Edward Lotterman

Disturbances in the force of the economy have been common in recent news. Prices of crypto currencies, especially bitcoin, did a deep-knee bends, ditto for gold and silver.

The Dow and S&P indexes are up setting records, and then down. Some foreign banks and countries apparently are reducing their holdings of U.S. dollars.

In a financial hangover from their bidding binge that raised farmland prices over 50% in five years, U.S. farmers want a large bailout. Housing prices remain out of reach for the children and grandchildren of baby boomers.

The common factor in all of this is the Federal Reserve (albeit acting in very good faith in response to successive defense, financial and health crises) increased the amount of money sloshing around relative to the size of the economy to unprecedented levels. The Fed, the media and many economists prefer to focus elsewhere — on the causes, not the results. And events will force us to do so.

If one wants to be prepared for that, it is necessary to understand banking — and central banking — from the ground up.

Start with the very basics. These were visible in Venice, Milan, Geneva and Amsterdam in the 1400s. Ditto in the Minnesota counties of Martin, Olmstead, Pipestone and others 150 years ago.

In all modern ages, some people have money that they save now so they can spend later. They want it safe and hope to earn some return on it in the meantime by investing. Others want to spend now. Some will have income in the future, but have no cash at the moment. They are willing to pay a fee to borrow spendable money today and pay it back later.

At some point in history, people started accepting money from people wanting to save and lending it to those who want to borrow. The borrowers pay interest, which is income for this intermediary. We call it a “bank” from the bench at which Italian merchants did business. A bank pays interest on deposits. The rate is low on small accounts or those with frequent deposits and withdrawals. It may be higher on larger amounts or to those who agree to leave alone for longer periods of time.

There are two dangers to any bank and its depositors. If some borrowers never repay their loans, a bank might not have cash to meet withdrawals by depositors.  This would be “insolvency.” The bank is “busted” or “broke.” Even if the borrowers offer collateral, say real property like with a mortgage, the repossession or foreclosure process could take more time than the bank has to meet its depositors’ demand. To prevent this, its bank owners must have money of their own, capital, in the bank business as well as the funds of depositors. If a loan turns bad, the cushion of adequate capital plus the collateral protects depositors.

The second danger is that, even if all loans are safe and will be repaid when promised, a large number of depositors may suddenly want to withdraw their money. This flows from “mis-matched maturities.” Deposits can be demanded but loans may not be due until a ship returns from its voyage, wheat is harvested or the mercantile sells its large stock of calicos, coffee pots and pickaxes. This problem is “illiquidity,” or the lack thereof. Assets exceed liabilities but these assets cannot be converted into cash rapidly enough to satisfy withdrawals of deposits.

To guard against this, banks don’t lend out 100% of their deposits. If these total 10,000 dollars or guilders or ducats, wise bankers may lend out only 9,000 and keep 1,000 in reserve.

Having both adequate owners’ capital against insolvency and deposit reserves against illiquidity were voluntary prudence early in this historical evolution. But guilds of merchants in places like Venice or banking commissions in states like Minnesota eventually set uniform regulations. They may perform audits to ensure that rules are being followed.

Smaller banks also developed business relationships with larger banks. If a bank in Coblenz, Germany, had reserves greater than needed for prudence or legal compliance and no local borrowers, it might deposit money with a larger one in Amsterdam. One from Litchfield might put it in a Minneapolis bank. That Minneapolis bank or one from Des Moines or Lacrosse, with too much cash might place it with a still larger bank in Chicago or New York, and so on.

Moreover, funds might flow the other way. When Twin Cities banks were flush with cash from Dayton’s, Donaldsons and other merchants just finishing holiday sales, or from Cargill having shipped wheat to New York and Pennsylvania, they might lend it to smaller banks in Marshall or Chippewa Falls. These would lend to farmers facing spring planting needs for seed, new plows and additional horse feed.

Small town banks borrowing such cash temporarily unneeded by regional city banks had to put up collateral. This would be promissory notes signed by their own local customers. If a small town bank did not repay a Minneapolis bank, that larger one could collect directly from the farm or main-street borrower.

