if you look at this map this intersection has 8 SIDES and you can go south of crosby gate 2 and be in highland fitting the other street clues into highland
The main entrance to the estate was guarded by a superb iron gate (with the name "Stonebridge" atop it) set between massive brick piers that appear to have been at least 20 feet high. The piers were moved in 1937 as part of a WPA (Works Project Administration) project to Como Park and can still be seen today at the park entrance at Midway Parkway and Hamline Avenue.
How the heck did you know that, Kitch?? I'm impressed! So how about near the fire pit below the smaller pavillion where we had the Re-Hash after the Como hunt?
I think he's leading us to Como to a terrain similar to where it was found in Crosby this year. I'm thinking he didn't expect anyone to know about that Crosby gate. ;) Good job, Kitch!
Crosby's mansion was located near the center of the estate, at what is today the southeast corner of Woodlawn Boulevard and Stanford Court.
Stanford?
Today, virtually all traces of the estate have been obliterated except for one notable survivor -- the eponymous stone bridge (located on private property) that visitors once passed over on their way to the great house where Oliver Crosby lived, if only for a very few years, what must have been the life of his dreams.
The Iron gate is at cono, What about the STONE GATE? Is that still on private property?
Just over half a century ago, in the autumn of 1953, what may have been the grandest estate ever built in St. Paul -- or Minneapolis, for that matter -- disappeared into a pile of dust and debris after standing for a mere 37 years.
It was known as Stonebridge, and in its brief flowering, it encompassed a full 40 acres of woods, streams and ponds surrounding a baronial Georgian-style mansion along Mississippi River Boulevard south of St. Clair Avenue.
The magnificent mansion and its even more impressive grounds were built between 1914 and 1916 for Oliver Crosby, a brilliant engineer, inventor and businessman who made his fortune as a co-founder of the American Hoist and Derrick Co., once one of St. Paul's great industrial enterprises.
Yet despite it size and splendor, Stonebridge is little known today outside its immediate neighborhood. Nor is Crosby himself much remembered, even though at least one of his inventions -- a type of wire rope connector -- remains in use to this day and is still known as a "Crosby clip."
Jay Pfaender hopes to remedy these historical oversights in an article to be published next summer in Ramsey County History magazine. A banker by profession, Pfaender has spent a year researching his article, which promises to be the most thorough history to date of Crosby and his incomparable estate.
Pfaender's interest in Stonebridge comes naturally. He grew up near the mansion, and as a child in the late 1940s, he played in the house with the son of the caretaker.
"I've often thought somebody ought to write about Crosby and the estate, and I finally decided I might as well do it," he says. "But it's turned out to be a bigger project than I thought."
As part of his research, Pfaender has unearthed many never-before-published documents, drawings and photographs, some from private collections, that tell the story of the short-lived estate.
The drawings are especially fascinating and demonstrate just how large and elaborate Stonebridge was before subdivision began in the late 1920s. Encircled by a 6-foot-high iron fence, the estate originally took in the entire area bounded by Mississippi River Boulevard, Mount Curve Boulevard, Jefferson Avenue and St. Clair Avenue (all but a strip of houses along one side of the street).
Pfaender thinks the entire estate cost Crosby somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million, an enormous sum at a time when a handsome mansion could be built on Summit Avenue for $50,000 or less.
Crosby's mansion was located near the center of the estate, at what is today the southeast corner of Woodlawn Boulevard and Stanford Court. It was designed by prominent St. Paul architect Clarence Johnston, who also had designed an earlier house for Crosby on Lincoln Avenue in St. Paul.
Although the brick mansion, which featured a huge Ionic portico on the outside and plenty of fine detailing within, was certainly an impressive architectural specimen, it was not the biggest or most dazzling house ever built in St. Paul.
The estate's lavishly landscaped grounds, however, were nothing short of astonishing, at least to modern eyes.
Following a plan developed by the same landscape architects who later designed the state Capitol Mall, the grounds included hundreds of trees, each of which was numbered and identified by species, according to a diagram in Pfaender's possession.
