Opened in 1884, the West Hotel was Minneapolis's first grand hotel. It had 407 luxuriously furnished rooms, 140 baths, and featured an immense and opulent lobby which was claimed to be the largest in the nation. These elements combined to make what was considered for a time to be the most luxurious hotel west of Chicago. The West was designed by LeRoy Buffington and built on land that was once owned by the first resident of Minneapolis, John H. Stevens. Buffington created the West in the Queen Anne style that was quite popular in the last decades of the 19th century.
The Queen Anne style featured an elaborate architectural look that included gable roofs, projecting bay windows, towers, and dormer windows. The West combined most of these concepts into a grand, larger than life look that seems graceless to some modern observers but was a popular building style at the time, a style that was introduced in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
The West hotel was situated on the southwest corner of the intersection of Hennepin Avenue and Fifth Street (the site currently occupied, in part, by the Shubert Theatre, moved there in 1999), in the center of a burgeoning entertainment district that started coming together in the 1880s and was a temporary home to such well-known public figures as Mark Twain and Winston Churchill. It also catered to delegates of the 1892 Republican National Convention (held at the Exposition Building across the Mississippi River). It was Minneapolis's largest and most luxurious hotel for many years after its construction.
In 1906 a large fire burned through the hotel killing 10 people. [1] The adjacent Unique Theater was used as a morgue. That and a general business downturn caused the West to go through a period of decline and finally in 1940 the West Hotel was demolished.
The North Loop is a neighborhood in the Central community of Minneapolis.
Lowry Hill is a neighborhood within the Calhoun-Isles community in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The neighborhood is regarded as being one of the city’s most upscale and wealthy neighborhoods. It was historically the home of Minneapolis’s most prominent milling and lumber families.
Lowry Hill East is a neighborhood in southwest Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, part of the Calhoun Isles community. Lowry Hill East developed in the 1880s along a horse-drawn streetcar line built by Thomas Lowry. The interior of the neighborhood is residential, with large early 20th century homes and multi-unit apartment buildings, while the border streets are lined with bars, restaurants, grocery stores, coffeeshops, and other small businesses. Most housing is renter-occupied.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States, covers the 9th District of the Federal Reserve, which is made up of Minnesota, Montana, North and South Dakota, northwestern Wisconsin, and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Although its geographical territory is the third largest of the 12 Federal Reserve banks, it serves the smallest population base of the system. It has one branch, which is in Helena, Montana.
Big Island Park was a popular tourist destination that existed near Minneapolis, Minnesota between 1906 and 1911 on Lake Minnetonka's Big Island. Today the property is a municipal nature park owned by the City of Orono, sometimes referred to as Big Island Nature Park to distinguish it from the former amusement park.
The Hennepin County Law Library is a law library located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, founded in 1883.
Como is a neighborhood within the University community of Minneapolis. It is sometimes referred to as Southeast Como, due to many of its streets ending in SE, and possibly to differentiate it from the Como neighborhood in neighboring Saint Paul. Its boundaries are East Hennepin Avenue to the north, 33rd Avenue Southeast to the east, the Southeast Industrial Area to the south, and Interstate 35W to the west.
The Gateway District of Minneapolis is centered at the convergence of Hennepin Avenue, Nicollet Avenue, and Washington Avenue. Its borders are not officially designated or recognized, but are visible as the Mississippi River to the northeast, Cedar Lake Trail and the railroad tracks to the northwest, Fifth Avenue South to the southeast. and Fourth Street South to the southwest. The district includes a significant part of the Downtown West neighborhood and abuts the North Loop.
The Lumber Exchange Building was the first skyscraper built in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, dating to 1885. It was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Franklin B. Long and Frederick Kees and was billed as one of the first fireproof buildings in the country. It is the oldest high-rise building standing in Minneapolis, and is the oldest building outside of New York City with 12 or more floors.
The University of Minnesota Old Campus Historic District is a historic district located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1984, it includes a number of historic buildings that were constructed during the late 1800s and early 1900s. The district represents the oldest extant section of the University of Minnesota campus.
Summit Avenue is a street in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States, known for being the longest avenue of Victorian homes in the country, having a number of historic houses, churches, synagogues, and schools. The street starts just west of downtown St. Paul and continues four and a half miles west to the Mississippi River where Saint Paul meets Minneapolis. Other cities have similar streets, such as Prairie Avenue in Chicago, Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, and Fifth Avenue in New York City. Summit Avenue is notable for having preserved its historic character and mix of buildings, as compared to these other examples. Historian Ernest R. Sandeen described Summit Avenue as "the best preserved example of the Victorian monumental residential boulevard."
The Unique Theater was an 830-seat vaudeville theater, built in 1904 on Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was built in the Renaissance Revival style, and situated between the Hennepin Center for the Arts and the West Hotel.
The Bardwell–Ferrant House is a house in the Phillips West neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1883 at 1800 Park Avenue for its first owner, Charles Bardwell, and its original plan was in the Queen Anne style. In 1890 its second owner, Emil Ferrant, had the house remodeled in the Moorish Revival style that was popular at the time. Norwegian-born architect Carl F. Struck added two onion domed towers, a wraparound porch with spindlework columns, ogee arches, and deep-toned stained glass windows. The house was later moved to its present location at 2500 Portland Ave. S. in 1898 to make way for a bank building.
Harvey Ellis was an architect, perspective renderer, painter and furniture designer. He worked in Rochester, New York; Utica, New York; St. Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; St. Joseph, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri and Syracuse, New York.
The Bennett–McBride House is a house in the Central neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is a contributing property to the Healy Block Residential Historic District. This house was listed on the National Register in 1977, before the rest of the block was listed in 1993.
Queen Anne style architecture was one of a number of popular Victorian architectural styles that emerged in the United States during the period from roughly 1880 to 1910. Popular there during this time, it followed the Second Empire and Stick styles and preceded the Richardsonian Romanesque and Shingle styles. Sub-movements of Queen Anne include the Eastlake movement.
The State Theatre is a historic theatre in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. It is one of four restored theatres in the Hennepin Theatre District.
The Hotel Astoria is a currently closed historic five-star luxury hotel in the Freedom Quarter of Brussels, Belgium. Built in 1909 for the Brussels International Exposition of 1910, in a true Parisian spirit, the hotel's Louis XVI facade and majestic interior lend it a distinctly aristocratic appearance. It is considered among the finest luxury hotels in the world, and has served as a famous meeting place for kings and other great statesmen and world personalities. The hotel has been closed since 2007 and is set to reopen in late 2023 as the Corinthia Grand Hotel Astoria Brussels.
LeRoy Sunderland Buffington (1847–1931) was an American architect from Minnesota who specialized in hotels, public and commercial buildings, churches, and residences. He was born September 22, 1847, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied architecture and engineering at the University of Cincinnati and graduated in 1869. He later moved to Saint Paul, becoming a partner of Abraham Radcliffe, and worked on the remodeling of the original Minnesota State Capitol. After the first capitol burned down, Buffington designed a replacement that served as the State House until 1904. In 1881 he claimed to have invented the method of building skyscrapers using load-bearing iron frames. He applied for a patent in November 1887 and received it in May 1888. Even though many subsequent builders used this method of construction, Buffington was mostly unsuccessful in collecting royalties from his patent. Buffington remained in private practice in Minneapolis until his death on February 15, 1931.
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