If a small bank had $20,000 in promissory notes signed by farmers and main street merchants and wanted to borrow from a Twin Cities bank, they knew they might be able to get only $19,000. The IOUs presented as collateral would be “discounted.” The office of the large bank that handled such deals was its “discount window.” The bigger bank would be the “correspondent bank” for the smaller one.

A city correspondent bank that had an established, trusted relationship with the small-town bank might be willing to help this client with cash if it faced illiquidity. And, after careful examination of books, it might be willing to advance funds to a small bank that actually faced going broke because one of its major borrowers defaulted on its debts. The larger bank might demand a temporary or permanent ownership share in the troubled bank in return for saving it from total failure.

All of this is commercial banking, all done with minimal government involvement. It first took place under rules of merchant-bank guilds and later under government banking laws. However, some large, major-city banks, say in London or Stockholm, gradually became dominant as bankers for smaller banks. They had few or no business customers themselves. Hence the rise of central banking, or what is known in America as the Fed.

Eventually these got special charters from government. The Riksens Ständers Bank (“Bank of the Estates of the Realm”) established in Stockholm in 1668, was directly run by the Swedish government. The Bank of England, chartered in London in 1694, was a private joint-stock business but one with special privileges and duties.

Governments created these entities to facilitate commerce. However, funding governments, especially for military operations, was an underlying need. The Swedish bank was established soon after a war with Russia at the end of the 1650s and facilitated the Great Northern War of shifting coalitions that engulfed the Baltic from 1700-1721. The Bank of England mobilized money for two decades of English wars against Louis XIV’s France.

The economies of the 13 American colonies were not complex. There were few true banks. Philadelphia, New York, and Boston had merchants who functioned much like those in Florence, Venice or Amsterdam centuries earlier. Tobacco, rice and indigo planters dealt directly with England through “factors,” or merchants, in London or Bristol. These sold their products, procured supplies and luxury goods, and wrote mortgages on their plantations and slaves when spenders like Thomas Jefferson lived beyond their means.

After independence, more banks regulated by individual states, if at all, were established. Out on the frontier west of the Alleghenies or north of the Ohio River, “wildcat banks” with little supervision but that could issue their own “banknote” currencies with little “backing” by gold or silver flourished. Failures were common. Deposits often disappeared, loans often not repaid. Regional inflations and deflations were common as were “panics” that slowed economic activity sharply causing much social pain.

This review of banking basics that are universal, plus some historical and institutional details for our country, facilitates understanding the challenges we face now.

The U.S. financial system, including its commercial banks, has been a source of true wealth for us. By “true wealth,” an economist means that we achieve high levels of satisfaction of the needs and wants of our people from resources we have available. But in recent decades, our financial system has become more erratic, “needing” more frequent and larger government intervention to stave off possible catastrophes. Exactly how and why that is playing out is something to explore next week.

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St. Paul economist and writer Edward Lotterman can be reached at stpaul@edlotterman.com.

By Kevin Hardy, Stateline.org

As Americans grow increasingly frustrated over their electricity bills, states are trying to keep the nation’s growing number of data centers from causing higher energy costs for consumers.

For years, many states competed aggressively to land data centers, sprawling campuses full of the computer servers that store and transmit the data behind apps and websites. But many officials are now scrutinizing how those power-hungry projects might affect the electric bills of households, small businesses and other industries.

Oregon last year became one of the first states to enact a law requiring utilities to charge data centers different electric prices than other industries because of how they drive up the cost of energy production and transmission.

“We are now making data centers pay a higher rate commensurate with the amount of energy they’re sucking out of the system,” said Oregon state Rep. Tom Andersen, a Democrat.

Republican and Democratic leaders in at least a dozen states have targeted data centers with separate, higher electric rates to protect other customers. States also are requiring long-term commitments and financial guarantees through collateral before greenlighting infrastructure investments for new data center projects. But lawmakers acknowledge that numerous factors affect energy prices, so targeting data center-specific costs can be complicated.

An increasingly digital world and the rise of energy-intensive artificial intelligence has led to major expansion of data centers: Consultant McKinsey & Company expects companies to spend nearly $7 trillion worldwide on data centers by 2030. But the industry is facing growing scrutiny, from neighbors who don’t want to live near the massive server farms and from residents worried about how data centers will affect their own swelling utility bills.

