While checkin' out Hamm Falls today around 4PM, I was mistaken for a spotter. I had no shovel in hand at that time, but I did have my binoculars around my neck. I trained the binocs on each digger, in turn, to try to determine if it was anyone I knew and/or anyone who is known to be in the right place in the right park.
Ran into Becksie and Tex-Sis down around Beulah and Como at dusk/dark. There weren't any more than a handful of hunters in any area, and mostly, it didn't look like Como was a hot commodity today.
Terry, it would be great to meet up some evening, maybe for a burger and malt or something other than Italian. I think I am Italian-ed out for awhile.
I fell asleep. I think we'll just eat here and noodle for a fresh start in the morning.
We didn't see anyone we knew at Como this afternoon...and again...just looking at all the snow there is to move, it would be good to know what area to even think about.
Anyone from that neighborhood has to admit the shopping crowds at Sun-Ray changed dramatically between when it used to be J.C. Penney and the Thrift stone that is there today.
Just a random nugget. One of the theories on the McMurray clue is that it's at BC because he sold/donated the first parcel of land for the park. Per my map if St Paul circa 1934 that parcel of land is the gale along the creek between Upper Afton and 61. Now my map cuts off before it gets to the maplewood side of BC, but since McKnight (or East Ave as it's called) doesn't exist between Burns and Lower Afton, I'm going to guess the adjacent park doesn't exist either.
Yea, My wife's grandpa had it hanging in his garage, and when he passed away it was most likely headed to the trash, so I grabbed it. Quite cool to see how different things were back then. Lets put it this way, there's a whole street grid between the river and Pickerel Lake in Lilydale. It fairly large (33x24inch) and mounted on some kind of old school poster board or else I'd attempt to scan it and show it off.
No, I just have the 1934 map and then somewhere I have just a generic street map from like 1973 or something like that. I can check the U of M Map library to see if they have anything on line.
If it is there it would probably be in the original park off of 61 is my thought. That upper part had to have been added sometime after the early 1960's. My friends and I used to go to BC a lot in the late '50's, and that part wasn't park land then. I can't find a time line though.
We even climbed this once. I was terrified! You had to climb up the side where they just had narrow boards for your foot hold.
You know this noodle goes with an other noodle I saw.
This post says highway 23 = Cty Rd C
A prevoios post was talking about how the Qs and Ps in editing were talking about how letters were reversed in printing, making it hard to notice the typo.
Not that its the park, but just a bord thought, 32 reversed is 23.
I grabbed the picture from the Minnesota Historical Society visual database. The glen would be at the bottom of the jump, perpendicular to the jump. If they hid it there, the parking situation would be similar to Lilydale last year. A small parking lot with road leading in.
Totally random, but I'm just searching around the Brochert Map Library's data base and found this map from 1912 showing a proposed change in the river channel. Crazy to think about how different the city would be if they ever would have made that change.
Oh, and queenmalley, the first map I found to acknowledge Battle Creek Park was from 1916 and it looks to be the same basic boundaries my map from '34 has.
When I was in MN last weekend, I stopped at that architecture/antique shop next to Cupcake on University Ave. Just inside the front door (to the right) is a big bin of maps. Included are individual pages from a 1920s era real estate plat book. Anyone really into maps might want to buy some of those.
Queenmalley gets the prize for most significant noodle so far. way to go.
I did notice the first letter of each line this year contain a lot of vowels, which is very unusual - but I haven't spotted any patterns yet.
Clue 1:________ 2:_____________ 3:_______ 4:______ 5:______ 6:______
H-S-B-Y A-I-W-T • T-H-W-O M-E-T-L • A-F-O-O • S-T-W-T • D-G-W-A • I-W-D-O
S-I-T B-Y W-H-A-T W-H-O-M L-E-T A F-O-O-T.... STWTDGWAIWDO
Ran into Becksie and Tex-Sis down around Beulah and Como at dusk/dark. There weren't any more than a handful of hunters in any area, and mostly, it didn't look like Como was a hot commodity today.
Terry, it would be great to meet up some evening, maybe for a burger and malt or something other than Italian. I think I am Italian-ed out for awhile.
We didn't see anyone we knew at Como this afternoon...and again...just looking at all the snow there is to move, it would be good to know what area to even think about.
We should get a deck of cards or something - I kick ass at Hearts and Euchre.
39. McMurray Fields
This former gravel pit was partially graded and used for soccer fields in 1925. A 32-acre
athletic field was initiated in 1927 and named for William McMurray two years later. A
successful tea merchant and extremely generous man, he gave away large sums of money and
wrote off debts owed to his company in the ten years before the end of 1923. Battle Creek Park
was started with his 1922 donation of 25 acres of land on Battle Creek. When his firm declared
bankruptcy in 1930, McMurray, then chairman of the park advisory board, poured his personal
savings into the company. In 1944, he was living on $15 a week in a downtown St. Paul hotel
when he was quoted as saying: “Where is the money? I haven’t the slightest idea, but I hope it
did some people some good. I guess I was just in business for the fun of it anyway.” Three new
artificial turf soccer fields took the place of two old soccer fields and one softball field in 2007. :smile:
the park began its nursery. A thousand deciduous trees and 300 shrubs obtained for the cost of
transplanting were moved from the site of an old nursery at Lexington and St. Clair that was
being cleared out for the building of new roads.A 1907 list of trees and shrubs in the nursery
included 2,588 box elder, 1,244 buckthorn, 6,000 catalpa kaempferii seedlings, 11,376 elms, 1,702
horse chestnuts, 700 lilacs and 2,132 assorted willows. 1,702 horse chestnuts,
of 60-year-old hackberry, ash and elm are still visible if
you look closely.
Park.
Those north-south rows of 60 yr old trees still there, but no horse chestnuts remain. I wonder if google map would show those rows.
11376 elms. And we wonder why whole blocks were wiped out by dutch elm disease.
That is the long version, there is a shorter version.
We even climbed this once. I was terrified! You had to climb up the side where they just had narrow boards for your foot hold.
This post says highway 23 = Cty Rd C
A prevoios post was talking about how the Qs and Ps in editing were talking about how letters were reversed in printing, making it hard to notice the typo.
Not that its the park, but just a bord thought, 32 reversed is 23.
http://geo.lib.umn.edu/twin_cities_maps/reference/map01467.jpg
Oh, and queenmalley, the first map I found to acknowledge Battle Creek Park was from 1916 and it looks to be the same basic boundaries my map from '34 has.
http://geo.lib.umn.edu/plat_books/stpaul1916/reference/map00246.jpg