A Week in The Twin Cities

We found a small city park in the town of New Richmond, Wisconsin, about 30 miles east of St. Paul. We made Hatfield Park our home base for a week. While there we enjoyed touring Minneapolis/St. Paul. We realized that we were there for the first weekend of the month. Many museums have free Bank of America days the first full weekend of each month. We took advantage of this offer, and we were very busy at the museums our first weekend in the Twin Cities.

We had a 130-foot full hookup site.

JAMES J. HILL HOUSE

St. Paul's largest house was built in 1891 for the Great Northern Railroad titan James J. Hill. 

The five-story Gilded Age mansion is 36,000 square feet and was built for under one million dollars. 

The extensive woodworking in the house was all custom designed and constructed.

It housed 13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces and 16 cut-glass chandeliers.

In winter, the central heating system burned two tons of coal per day and could maintain 70 degrees inside while -40 outside.

The Dining Hall was the most expensive room in the home with gold leaf ceiling, hand crafted mahogany woodwork and Venetian gilt leather wallpaper (embossed leather with silver foil, in today's dollars would cost $700 a square yard).

The music room had a three-story pipe organ by the maker George Hutchings.

THE CATHEDRAL OF SAINT PAUL

The Cathedral of Saint Paul was erected in 1905, directly across the street from the James J. Hill house, at a cost of 1.5 million dollars.

As seen through the front arch of the Hill Mansion.

One of the most distinctive cathedrals in the United States, it sits on Cathedral Hill overlooking downtown Saint Paul and features a distinctive copper-clad dome.

The massive church can seat 3,000 people.

The dome of the cathedral is 76 feet in diameter and 186 feet high.

The hand-carved walnut organ case preserves the view of the cathedral's rose window. Human-sized carved angels stand on both sides of the organ case and a statue of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of music, stands on top of the central organ case dome, directly below the rose window. 

Altar of the Cathedral

We stayed for the 5:15 Saturday evening mass and heard the organ.

MINNESOTA HISTORY CENTER

We walked to the Minnesota History Center. There we looked at some interesting exhibits as well as a section dedicated to the Greatest Generation, covering the depression, WWII, and the boom that followed. Many of the exhibits are interactive and all are very well done. 

There was a special exhibition: The Life and Art of Charles M. Schulz.

MILL CITY MUSEUM

Minneapolis was known as the Flour Mill Capitol of the World, a title it held from 1880 to 1930. Mill City Museum is the site of the old Washburn Mill that was once the largest flour mill in the world.

Since it was Sunday of the first weekend, we got into the museum for free.

The packing machine filled barrels and 240-pound bags of flour. After the bags were filled, the men stitched them closed. The Washburn A. Mill could produce 2 million pounds of flour each day. Three hundred boxcars of grain were unloaded each day and reloaded with finished flour.

The tour started with an elevator ride/interpretive exhibit. The elevator stopped at each factory floor, where the doors opened to exhibit the flour production process that occurred at each of seven floors. We exited the elevator on floor number eight, the dust collection floor. This is where flour dust was removed from the air.

We took the stairs to the ninth floor with an overlook of the city, Mississippi River, St. Anthony Falls, and factory.

The Pillsbury plant can be seen across the river. Today both Gold Medal and Pillsbury are part of General Mills.

Washburn Mill, opened in 1874, as seen from river level.

Flour dust led to the Washburn Plant explosion in 1878, killing 18 employees. After rebuilding the plant, fire destroyed the south side in 1928. In 1965 the Washburn Mill permanently closed. After falling into disrepair, fire gutted the abandoned mill in 1991.

MINNEHAHA FALLS

The famous Minnehaha Falls of Minneapolis are in the Minnehaha Park. We stopped by there on a Sunday, and it seemed like everyone in Minneapolis was there.

MALL OF AMERICA

What can you say, this is a BIG MALL. We had to see it.

HISTORIC TOWN OF STILLWATER

The Stillwater Lift Bridge which spans the St. Croix River is now a pedestrian only bridge, linking Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Up she goes.

The bridge is raised and lowered each half-hour to accommodate boat traffic. 

We had lunch at The Dock in Stillwater.

