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Bruce Vento Regional Trail | |
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![]() The Bruce Vento Regional Trail running under the Seventh Street Improvement Arches | |
Length | 7 mi (11 km) |
Location | Ramsey County, Minnesota, USA |
Trailheads | Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, St. Paul Beam Avenue, Maplewood |
Use | Biking, hiking, in-line skating |
Difficulty | Easy |
Season | Year-round |
Sights | Swede Hollow, Greater East Side, Lake Phalen |
Hazards | Street crossings |
The Bruce Vento Regional Trail is a rail trail in the cities of Vadnais Heights, Gem Lake, Maplewood, and Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA.
The trail occupies an abandoned Burlington Northern Railroad corridor and intersects with the Gateway State Trail in Maplewood and continues to just east of Lake Phalen in Saint Paul. South of the lake, it continues along Phalen Boulevard and through Swede Hollow to its terminus near Seventh Street. Another spur off of Phalen Boulevard continues west, going over a long bridge that crosses very active railroad tracks, and terminates at Interstate 35E.
The trail is approximately seven miles (11 km) long from its northern end just north of Interstate 694 to the southern terminus near Seventh Street and Payne Avenue. The extension along Phalen Boulevard is 1.3 miles (2.1 km). Most of the trail was built in the late 1990s. The section along Phalen Boulevard was paved in late 2005.
The trail leads through an abandoned rail corridor and is mostly off the road. In some places it goes through residential neighborhoods. There are some views of Lake Phalen through the trees. The section in Swede Hollow is particularly scenic where it runs through a ravine except for the presence of out-of-scale billboards. The south end of the trail features the Seventh Street Improvement Arches. This is a historic bridge built to carry the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad underneath Seventh Street. North beyond this are abandoned factories that belong to 3M. The Phalen Boulevard extension goes through more industrial and office areas, but at the top of the bridge over Westminster Junction, there is a historical exhibit with descriptions of how the railroads developed along with the city.
The trail is named for U.S. Representative Bruce Vento.
This former Burlington Northern Railroad corridor was formerly used by the Northern Pacific Railway and was originally built as the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad.
Bruce Frank Vento was an American educator and politician, a Democratic-Farmer-Labor member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 until his death in 2000, representing Minnesota's 4th congressional district.
Saint Paul Union Depot is a historic railroad station and intermodal transit hub in the Lowertown neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It serves light rail, intercity rail, intercity bus, and local bus services.
Cedar Lake Trail is a 4.3-mile (6.9 km), shared-use path in the U.S. state of Minnesota, from downtown Minneapolis to the neighboring suburb of St. Louis Park. The trail begins at its eastern trailhead in downtown Minneapolis (44°59′11″N93°16′01″W) and continues west to Minnesota State Highway 100 in St. Louis Park (44°57′43″N93°20′36″W). At the trail's west end, a paved path continues for another 4.2 miles (6.8 km) through St. Louis Park to Hopkins under the former name of Hutchinson Spur Trail, but known as North Cedar Lake Regional Trail since 2009. In 2019, large portions of the Cedar Lake Trail were closed due to construction of the Southwest LRT extension with expected reopening in 2021 or 2022.
The Seventh Street Improvement Arches are a double-arched masonry highway bridge that formerly spanned the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad tracks in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The Seventh Street Improvement Arches are historically significant for its rarity and the technically demanding nature of its skewed, helicoidal spiral, stone-arch design. The bridge is one of the few of its type in the United States, and is the only known bridge of its type in Minnesota. It was built from 1883 to 1884 by Michael O'Brien and McArthur Brothers of Chicago and was designed by William A. Truesdell. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 and on the American Society of Civil Engineers Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks in 2000.
The St. Croix Valley Railroad is a Class III short line railroad that operates over 36 miles of track in eastern Minnesota. The railroad is owned by KBN Incorporated jointly between Independent Locomotive Service of Bethel MN and Midwest Locomotive Services of Atwater MN, with the railroad headquartered in Rush City, Minnesota.
The St. Paul and Duluth Railroad, a railroad in Minnesota and Wisconsin, operated independently from 1877, when it was reorganized from the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, until 1900, when it was bought by the Northern Pacific Railway. It was nicknamed named the "Skally Line", likely based upon the Anglicization of the Swedish word "skulle", meaning "would." Many Swedish immigrants "would" take the line, which ran from Saint Paul to Duluth, Minnesota, and had branches to the Minnesota destinations of Minneapolis, Taylors Falls, Kettle River and Cloquet; and the Wisconsin destinations of Grantsburg and Superior.
The Metro Purple Line, formerly known as the Rush Line Corridor, is a proposed bus rapid transit service that would run from Union Depot in downtown Saint Paul to the northeastern suburbs of Saint Paul. Along the corridor's 21 proposed stations there are 106,000 jobs within a 10-minute walk. The project is currently in an environmental analysis phase with further development, engineering, and construction expected to take at least six more years. Service would run 7-days a week with 10-minute headways in peak periods and 15-minute service at most other times. The corridor was named the Rush Line because it was originally planned to end in Rush City, Minnesota. After using the color purple since 2017, the route was officially named the Purple Line and became part of the Metro network on July 14, 2021.