Delaware legislation that would charge data centers higher rates advanced out of committee last week. On Tuesday, a Florida state Senate committee approved a bill that would create new rate structures for data centers.

In Oklahoma, a Republican state senator has proposed a moratorium on new data centers until late 2029, allowing the state to study how data centers affect utility rates, the environment and property values.

Separate legislation from state Rep. Brad Boles will seek to protect other ratepayers from the costs of data centers. Boles, the Republican chair of the state Energy and Natural Resources Oversight Committee, said his in-the-works measure would ensure data centers pay their fair share.

Boles told Stateline that his constituents are increasingly worried about data centers, with a dozen potential major ones proposed across the state.

“We’re trying to ensure that those data centers pay for their own infrastructure and we don’t shift that cost or burden to everyday Oklahomans,” he said.

In Oregon, Andersen’s legislation created a new rate structure for data centers with long-term contracts and required regulators to separate the costs of those facilities from other ratepayers.

But consumer advocates have already accused the state’s largest utility of trying to skirt the new law by making residential customers pay part of the long-term cost of supplying large data centers in a pending rate case.

Andersen, a member of the state House Committee on Climate, Energy and Environment, said the new rate structure is unlikely to immediately lower consumer bills. Rather, it aims to curb future increases as data centers require more power generation and transmission.

“We’re not going to change the rates that are being currently paid by the ratepayers and the users of the electricity,” he said. “It’s just going to stop future raises.”

The data center boom

Rising utility bills continue to outpace inflation, sparking anger from consumers and more scrutiny from state regulators, governors and lawmakers.

The boom of data centers is frequently cited as a prime reason for rising electricity prices, as their operation requires more power generation, transmission and distribution upgrades. A Bloomberg News analysis in September found wholesale electricity costs as much as 267% more for a single month than it did five years ago in areas with significant data center activity.

Data center companies say they aren’t the only reason prices are rising.

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“It’s inaccurate to draw a clear line between large load customers like data centers coming online and increases in prices. It’s just not that simple,” said Lucas Fykes, senior director of energy policy and regulatory counsel at the Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing data center owners and users, including Amazon, Meta and Visa.

He said many factors have contributed to higher electricity prices, including extreme weather events and the nation’s aging electric grid.

Fykes said his organization opposes rate structures that treat data centers differently from other large electric users such as industrial sites. The organization is working with regulators as states increasingly implement practices to ensure residents and small businesses aren’t on the hook for big energy investments if major projects including data centers don’t come to fruition.

Fykes said the country is likely just in the “beginning innings” of a longer ramp-up in technology and power needs.

“We are also in a global race to build out data centers, to support AI, to support cloud infrastructure,” he said. “It’s important to make sure that we maintain those assets here in the United States.”

That can pose competing interests for political leaders, including mayors, who have pushed hard to land investments from tech companies.

“We want to be leaders in AI, but we don’t want the infrastructure needed to support it,” said Rusty Paul, the mayor of Sandy Springs, Georgia, in the Atlanta metro area.

He was among several mayors addressing the issue of data centers at last month’s winter meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C. On a data center panel, Paul acknowledged the effect of Georgia’s tax incentives for data centers: “They’re just popping up everywhere,” he said.

But utilities and regulators are also making long overdue grid upgrades that aren’t tied to data centers, he said.

“The cost of electricity is going up for everybody — and it’s not all related to data centers,” he said.

A bipartisan push

The Georgia Public Service Commission last year created new rules that officials said would protect ratepayers from data center costs. In addition to covering costs of power consumed at their facilities, data centers would have to fund the costs incurred by upstream generation, transmission and distribution, the regulator said.

But lawmakers aren’t convinced those steps went far enough.

State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, a Republican, is again pushing legislation that would solidify the regulator’s rules into law. His bill would prohibit utilities from passing along the fuel, generation or transmission costs of data centers to other customers.

He told Stateline that the regulator’s rules need to be codified into law so they can’t be weakened later.

Hufstetler said rising utility bills are among the biggest issues facing his constituents. High prices played a key role in November’s election, when Democrats flipped two seats on the state’s Public Service Commission board — the first time Democrats won statewide constitutional office in nearly two decades.

“I saw people with MAGA hats going into the election polling places that were saying, ‘I’m not voting for those guys that raised my rates,’” Hufstetler said, referring to the Republican incumbents who lost.

