Minneapolis - St. Paul, MN Part II: James J. Hill House

Woodbury, MN - Events of Thursday, June 30, 2011

Our next day of sightseeing was a busy one. We had three things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul, and we were originally going to take a couple of days to relax before heading into the city. That would have made it a Saturday, which we thought would mean less traffic and easier parking.

However, like so many states, Minnesota is undergoing a budget crisis and was facing a state government shutdown on Friday, July 1. Therefore, since the three things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul were scheduled to be shut down by the budget impasse, we decided to squeeze in all three things in the city on Thursday before the shutdown.

Our first stop was the James J. Hill House. James J. Hill was a railroad magnate who built a red sandstone mansion on fashionable Summit Avenue. The mansion was completed in 1891.

The James J. Hill house is operated by the Minnesota Historical Society which gets more than half its funding from the state. Their funding was scheduled to be cut off when the state shut down on July 1, so they were being forced to shut down along with state facilities.

Reservations for tours are suggested, so we called the day before and scheduled a tour for 10:30 AM. Tours are given on the hour and on the half hour. We arrived a little early and found plenty of free, on-street parking. We had a some time to kill before our tour, so we walked down to the corner to see the Cathedral of St. Paul.

This is the fourth building in St. Paul, MN to bear the name Cathedral of St. Paul. The first was a small log chapel built on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River in 1841. The chapel was later officially designated a cathedral. A second cathedral was built in downtown St. Paul in 1851, and a third cathedral was completed in 1858. Construction of the existing cathedral was begun in 1906, and the first mass was celebrated in 1915. Work on interior projects continued over the ensuing years until the final stained glass windows were installed in 1941.

The structure is truly immense and very impressive.

We have no idea how many people the cathedral seats, but it is easily the largest sanctuary we have ever seen.

The next photo is a closer view of the chancel.

After spending 10 or 15 minutes at the cathedral, we headed back up the street to the James J. Hill House.

James Hill, who was born in Canada, moved permanently to St. Paul in the 1850s. He worked in the wholesale grocery business where he learned about freight and transportation. He eventually started working for himself, and in the 1860s and 1870s, he was very successful in the steamboat and coal businesses. He also became a member of the board of directors at several major banks. Hill began buying up bankrupt businesses, building them up again, and selling them for a profit.

After the Panic of 1873, Hill and several partners bought a railroad and were able to not only rescue it, but they were able to greatly expand it. In order to prevent government crackdown because of excessive profits, Hill poured a lot of the profits back into the railroad. Not only did Hill expand the railroad, he sold land along the route to developers and helped bring in business and industry. James Hill became known as the "Empire Builder." By 1892, Hill's Great Northern Railway reached all the way to Seattle, WA.

James Hill married his wife Mary in 1867. They had 10 children, one of whom died in infancy. In 1882, the Hills bought two lots on Summit Avenue, which has a commanding view of downtown St. Paul and the Mississippi River. They razed the two houses on the lots they bought, and began construction of their own mansion.

The house is designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Henry Hobson Richardson was a well-known American architect of the 1800s who created a design style that is typified by heavy cut-stone blocks, arches and turrets. Richardson designed, among other things, the Allegheny County Courthouse in our old hometown of Pittsburgh.

Our tour started in the music room. Like many grand homes built in the Victorian period, many of the rooms were decorated with different themes. The music room is decorated in the style of Louis XIV, which is characterized by intricate decoration that is typically painted white of cream-color like the fireplace in the photo below.

The next photo shows the fine carving of another fireplace. The fireplaces in the photo above and below are hand-carved, painted mahogany.

James Hill built his house about the time electric lighting was being introduced. Because electric lighting was so new, it wasn't always reliable. In fact, since it was mostly businesses that were using electricity in the beginning, and since most businesses were closed on Sunday, the generators would be shut down for maintenance. The lighting fixtures in the Hill House are set up to run on gas and electricity. The two candles in the sconce without light bulbs are piped for gas.

The grand staircase is shown in the photo below. The wood is hand-carved, quarter-sawn oak.

The Hill House is very sparsely furnished. James Hill died in 1916, and Mary died in 1921. Four of the daughters purchased the house from the estate and donated it the Archdiocese of St. Paul who used the house for offices, residences and classrooms for a teacher's college. The Archdiocese had no need for the furniture, so it was sold. Only a few original pieces have been returned to the house.

The church used the house for 53 years. Fortunately, they only did some minor remodeling and made no major or irreversible changes. After building new, spacious offices next door, the archdiocese sold the house to the Minnesota Historical Society in 1978.

Since there isn't much furniture, most of our photos were of fireplaces and woodwork. Big, empty rooms just aren't that interesting. Speaking of fireplaces, the one in the formal dining room was especially beautiful. The fireplace and diningroom chairs were carved with the same intricate design. They were all carved out of mahogany.

The Celtic-style carving is very finely done.

The tour goes to the second floor where James', Mary's, and the girls' bedrooms were, and to the third floor where the boys' bedrooms and the servants' quarters were located. There isn't much to see there because, as we said, there isn't much furniture in the house in the first place, and most of the fancy woodwork and fireplaces are on the first floor where they would have been seen by guests.

The tour also goes to the basement. This was where the kitchen and other work areas of the house were located. The photo below shows part of the laundry room. Laundry would have been done by hand. Notice the washboard and the hand wringer near the center. The tub on the left was for soaking, next was washing, the third was for rinsing, and the last was for bluing. Many people today may not know what bluing is. It is a blue dye (usually ultramarine or Prussian blue) that is added to the final rinse, especially for whites, to help counteract greying or yellowing of the fabric.

The furnace room is also in the basement. During the winter, a workman called the stoker would have to hand shovel tons of coal into the burners. The strength and stamina the stoker built up from shoveling all that coal earned him another job - he also got to pump the huge bellows for the organ located upstairs in the library.

We finished up our tour of the James Hill House a little after noon. We still had two more things we wanted to do in downtown St. Paul, so stay tuned.

Comments

[Marsha]

The cathedral is absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I have never heard of the Richardsonian Romanesque style. Now that you explained it, I have seen it. I love the detail on the fireplace. Hill House is amazing. I don't know if we will ever get in this area, BUT if we do, we will take this tour! At least I will! Can't to see your next find.

[Alan & Marilyn]

So interesting & beautiful -- both the Hill House & the Cathedral of St Paul!