The Street Where You Live: A Guide to the Place Names of St. Paul

by Donald Empson, Don Boxmeyer (Foreword)

From the architectural landmarks of Cathedral Hill to the tranquil charm of Lake Phalen, St. Paul possesses a long, colorful history that its residents celebrate with an almost cultish fervor. Each neighborhood offers a glimpse into the city’s roots and every street tells a story. Combining rigorous research with a feisty wit, Donald L. Empson has written an entertaining history of St. Paul’s place names. Here people throughout the city can discover the often-quirky origins of every place name—from A Street to Zimmerman Place. Who knew that Payne Avenue was named after Rice W. Payne, whose property was confiscated after he fought in the Civil War as a Confederate major? Or that Lexington Parkway was named after the first battle of the Revolutionary War because the developer’s wife felt the neighboring streets sounded too British? With more than one thousand entries and over one hundred photographs, The Street Where You Live is the most complete inventory of public spaces in St. Paul in existence. At long last this new edition—the first update since 1975—has been revised and expanded to include neighborhoods, parks, lakes, streams, islands, bridges, cemeteries, caves, and other landmarks, as well as streets and avenues. Learn the perfect trivial tidbit for cocktail parties, find destinations for Sunday drives, and get to know the city from pavement to park—in The Street Where You Live, St. Paul’s secrets are revealed.Donald L. Empson is a local historian based in Stillwater, Minnesota.Don Boxmeyer wrote for the St. Paul Dispatch and St. Paul Pioneer Press for more than three and a half decades. He is the author of A Knack for Knowing Things: Stories from St. Paul Neighborhoods and Beyond.

336 pages, Paperback

First published October 25, 2006

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a little monotonous and repetitious but the sheer volume of information is amazing and alluring. Getting past the "I'm reading an Encyclopedia" takes a little gumption but knowing where you are is worth the extra effort.

[Chris Herdt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Start reading it to find out why your street has such a terrible name (some old dead guy had the same name). Stay to find out about octogenarian civil engineer George Herrold who tried to stop the destruction of the Rondo neighborhood with his alternate route for I-94.

[Austin Wu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Making legible my posession of this book. A cute and endearing reference guide to one of the oddities of Saint Paul, Minnesota, in part cementing its small-town stature compared to the ever-so larger, and more urbane neighbouring Minneapolis -- that virtually all of Saint Paul's streets are named, while many streets in Minneapolis are numbered. The numbering of Minneapolis streets makes it possible to sort out a general sense of direction through street number (at least on an east-west basis), whereas orientation in Saint Paul is generally contingent on how many street names one has memorised, in relation to one another -- a challenge for a newbie, but enduring in one's mind once the order of names can be related back to the lore of the town by memory.