Hufstetler said the bill, which passed out of committee last year, has already gained major bipartisan support in the Senate, where it is sponsored by multiple Republicans and Democrats.

“This is very bipartisan,” he said. “We have all heard from our people around the state of Georgia.”

The Georgia Public Service Commission agrees in principle with the legislation, said agency spokesperson Tom Krause. But he said the regulator worries about losing flexibility if its rules are written into law.

“Not just this bill, but whenever the legislature codifies a rule that we put in place, we get a little nervous because it can tie our hands in special circumstances,” he said.

A complex challenge

As part of implementing a law enacted last year, Maryland’s utility regulator is weighing a new rate structure for data centers and other large load users.

Proposed regulations would require certain preapproval analysis for heavy power users, a separate rate tariff for data centers and collateral to ensure other ratepayers don’t end up paying for major investments if projects do not come to fruition.

Maryland’s Office of People’s Counsel, an independent agency representing residential utility users, said the proposed changes meet statutory requirements but could do more to protect consumers.

In a news release last month, Maryland People’s Counsel David S. Lapp said residents are already facing higher costs from data centers from outside the state.

“While we push for better federal rules to address those costs, Maryland has the power—and customers a clear need—to make sure data centers within Maryland take on every cost that they impose on residential customers,” Lapp said.

Democratic Gov. Wes Moore recently joined 12 other governors and the Trump administration in urging the regional grid operator, PJM Interconnection, to shield residents and businesses from the infrastructure costs from data centers.

Maryland state Del. Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat, said the grid operator has for years failed residents in the 13 states plus the District of Columbia that it serves. By delaying renewable energy projects, she said, PJM has kept older, more expensive power plants online, driving up prices as data centers increase demand.

PJM’s board last month rolled out a new data center plan that it said would improve demand forecasting, accelerate the addition of new generation projects and give states a larger role.

Charkoudian said states and utilities struggle to determine just how much power is needed. Data center users shop around for sites, which can cause wildly inaccurate forecasts of just how much power a utility will need.

“It actually has a very concrete financial impact on ratepayers,” she told Stateline. “And so that’s why one of the things that really could make a difference for ratepayers is if we actually had an accurate count of how much we’re getting online.”

While some of those challenges lie outside the realm of state control, Charkoudian said there are things the state can do, including the new rate structure for larger users. She’s crafting a bill encouraging data centers to curtail their power usage during peak periods, such as hot days, when the electrical system is taxed by heavy usage of air conditioners, Maryland Matters reported.

Charkoudian said adding solar generation and storage are low-cost ways to respond quickly to demand. And states can avoid the need for more generation by doubling down on energy efficiency programs that lower demand and also consumer costs.

“The best time to fix this was five years ago,” she said. “The next best time is right this minute, because it’s only going to get worse.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira contributed to this story. Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

It’s Valentine’s weekend, and while in my opinion this is one of those holidays driven by greeting-card companies, restaurants and flower shops, it’s still a wonderful holiday and fun for lovers, young and old. I have some celestial suggestions to make this year’s Valentine’s weekend special.

How about this? After a wonderful candlelit dinner, may I suggest a great way to top off your celebration is to drive to a dark spot, preferably in the countryside, park the car, turn on some soft music and go outside and gaze at the night sky. Make sure you’ve thought ahead and have an extra winter coat and thick blankets in the car. Really do it right and have some reclining lawn chairs in the trunk so you can relax and snuggle under the celestial theater of love.

The old reliable for lovers is the full moon, but unfortunately, it’s not happening for this year’s Valentine’s Day. Also, the bright planet Venus, named after the Roman goddess of love, is also a no-show, so you’ll have to be a little more creative. Start out with this as a warm-up. The brightest “star” in the early evening is actually the planet Jupiter, beaming away in the southeastern sky. It’s the largest planet of our solar system, more than 88,000 miles in diameter. Look into your sweetie’s eyes and say that your love is vaster than Jupiter. Don’t mention, though, that Jupiter is basically a big ball of gas.

(Mike Lynch)

Next, show your significant other the bright star Betelgeuse (pronounced “beetle-juice”), in the mighty constellation Orion the Hunter. It’s not all that far away from Jupiter this year in the southern heavens. Just look for the three bright stars that make up Orion’s belt. Betelgeuse is a bright reddish star to the upper left of the belt. It marks the right armpit of the nocturnal hunter, not exactly in the spirit of Valentine’s!