In the midst of this private forest, Crosby built two ponds (one named Lake Elizabeth, after his wife) and a tumbling brook, complete with artificial waterfalls, to connect them. (A stone bridge over this watercourse gave the estate its name.)
The estate also included a long, grassy mall that provided a view from the house down to Mississippi River Boulevard. South of the house there was a large sunken garden and an elaborate trellis. Other notable features were a greenhouse and a 15-car garage that Pfaender thinks may have been one of the first heated garages in the Twin Cities. A tunnel connected the house to these outbuildings.
The main entrance to the estate was guarded by a superb iron gate (with the name "Stonebridge" atop it) set between massive brick piers that appear to have been at least 20 feet high. The piers were moved in 1937 as part of a WPA (Works Project Administration) project to Como Park and can still be seen today at the park entrance at Midway Parkway and Hamline Avenue.
Unfortunately, Crosby had little time to enjoy his sylvan riverside retreat. He died in 1922 at age 66, barely six years after moving into Stonebridge. Elizabeth stayed on at the estate and died there in 1928.
After Elizabeth's death, the estate -- which must have cost a tidy fortune just to maintain -- was subdivided by heirs. The streets that now cut through the old grounds -- Stonebridge and Woodlawn boulevards, and Stanford Court -- were laid out in 1928.
Smaller homes were built on a portion of the old estate once the new streets were in. However, the mansion itself continued to serve as a home for Oliver's son, Frederic, until 1937.
In 1944, according to Pfaender's research, the mansion was tax-forfeited to the state. In the early 1950s, there was talk of using the vacant house as a governor's residence, but that idea never got off the ground, presumably because of the cost of restoring and maintaining such a large property. The mansion was finally sold to nearby residents and then torn down, after which a number of 1950s-style modern houses were built along Stonebridge Boulevard.
Today, virtually all traces of the estate have been obliterated except for one notable survivor -- the eponymous stone bridge (located on private property) that visitors once passed over on their way to the great house where Oliver Crosby lived, if only for a very few years, what must have been the life of his dreams.
FYI
If you have memories of Stonebridge or other information about it, Jay Pfaender would like to hear from you. He can be reached by phone at 651-767-9821 or by e-mail at jpfaender@drake-bank.com
CM is going to bee soooo happy!!!
he has a reason to go to crosby...
Real Un-Joe
MARIJUANA!!
If you find you can roughly duplicate this scene.
trying to tell you to duplicate what you would do at one park (crosby) in another with similar traits?
Famous Dave's Barbeque
1930 West 7th Street
St. Paul, MN 55116
1990 PP Hunt Clue 3 and explaination:Â
While the actual spot
We dare not reveal
We can mention a place
For many a wheel.
Â
Explaination:
The place for "many a wheel" refers to the nearby parking lot.Â
Â
That's the parking lot near the Como pavillion where it's like a traffic circle
Â
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:32pm.]
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:33pm.]
Traffic circle at the end of that road in Crosby too. Thanks MrMikey. I was going to look for a map.
whats the story on cono's gates again? anyone? Pleeeeze?
from montreal and edgcumbe would put you at the circus school - is this PART of the park or part of the park not on the mapS?
I'm talking about the Gates Ajar on the hill above the pavillion parking lot off of Lexington. Where people get their wedding pictures taken.
this intersection has 8 SIDES and you can go south of crosby gate 2 and be in highland fitting the other street clues into highland
isn't that North of crosby?
whats the story on cono's gates again? anyone? Pleeeeze?
from the crosby estate.
In that old clue I posted, the explanation referred to the traffic circle below it as a wheel.
in walsh park (highland)? top of stairs?
Where are the gates from the Crosby estate at Como?
at como - i know the spot well
south of falls
I'm not sure what you're talking about, Kitch. I was talking about Como. But now you've made me curiouser and curiouser. ;)
thanks kitch. hmm....
That's the Gates Ajar. The gate on the hill you mean that stands by itself? I think we're talking about the same place?  ??
