below.
A mnopedia.org article says the place was first authorized in 1941, making contributions to the nation’s armed forces for the next half a century.
The most interesting exploration I’ve done to date. The enormous Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. A lot to see. Lot’s of American/Minnesota story there for the adventurer. (Photo by Chad Smith)
As the U.S. was building up to World War 2, FDR advocated for the U.S. to take the lead as the “Great Arsenal of Democracy.” His aid strategy was laid out in the Lend-Lease Act. It used government-owned, contractor-operated ammo-manufacturing plants to provide supplies overseas.
The Army Ordnance Department authorized construction of what was then called the “Twin Cities Ordnance Plant.” Sporting ammunition manufacturer Federal Cartridge Corporation of Anoka was contracted to run the facility.
Once the place was fully operational, thousands of workers from across the Twin Cities worked around the clock in three shifts
A lot of Minnesotans did an awful lot of work around the clock to support the Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant. Best exploration ever. (Photo by Chad Smith)
I talk several times about the scale of the entire place during our exploration. Just to give you a sense of how large the base was, mnopedia.org says it actually began to function “like a small city.” The base had it’s own security/police force, hospital system, fire department, bus system, and a rail terminal. There were social elements to help the people feel more together, including a plant newspaper, intramural sports leagues, and even its own choir to help maintain morale.
The Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant truly was its own city, with showers, lockers, large cafeteria, and much more. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The initial building we came up to (the subject of the first video) was much larger than we first thought. A couple of the more veteran explorers we’ve run into said it was the actual munitions plant but I have no idea if it’s true or not. It certainly looked big enough, but no matter what, this was the coolest building I’ve been in so far. All it took was a quick duck through a hole in the fence and we were in the front door.
I remember thinking as we walked down the path to that first building, “That’s all there is?” But there was so much more to it. We found what looked like locker rooms, bathrooms, a loading dock near the back, as well as an upstairs to the place. Really a lot of fun! The only thing I didn’t find? Not a single “No Trespassing” sign anywhere.
Those two explorers we talked to said “head east on the path in front of the first building. You won’t believe what you’ll find out there to explore.” They weren’t kidding. I thought the munitions plant building was big. We found a much-larger building to the east, complete with kitchen, multiple full size shower rooms, as well as bunkers, several other smaller outbuildings, and so much more.
One of the things I enjoy most about any exploration is finding old machinery and trying to figure out what it used to do. This one, I have no idea. (Photo by Chad Smith)
By the way, I’ve been looking for a map showing how the buildings were laid out and used. Can’t find one, so if you know differently about something and I’m wrong, drop me a note so I’ll know too?
The most interesting thing to happen when we got to the big building involved long boarders, which I believe are the modern edition of our skateboards we played with growing up. Kylie was taking some video in one of the larger rooms when she heard music playing and had no idea where it was coming from. She played the video back on her phone and as deaf as I am after two-plus decades in radio, I could hear it too.
We’d just watched a found-footage movie called “Sanatorium,” and one of the things the cast found in that big old place was a radio playing music. Why spooky, you ask? It wasn’t plugged in and didn’t have batteries! While I’m not a big believer in the paranormal, I can’t lie and say I wasn’t a little spooked in the back of my mind.
Stairs can always be a little iffy during an exploration but these were rock solid. (Photo by Chad Smith)
The answer itself was decidedly less spooky. There were teenagers upstairs who were hanging out and playing their tunes.
The other thing we noticed was the debris throughout the largest building had been swept to one side of every hall in the place. “Well that’s strange,” I thought. Turns out, there were a couple young guys there with long boards who either found or brought along a big push broom. While it was making the place look much nicer, the smooth concrete floors made for some excellent long boarding, once all the debris was out of the way. Smart!
At the end of World War 2, the plant began gathering up and storing ammunition for the future. The plant cranked up production for the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and every other conflict that took place over the course of its 50-year existence, even drawing a lot of protesters during the Vietnam War.