Betelgeuse (Mike Lynch)

Betelgeuse is still a great Valentine’s star, though, because it’s a super red giant star, about 600 light-years away, with just one light-year equaling nearly 6 trillion miles. Not only is it a red star, but it’s really perfect because it beats like a giant cosmic heart. Every six years it goes from about 500 million miles in diameter to well over 700 billion miles. Even at its smallest, Betelgeuse is way bigger than our sun, which isn’t even a million miles in diameter. In fact, you could fit at least 160 million of our suns inside Betelgeuse. By the way, our Earth is only about 8,000 miles across. Feeling small?

Betelgeuse is so huge that if you were to put it in our solar system in place of our sun, it would swallow the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, possibly reaching out to Jupiter! Our Valentine star Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life. It won’t die of a broken heart, but within a few million years it’ll suddenly and violently explode, what astronomers call a supernova explosion. No one knows for sure exactly when that’ll happen, but when it does Betelgeuse could temporarily be as bright as a full moon.

(Mike Lynch)

One more nice Valentine in the night sky is rising in the east, just above the horizon. It’s a formation of stars that resembles a backward question mark rising on its side. That’s the chest and head of the constellation Leo the Lion. The love angle here is twofold. If you see the constellation as a lion, you can say that it symbolizes that you’re the “king or queen of the beasts” in the jungle of love. If you’re not sure about that one, and I can’t say I blame you, just tell the love of your life that the backward question mark is a sign that there’s no question about your future together. OK, that’s another reach!

After you enjoy the Valentine’s wonders of the night sky that I’ve humbly suggested, the rest is up to you. Make it heavenly!

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of “Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations,” published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Mike is available for private star parties. You can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.

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The word community is taking on new significance in these days of Twin Cities demonstrations against some government agents. Here are three books, fiction and nonfiction, that approach the idea in different ways.

“Lobizona” is a young adult novel chosen for the St. Paul Public Library’s Read Brave citywide book club. (Courtesy)

“Lobizona”: by Romina Garber (Wednesday Books, free while supplies last)

Romina Garber

When Romina Garber’s young adult fantasy was published to acclaim from readers and critics in 2020, the Argentinian author couldn’t have known how prescient her story about an immigrant girl would be.

“Lobizona,” Spanish for female werewolf, is so timely it was chosen by St. Paul Library staff as the new title for Read Brave St. Paul, the public library’s annual citywide book club that invites teens, families and community members to read the same book and have conversations about its meaning in our lives.

The story begins with teenager Manuela “Manu” Azul hiding in an apartment in Miami with her mother and adopted grandmother. Manu and her mother are immigrants and she’s used to hiding under the bed when ICE does sweeps of the neighborhood. She’s not allowed outside the building and she must always wear sunglasses to hide her astonishing eyes that have star-shaped silver pupils and cast a yellow glow. She’s lonely and tired of being a virtual prisoner.

When Manu’s mother is captured by ICE agents, Manu escapes, ending up in a magical world in the Everglades she’s dreamed about since she was 13. In this world girls are witches (brujas) and boys are werewolves (lobizones). At their elite school the students play a game like soccer during which the boys have the ball, but the witches can interfere by using their powers to make the field icy or create a wind that foils the opposition team. Manu upsets their ordered society when her friends discover she is a hybrid, both human and werewolf. If her identity is discovered by the adults, she could be executed.

The story, based on Venezuelan folktales, is exciting and thought-provoking. Will Manu’s physical prowess work for or against her in this magical world? Will her deceptions hurt her best friends? Most important, she has always felt an outsider and now she’s surrounded by friends who look like her. For the first time she feels she belongs. But at what price?

This elite school is inside a giant tree. There are huge flowers and little worm-like creatures that attach themselves to basket handles and bite. Manu has found a home, but in the human world her mother languishes in a detention facility and her father, the head of a criminal enterprise, is known among her friends as a rebel who has disappeared and is assumed dead. There are conversations among the teens about why they live under so many rules based on gender. Will they break their long traditions as Manu’s journey mirrors the real struggles faced by those navigating borders seen and unseen, searching for belonging, safety and home?