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:40pm.]
kitch is right
same gates i believe - you are both right on
Well, we got that settled then! lol I've never heard that they were from the Crosby Farm before. I just know them as Gates Ajar.
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:43pm.]
The main entrance to the estate was guarded by a superb iron gate (with the name "Stonebridge" atop it) set between massive brick piers that appear to have been at least 20 feet high. The piers were moved in 1937 as part of a WPA (Works Project Administration) project to Como Park and can still be seen today at the park entrance at Midway Parkway and Hamline Avenue.
We took a picture of Zeph in front of those gates during the carnival.Â
The "Gates Ajar" is a planting that was made by Nussbaumer. Is there actually a gate there that came from the Crosby estate?
2 long sorry...
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:46pm.]
Ok, different gates. Those are the gates with the EEE on them, a clue for the Como hunt, right? Some woman's initials.
that would explain the "same only different"
the small set of gates for pic's near the COMO lake bldg and waterfalls
Isn't the gate off Hamline the "wide a triple E" gate from 2003. I thought that it was donated by some Englebert guy.
How the heck did you know that, Kitch?? I'm impressed! So how about near the fire pit below the smaller pavillion where we had the Re-Hash after the Como hunt?
I was thinking of that gate too RR. But have to change my thinking if those other gates are from the Crosby farm.
OT...thanks..
been something that I've noodled for other hunts...
I impressed me2 with that 2...
other crosby
<perk> but he is getting us thinking crosby farm not crosby mansion gates...or IS he?
Â
lol
impresses Me2 with something else ;)
I think he's leading us to Como to a terrain similar to where it was found in Crosby this year. I'm thinking he didn't expect anyone to know about that Crosby gate. ;) Good job, Kitch!
I still don't like it....
Crosby's mansion was located near the center of the estate, at what is today the southeast corner of Woodlawn Boulevard and Stanford Court.
Stanford?
Today, virtually all traces of the estate have been obliterated except for one notable survivor -- the eponymous stone bridge (located on private property) that visitors once passed over on their way to the great house where Oliver Crosby lived, if only for a very few years, what must have been the life of his dreams.
The Iron gate is at cono, What about the STONE GATE? Is that still on private property?
[Edited by on Mar 9, 2005 at 04:55pm.]
Isn't it in the new map book???
Kitch
Was that Larry Millett article was in the paper just recently? I remember reading it, but I didn't remember that it was a Crosby estate. Nice find!
I don't like Como at this point, can't fit the west coast educational place there.
Well, you have a good point Kitch. Each clue seems to lead us to a different park.Â
stonegate is private property!!!
Isn't it in the new map book???
Don't know. I don't have the newest edition.
::Kicks self::
the tilt o whirl looks like a roulette wheel and that is in the midway rides part of como
by the wolves - w00t
LARRY MILLETT
Just over half a century ago, in the autumn of 1953, what may have been the grandest estate ever built in St. Paul -- or Minneapolis, for that matter -- disappeared into a pile of dust and debris after standing for a mere 37 years.
It was known as Stonebridge, and in its brief flowering, it encompassed a full 40 acres of woods, streams and ponds surrounding a baronial Georgian-style mansion along Mississippi River Boulevard south of St. Clair Avenue.
The magnificent mansion and its even more impressive grounds were built between 1914 and 1916 for Oliver Crosby, a brilliant engineer, inventor and businessman who made his fortune as a co-founder of the American Hoist and Derrick Co., once one of St. Paul's great industrial enterprises.
Yet despite it size and splendor, Stonebridge is little known today outside its immediate neighborhood. Nor is Crosby himself much remembered, even though at least one of his inventions -- a type of wire rope connector -- remains in use to this day and is still known as a "Crosby clip."
Jay Pfaender hopes to remedy these historical oversights in an article to be published next summer in Ramsey County History magazine. A banker by profession, Pfaender has spent a year researching his article, which promises to be the most thorough history to date of Crosby and his incomparable estate.