Viewpoint at the north end of St. Croix Lake on the St. Croix Scenic Byway.

ST. CROIX RIVER BRIDGE

The new bridge that spans the St. Croix River that run between Wisconsin and Minnesota was built in 2017.

We crossed this bridge each time we commuted to/from New Richmond, Wisconsin, and the Twin Cities.

MINNESOTA STATE CAPITOL IN SAINT PAUL

This is the state's third capitol building, built in 1905.

The exterior of the Capitol is made up of white Georgia marble.

The Capitol Rotunda spans three floors.

The North Star on the first floor is the same as the state flag.

House of Representatives Chamber

Senate Chamber

The guide took us out on the roof of the Quadriga to view the sculpture of a chariot pulled by four horses. It was newly regilded with four pounds of 23.5 karat gold leaf.

COMO PARK ZOO & CONSERVATORY

We toured the Como Zoo and McNeely Conservatory in St. Paul.

Traveling through the Heartland of America

We had a peaceful six-night stay at a favorite stop, Rocky Creek Corp of Engineer Park on Lake Somerville.

We stayed at Rocky Point Corp of Engineer Park on Lake Wright Patman Lake near Texarkana, for two weeks. This gave us ample time for a thorough spring cleaning, inside and out.

CRYSTAL BRIDGES MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

After leaving Texas, our first stop was Cave Springs, Arkansas, just south of Bentonville. We spent a day at Crystal Bridges, an American Art Museum in Bentonville. 

On the grounds of the museum is the 1953 Frank Lloyd Wright home entitled Bachman-Wilson House. Originally built in New Jersey, this house was moved to the museum grounds in 1988. We toured the inside where pictures were not allowed.

Carousel rooster by Gustav Dentzel, 1897.

This museum showcased artwork from traditional to this modern 3D walk through art and light display.

THE CAPITOL OF IOWA

Our next stop was Prairie Flower Corp of Engineer Park just outside the city limits of Des Moines. We could tell we were getting further north. The campground had 50-amp hookups but no water, so we filled our freshwater tank on arrival.  While we were waiting for the water tank to fill, the campground host stopped to talk and offered us a volunteer host job for the summer. This campground was very well developed and maintained with cement pads. In fact, Des Moines is a very nice place to visit. 

View of Downtown Des Moines from the steps of the Capitol building.

The Iowa Capitol was built in 1884 at a cost of 3.7 million dollars.

Iowa's Capitol is the only capitol building in the country with five domes. The main feature is the central towering dome constructed of iron and brick and covered with tissue-paper thin sheets of pure 23-carat gold. 

The Iowa State Capitol dome as viewed inside from rotunda.

Cross view of the balcony on the second floor.

Located on the third floor above the mural Westward are six mosaics in arched panels depicting Defense, Charity, Executive, Legislative, Judiciary, and Education. The mosaics were made in 

Venice, Italy, from small pieces of colored glass,

The House of Representatives ceiling was rebuilt after a fire destroyed it in 1904 during the installation of electric lights to replace the gas fixtures.

The Senate Chamber has four brass chandeliers weighing approximately 500 pounds each and were originally gaslights. 

The State Law Library occupies the entire west wing of the second floor and contains over 100,000 volumes.

 

 A spiral staircase of iron grillwork at each end of the library leads to the tiers of law books and court decisions from each state as well as the federal government. Quite an impressive library.

DES MOINES OUTDOOR SCULPTURE GARDEN

The Sculpture Garden, on the south side of the downtown area also contains a nice sampling of native trees.

JOHN DEERE FACTORY TOUR

We took a tour of the John Deere Des Moines Works Plant.  This plant manufactures sprayers, cotton pickers, cotton strippers, and grain and tillage tools. We were driven around the grounds, and even inside of the plant buildings on a tram. The plant was built in 1941 to produce bullets for WWII. In 1947 it was purchased from the US government by John Deere to produce and assemble farm equipment.  It was an interesting tour.

We were not allowed to bring cameras or phones on the tour. This is one of the sprayers that was manufactured at the plant. This weed sprayer has 34 cameras, one at each spray head. As it advances down the crop rows, the camera spots the weeds and only sprays the invaders reducing the amount of spray required by 40%.