Maureen Hartman, St. Paul Public Library director, explains in an online letter why this book was selected for Read Brave: “(The novel) takes place amid unprecedented federal immigration enforcement that is causing harm, fear, and unimaginable loss for many in our community … It focuses on a story of immigration, power, and belonging – themes that, in ways we could not have foreseen, are now unfolding with intensity in our own neighborhoods. Read Brave exists to leverage the power of stories to build empathy and community …”

Free copies of the novel, in English and Spanish, are available while supplies last at St. Paul public libraries. Romina Garber will participate in a free panel discussion with young readers at 5:30 p.m. March 5 at Arlington Hills Library, 1200 Payne Ave., St. Paul.

Teaser quote: “I scream as all my joints crack at once, the bones of my skeleton breaking off. My spine curves as it elongates, and fangs pierce my gums, my skull tingling as my hair grows out. I stare at my hands in horror as my nails curl into claws …”

(Courtesy of the author)

“The Trestle”: by James A. Engen (Independently published, $25)

Engen, whose family has four generations of roots around Payne and Bush avenues, subtitles his novel “A Story from the East Side of Saint Paul.”

The Trestle, he writes, is a bridge relic left behind from the old streetcar line that ran through the East Side neighborhood, about 120 feet long and just shy of twelve feet wide. It was the place where “kids smoked their first cigarette, drank their first beer, or found somebody to fight.” It was the dividing line between the East Side’s two rival public high schools: Johnson to the north and Harding to the south.

At the center of this coming-of-age novel is Mitch Dawson, whose family lived in the farthest northeast corner of St. Paul, next to Hillcrest Country Club. Mitch and his gang of friends are in their last year of junior high as their story begins, doing what boys do at that age. There’s Manny, Zitzs and EZ, who has a way with the girls; Izzy, an abused boy who hides his family’s secrets, and Gloria, as good at sports as the boys and so fierce nobody teases her little sister about her stutter.

The boys taunt giant, unkempt sisters they call Snag (because of her teeth) and Crime Scene (because she’s always in trouble). They caddy at Hillcrest County Club and meet the owners, the rich Getz brothers. When the boys aren’t playing hockey or baseball they fool around in the creek, attend the Winter Carnival and listen in on the adults’ conversations. In a particularly tender chapter, Ike’s mother bonds with the other moms as she tells of her husband’s abuse and women’s secrets are shared.

As the story progresses, the kids grow physically and in their relationships. The boys start getting interesting looks from girls as they travel to the Iron Range and other Minnesota locations to play sports.

In the end, there is a funeral nobody wants to attend, but Mitch doesn’t care because he has finally realized his feelings for Gloria.

“The Trestle” embraces a tight-knit community, with moms and dads trying their best to raise their kids right. The women are always ready to donate spaghetti and meatballs for events and the men help one another work on their cars.

Teaser quote: “To the Minnesota hockey world, Phalen Playground was considered the cradle of East Side hockey. A lot of great players came from the Phalen neighborhood specifically, but there was a lot of great hockey being played all over the East Side – up at Hayden Heights and playgrounds like Lockwood, Prosperity, Wilder, Hazel Park, and Conway.”

“Origin Story: Fort Road/West Seventh Street, Township/City of Saint Paul, Territory/State of Minnesota”: by Joseph Landsberger (Independently published, $40 softcover).

Continuing books about neighborhoods, Landsberger gives us a masterful researching job in this 400-page, vertical format paperback that holds everything you ever wanted to know about Seventh Street. It is aptly subtitled “From the Glacial Age Forward.”

The author takes us into the neighborhoods house by house, business by business. In a timeline that begins with the Native American population, he tells of the pioneers who settled this area of St. Paul.

Among the chapters are Minnesota Identity, Red River Oxcarts, Upper Landing Industry, settlements of Germans, Bohemians, Italians and Irish, schools and brothels, Shepherd Road, West End Art and Entertainment and Community Reporter newspaper.

With 1,083 images, this treasure should be in every local library. Written by an author who was about 80 when a revised edition was published in late 2025, it is a marvel of local history that can be read in sections with information that might surprise you about one of St. Paul’s busiest thoroughfares.

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