We are currently in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area on our trip down the Great River Road and it has been busy! Yesterday, we boarded a bus for a tour of the Minneapolis/St. Paul downtowns that included St. Paul Cathedral, Wabasha Sandstone Caves, and a Crooks Tour of St. Paul. Lunch was on our own that day.
Our first stop of the day was Minnehaha Falls. If the name doesn't sound familiar try adding the second name of Hiawatha and you will have the reason we stopped here. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the "Song of Hiawatha", a 22 chapter poem that details the love affair between the Ojibwa brave and his Dakota love, Minnehaha.
The interesting thing is, Longfellow was never here. He asked his friends and acquaintances for Native American legends that they have heard and proceeded to write his mega poem based on these legends. These falls were indeed near the center of the Dakota nation and the Dakota & Ojibwa did interact but the love story poem was pure fiction. That did not stop Longfellow from becoming something as a legend as he toured the country reading and discussing his poem. As an aside, these falls were always known a Minnehaha. Longfellow just dreamed up the maiden and gave her the same name. The falls are also the highest falls located in an urban center in the US.
A little trivia - When POTUS Lyndon Johnson came to Minneapolis, he decided he wanted to see the falls described in the poem. Trouble was, Minnesota was is the grip a a bad drought and the falls had barely a trickle flowing over them. His resourceful team worked with city officials and dammed the creek further upstream and just before LBJ arrived, they broke the dam and the water cascaded over the falls much to the delight of the President. The only trouble was it ran over its banks downstream and flooded a neighborhoods basements, and, that friends is the rest of the story!
The second stop on the tour was St. Paul's Cathedral. It sits on a hill overlooking the downtown area of St. Paul. The cathedral was started in 1905 and the first service in it was not until 1910 and finished in 1915 although the building was not officially dedicated until 1958. There were no large benefactors for this cathedral, it was funded literally with the donations given while passing the offering plate in services at other churches in the area. The cathedral was designed by Archbishop John Ireland, architect Emmanuel Masqueray, and the mostly anonymous artists, craftsmen, masons, stone-cutters, laborers, and citizen contributors.
The last picture is the door entering the Cathedral, it is covered in leather and decorated with brads. As with most things, there is more to the story. Archbishop Ireland, upon hearing that the capital building being built down the street had a higher dome on it, worked with the architect and redesigned the dome on the cathedral to be slightly higher that the one on the capital building. Many years later, he was asked about this and did confirm it is true. It is the second largest Cathedral in the US only to St. Patrick's in downtown NYC.
The final tour of the day was probably the strangest one in that we saw and learned about the gangsters in the 1930's that use St. Paul as an area to get away from the police and relax. The likes of Baby Face Nelson, Bugsy Malone, John Dillinger and Al Capone all stayed here. Why? Seems after prohibition ended, the local police chief just didnt think the city paid enough so he developed a program where a gangster could come and stay in St. Paul as long as they did three things. 1. Register when they got into town. 2. Commit no crime while they were in St. Paul and 3. Make a "donation" to the police. As long as they did these three things, they were not chased or arrested, in fact, they were protected.
One of the placed they gathered during prohibition and after was the Casino Royale, or what is known today as the Wabasha Sandstone Caves. These caves were originally dug out of the sandstone bluffs overlooking the Mississippi for the very pure silica in order to make glass. At one time, the Ford company had a plant here in order to use the silica to make the windshields. When the mined silica exceeded the demand the caves were abandoned only to be discovered as a place to raise mushrooms due to the climate in the caves. During prohibition, a restaurant was opened that included a speakeasy and gambling, called the Casino Royale. It was an upscale place that served a choice of steak, fish or chicken with potato, salad, bread and of course mushrooms all for $1.00. Now back in the 30's most families could live for a week or two on $1.00 so only the wealthiest would have dinner here. Because gangsters were not harassed here if they followed the three rules, they frequented this place a lot. We were met by John Dillinger himself as our tour guide.
This was the dance floor that was and is still being used for swing dances, in costume if you want. On Thursday nights, for $1.00 you can take swing lessons. You can see the seating in the back.
The walls in this part of the cave have been painted and coated to keep the fine silica from sloughing off the walls. Around the corner is one of the unfinished caves that was used to grow the mushrooms. The cooking was done next door in order to not dry out the air so that the sandstone did not fall in pieces.
In the 50's the caves flooded and this entrance to the speakeasy was blocked with 5-10 feet of trash. You can see the old tires and debris in the back. It is is an area that is as tall as the unfinished cave above but wider and has a fireplace and bar. There is talk of cleaning it out and adding this portion to the tour.
Did I mention, this place is haunted and has been featured on the Paranormal Investigations show. It seems as if the owners were tired and wanted to go home but 4 gangsters were playing cards and drinking. They asked the cleaning lady if she would lock up after they left and she agreed. She was off in another part of the cave when she heard yelling and glassware crashing followed by a burst of a Tommy gun. She ran back in and found one man standing and 3 bodies on the ground. She ran out and called the police, this first thing they did was call the Chief and he made some calls to determine if they had registered and paid the donation, remember his three rules? They had and when the police showed up the cleaning lady said it was a horrible sight and did not want to go back in that area. The officers went in and a couple of hours later they came back and told her if she ever calls in a false report they will jail here. When she went in, the place was as clean and neat as can be. Tables were upright, place settings were on the tables and no bodies were seen. To this day, the bodies have not been found. It is believed they were hidden somewhere in the caves by the police. That were the ghosts we were looking for in the picture below.
We didn't see anything that night but all the workers who still work giving tours and maintenance all say they have seen and been touched by ghosts while in the caves. Afterwards we were treated to a "Crooks Tour of St. Paul by John Dillinger and saw the houses where The Barkers lived while in St. Paul. It was in St. Paul the Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, the get away driver for the Barkers was tried and sent to prison. More on that tomorrow. Finally, you are greeted by this car as you arrive as a memory of the wilder days of the Wabasha Street Caves.
It was a good day and very interesting. I hope you all had a great one also. I will post more tomorrow as we cruise the Mississippi for lunch and visit the Landmark Center where these gangsters were tried and sentenced. J. Edgar Hoover even comes in to play.
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