The East Side Review was an American, English language newspaper headquartered in St. Paul, Minnesota, until publication ceased in September 2019. While it was published, it was the only neighborhood-focused, general-interest weekly newspaper in either Minneapolis or St. Paul.
Swede Hollow was a neighborhood of Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was one of a large group of neighborhoods collectively known as the East Side, lying just to the east of the near-downtown Railroad Island neighborhood, and at the northwestern base of Dayton's Bluff. It was capped in the north by the sprawling Hamm's Brewery, and in the south by the historic Seventh Street Improvement Arches. Although one of the oldest settlements in the city, it was also arguably the poorest as each wave of immigrants settled in the valley. Swedes, Poles, Italians and Mexicans all at one point called the valley home. A similar community just downstream called Connemara Patch also existed for Irish immigrants.
The Riverview Corridor is a transit corridor connecting Downtown Saint Paul and the Mall of America in Bloomington via the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. The corridor serves an area from the Saint Paul Union Depot to the Mall via a route along West 7th Street, which runs southwest from Downtown Saint Paul. The corridor creates a triangle connecting opposite ends of the Blue Line and Green Line.
Saint Paul, Minnesota, consists of 17 officially defined city districts or neighborhoods.
Dayton's Bluff is a neighborhood located on the east side of the Mississippi River in the southeast part of the city of Saint Paul, Minnesota which has a large residential district on the plateau extending backward from its top. The name of the bluff commemorates Lyman Dayton, for whom a city in Hennepin County was also named. On the edge of the southern and highest part of Dayton's Bluff, in Indian Mounds Park, is a series of seven large aboriginal mounds, 4 to 18 feet high, that overlook the river and the central part of the city.
The Gateway State Trail is a multi-use recreational rail trail in the U.S. state of Minnesota, running 18 miles (29 km) from Saint Paul to Pine Point Regional Park in Stillwater. It runs through urban landscapes of eastern Saint Paul in Ramsey County and rural farmland and forests in Washington County. It was designated a National Recreation Trail in 2002.
Edward Phelan, also Phalen or Felyn (c.1811–1850), was an early settler of Saint Paul, Minnesota. Phelan was born in approximately 1811 in Derry, Ireland and later became, along with John Hays and William Evans, one of the first settlers of Saint Paul. Phelan was later accused of Hays' murder, the first ever in Saint Paul, but was acquitted. He was indicted for perjury a year later but fled to California before he could be prosecuted. Phelan was killed by his companions in what they describe as self-defense before he could reach California. Many locations in Saint Paul, Minnesota are named after Phelan as a result of his early land claims. Phelan's name was spelled variously and as a result most locations are named Phalen and not Phelan
Lake Phalen is an urban lake located in Saint Paul, Minnesota and in its suburb of Maplewood. It is one of the largest lakes in Saint Paul and is the centerpiece of the Phalen Regional Park System. The lake drains into the Mississippi River after traveling through Phalen Creek. The lake and surrounding 494-acre (2.00 km2) park receive around 500,000 visitors each year.
The Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary is a city park in the Mississippi River corridor in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Just east of the city's downtown district, the sanctuary includes towering limestone and sandstone bluffs that date back more than 450 million years, spring-fed wetlands, abundant bird life, and dramatic views of the downtown Saint Paul skyline and Mississippi River. The park was opened to the public on May 21, 2005, and was named after its early supporter U.S. Representative Bruce Vento.
Larpenteur Avenue is a main thoroughfare in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. Originally named Minneapolis Avenue, it was renamed by the Saint Paul City Council in 1904 in honor of Auguste Louis Larpenteur, a fur trader and one of the original 12 citizens in the city of Saint Paul. The west end of Larpenteur Avenue is at the border with Hennepin County in Lauderdale, immediately west of Minnesota State Highway 280. Larpenteur continues east from Lauderdale through the cities of Falcon Heights, Roseville, and Saint Paul, where it is an exit off of Interstate 35E and bisected by Lake Phalen to the east. It ends at Minnesota State Highway 120 in Maplewood at the border of Washington County.
The Dakota Rail Trail runs 28.1 miles (42.6 km) from Wayzata to Lester Prairie, Minnesota. It is on part of the former track bed of the Hutchinson Spur of the Great Northern Railway. The railway line helped bring wheat and raw materials from Central Minnesota to the flour mills, factories and warehouses in Minneapolis from 1885 until 2001. The railway line, from which there are views of the countryside, was also designed to bring tourists to the communities on Lake Minnetonka in the late 1880s.
Payne-Phalen is a neighborhood and city planning district in Saint Paul, Minnesota in the United States. It is Planning District 5. The area includes several smaller neighborhoods, namely Railroad Island, Phalen Park, Rivoli Bluff, Vento, Wheelock Park, and Williams Hill. It ranges from a blue-collar area to the south to a middle-class area north of Maryland Avenue, including upscale real estate around Lake Phalen. The neighborhood is part of the larger area known as the East Side of Saint Paul. Major streets in the neighborhood include E. 7th St, Phalen Boulevard, Arcade Street, which hosts U.S. Route 61 and Payne Avenue. Payne Avenue has been a major commercial corridor for the east side of Saint Paul since the 1930s.