The street art is another highlight of any exploration as far as I’m concerned. This is fantastic. (Photo by Chad Smith)
Environmental concerns led to an agreement for a big cleanup effort, funded by the Army, which began selling off portions of the property. As near as I can tell, Ramsey County owns the land after buying it in 2013. If there are redevelopment plans in the works, what they plan to build there depends on what source your reading. After doing some research, there are a lot of different ideas on what to do with that place.
However, there is so much land there, wouldn’t it be a little cost-prohibitive? It would be too bad if those buildings went away,. They’d take a lot of American/Minnesota history with them, once they’re gone.
I went exploring a place that turned out to be so big, it took me two consecutive Saturdays to finish. I took a couple trips to Harriet Island Park in St. Paul, I found the perfect mix of urban area and wide-open spaces, just across the Mississippi River from each other.
Looking at the St. Paul skyline across the river was an amazing view. The old-fashioned architecture is amazing to photograph. When you combine it with some of the newer skyscrapers erected in recent decades, that makes it more interesting for an architecture buff like me. I’m not so into it that I can name you all the different styles of buildings. I just know what I like to look at.
Harriet Island is a great place to talk a walk. The boardwalk along the Mississippi River is really quite spacious, with plenty of room to stop and take pics or videos. In fact, I had some company walking down the boardwalk at one point. I looked to my right and saw a hen mallard swimming alongside, trailed by three of the most adorable little ducklings you would ever see. In fact, this is what they looked like.
They were adorable!
As I walked further down the boardwalk, I saw it split into several different walking/biking trails, so I headed in a southeasterly direction. I was hoping to find the trail that would take me up higher in the surrounding bluffs for some cool pictures, but never found it. What I DID find is a pretty good sunburn. Not much in the way of protection from the sun’s rays on a rip-snorting hot day. That’ll learn me.
The boardwalk at Harriet Island Park keeps you tight to the Mississippi River in St. Paul. The view is amazing. (Photo by Chad Smith)
I know what you’re thinking; “Chad, you posted a picture with the first brand-new baseball cap you’ve had in 30 years. Why didn’t you put it on?” Simply put, I wasn’t in the habit yet and I paid for it.
I did come upon an abandoned Union Pacific railroad track. I saw a big old “PRIVATE PROPERTY” sign that didn’t stop me from climbing up to the elevated track in order to snap a few pictures. At one time, the railroad ran all the way across the Mississippi on a bridge. The giveaway that it was abandoned is the fact that a chunk of the railroad bridge is missing. It was strange. The tracks extends from the other side of the river out into the middle of it. Why not take the whole thing out?
The trails will take you through some wooded areas that reminded me of walking through certain parts of the Black Hills in South Dakota. Beautiful. I was really enjoying the walk until I noticed a discarded couch/roll away bed that someone had tossed into the trees. Why do people do that?
An abandoned Union Pacific railroad track. Not sure why, but they took a chunk of the track out of the bridge that runs over the river and turned it sideways. Seems a little strange. (Photo by Chad Smith)
It took more effort to carry that couch that far down the path than it would have to hoist it up into a vehicle and drive it to the dump. I know we all get lazy from time to time but we need to be better than that.
The looks like a big chunk of the railroad bridge that no longer stretches over the water. (Photo by Chad Smith)
I initially thought someone was drilling for oil. Instead, I find out this is the “Target Stage.” Seriously? Does EVERYTHING in the Cities have to have “Target” in the name? 🙂 I saw some really nice boats out on the water. Lots of room on the Mississippi.
Not sure I wanna know what happened to the guy missing this shoe? After all, it IS St. Paul, so who knows?
Wonder if he or she noticed they’d blown a tire? (Photo by Chad Smith)
There’s an old lift bridge down there on the Mississippi that I’m pretty sure is no longer in use. However, please don’t quote me on that. The blue lift-control house on top of the bridge looks like a pretty lonely place to be?
I’m not a boating expert by any means, but I think these are some type of retaining walls to keep ships from hitting the bridge? The doves sure liked hanging out down there in the shade on a scorching hot day. (Photo by Chad Smith)
You really don’t ever know what you’ll find when exploring the metro area. Found a blushing bride and her groom out getting pictures taken in the Union Depot area of St. Paul.
The blushing bride hurrying to get back and get hitched after taking pictures. (Photo by Chad Smith)