Pfaender's interest in Stonebridge comes naturally. He grew up near the mansion, and as a child in the late 1940s, he played in the house with the son of the caretaker.
"I've often thought somebody ought to write about Crosby and the estate, and I finally decided I might as well do it," he says. "But it's turned out to be a bigger project than I thought."
As part of his research, Pfaender has unearthed many never-before-published documents, drawings and photographs, some from private collections, that tell the story of the short-lived estate.
The drawings are especially fascinating and demonstrate just how large and elaborate Stonebridge was before subdivision began in the late 1920s. Encircled by a 6-foot-high iron fence, the estate originally took in the entire area bounded by Mississippi River Boulevard, Mount Curve Boulevard, Jefferson Avenue and St. Clair Avenue (all but a strip of houses along one side of the street).
Pfaender thinks the entire estate cost Crosby somewhere between $1 million and $1.5 million, an enormous sum at a time when a handsome mansion could be built on Summit Avenue for $50,000 or less.
Crosby's mansion was located near the center of the estate, at what is today the southeast corner of Woodlawn Boulevard and Stanford Court. It was designed by prominent St. Paul architect Clarence Johnston, who also had designed an earlier house for Crosby on Lincoln Avenue in St. Paul.
Although the brick mansion, which featured a huge Ionic portico on the outside and plenty of fine detailing within, was certainly an impressive architectural specimen, it was not the biggest or most dazzling house ever built in St. Paul.
The estate's lavishly landscaped grounds, however, were nothing short of astonishing, at least to modern eyes.
Following a plan developed by the same landscape architects who later designed the state Capitol Mall, the grounds included hundreds of trees, each of which was numbered and identified by species, according to a diagram in Pfaender's possession.
In the midst of this private forest, Crosby built two ponds (one named Lake Elizabeth, after his wife) and a tumbling brook, complete with artificial waterfalls, to connect them. (A stone bridge over this watercourse gave the estate its name.)
The estate also included a long, grassy mall that provided a view from the house down to Mississippi River Boulevard. South of the house there was a large sunken garden and an elaborate trellis. Other notable features were a greenhouse and a 15-car garage that Pfaender thinks may have been one of the first heated garages in the Twin Cities. A tunnel connected the house to these outbuildings.
The main entrance to the estate was guarded by a superb iron gate (with the name "Stonebridge" atop it) set between massive brick piers that appear to have been at least 20 feet high. The piers were moved in 1937 as part of a WPA (Works Project Administration) project to Como Park and can still be seen today at the park entrance at Midway Parkway and Hamline Avenue.
Unfortunately, Crosby had little time to enjoy his sylvan riverside retreat. He died in 1922 at age 66, barely six years after moving into Stonebridge. Elizabeth stayed on at the estate and died there in 1928.
After Elizabeth's death, the estate -- which must have cost a tidy fortune just to maintain -- was subdivided by heirs. The streets that now cut through the old grounds -- Stonebridge and Woodlawn boulevards, and Stanford Court -- were laid out in 1928.
Smaller homes were built on a portion of the old estate once the new streets were in. However, the mansion itself continued to serve as a home for Oliver's son, Frederic, until 1937.
In 1944, according to Pfaender's research, the mansion was tax-forfeited to the state. In the early 1950s, there was talk of using the vacant house as a governor's residence, but that idea never got off the ground, presumably because of the cost of restoring and maintaining such a large property. The mansion was finally sold to nearby residents and then torn down, after which a number of 1950s-style modern houses were built along Stonebridge Boulevard.
Today, virtually all traces of the estate have been obliterated except for one notable survivor -- the eponymous stone bridge (located on private property) that visitors once passed over on their way to the great house where Oliver Crosby lived, if only for a very few years, what must have been the life of his dreams.
FYI
If you have memories of Stonebridge or other information about it, Jay Pfaender would like to hear from you. He can be reached by phone at 651-767-9821 or by e-mail at jpfaender@drake-bank.com
I'll post it again....sorry...