Friday, April 26, 2013
Share your best guesses and then check back to find out the answers.
Hopkins is going through some monumental changes. From apartments rising in the downtown to a growing park in the Blake Road Corridor, the character of the city is changing rapidly. With the city undergoing so much transformation, Patch invites you to take a look back into the past and see if you can remember what some of the current landmarks used to be. Here are the answers to yesterday’s questions. Pizza Lucé Hopkins Honda Supervalu Thanks for sharing your guesses over the past few days. If there’s a site you’d like to know more about, feel free to mention it in the comments section below.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Share your best guesses and then check back to find out the answers.
Hopkins is going through some monumental changes. From apartments rising in the downtown to a growing park in the Blake Road Corridor, the character of the city is changing rapidly. With the city undergoing so much transformation, Patch invites you to take a look back into the past and see if you can remember what some of the current landmarks used to be. Here are the answers to yesterday’s questions. Marketplace & Main Cargill Corporate Campus (Excelsior Crossings) LA Fitness The next three sites are: Share your guesses in the comments section below and then check back tomorrow for the answers and more sites.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Find out the history of yesterday’s sites then share your best guesses on new sites.
Hopkins is going through some monumental changes. From apartments rising in the downtown to a growing park in the Blake Road Corridor, the character of the city is changing rapidly. With the city undergoing so much transformation, Patch invites you to take a look back into the past and see if you can remember what some of the current landmarks used to be. Here are the answers to yesterday’s questions. Mann’s Hopkins Cinema, Big Ten Restaurant and other businesses Hopkins Center for the Arts Oaks of Mainstreet The next three sites are: Share your guesses in the comments section below and then check back tomorrow for the answers and more sites.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Share your best guesses and then check back to find out the answers.
Hopkins is going through some monumental changes. From apartments rising in the downtown to a growing park in the Blake Road Corridor, the character of the city is changing rapidly. With the city undergoing so much transformation, Patch invites you to take a look back into the past and see if you can remember what some of the current landmarks used to be. The first three are: Share your guesses in the comments section below and then check back tomorrow for the answers and more sites.
Monday, March 25, 2013
A fleet of six steamboats named after Minnesota places once kept Lake Minnetonka communities connected.
A century ago, the Twin Cities’ streetcar network once extended virtually into the very waters of Lake Minnetonka. The Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co. wanted to connect Lake Minnetonka communities to an Excelsior dock station. So on May 7, 1906, it launched a fleet of six steamboats named after communities and resorts that the company served: Como, Harriet, Hopkins, Minnehaha, Stillwater and White Bear. The 120-passenger boats were painted a bright yellow to match the appearance of the company’s streetcars. Seating in the boats was even set up similarly to their land-based counterparts. Westonka Historical Society member Jeanne Brustad detailed the boats’ history in a video posted to YouTube. Watch the video in the player above.
Thursday, March 14, 2013
The exact impact of the project on the coffee house isn’t yet known, but city officials want to ensure the site is protected.
Officials have begun examining how to best to protect Hopkins’ historic sites from Southwest Light Rail Transit construction. The Southwest LRT’s draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) has already identified three nearby historic places in Hopkins that likely qualify for the National Register: Hopkins City Hall, Hopkins’ downtown and The Depot Coffee House. Light rail likely wouldn’t hurt either of the first two sites, said Kersten Elverum, the city’s director of economic development and planning. But the new route is supposed to run right by The Depot—a former Minneapolis & St. Louis train depot built in 1903—as the line rises to cross over Excelsior. The line will likely need to start climbing near The Depot. Planners don’t yet know…
Saturday, March 9, 2013
The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota is looking for endangered buildings.
Every city is constantly in the process of tearing down the old and building up the new, and Hopkins is no exception. From tacking additions on to old buildings to replacing aging structures outright, we blot out bits of history to meet our current needs—and often do so at great speed. The Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, a statewide group dedicated to saving historic buildings, acknowledged as much recently, when it ditched a yearly campaign where it raced to save the state's 10 most threatened historic buildings from destruction. In its place, the PAM is building something called "Sites Worth Saving," a program asking locals across the state to apply to save particularly historic buildings in their communities. “We were starting to …
Monday, January 28, 2013
Driving up and down Hopkins’ Mainstreet used to be a popular activity.
On Thursday, Patch wrote about the years-past tradition of teens cruising Mainstreet every weekend. Young drivers used to spend their evening showing off their prized vehicles by driving up and down the thoroughfare, which used to be called Excelsior Boulevard and Excelsior Avenue West. YouTube user MisterPersuasion, whose real name is Russell Jones, captured that atmosphere on 8-millimeter film in 1979 for a cable access channel special and uploaded it to the Web. Jones also spoke in detail on the subject for a 2009 cable access interview with Gregg Reed. “We couldn’t believe how bright the lights were in downtown Hopkins,” Jones said during the interview. Check out the interview in the videos above and then share your memories in the …
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Driving up and down Mainstreet was once a popular pastime in a community known as a 'cars and bars' town.
When it comes to transportation in Hopkins, there’s a lot of talk about the upcoming Southwest Light Rail line, the regional trails for cyclists and the paths that make Hopkins the third most walkable community in Minnesota. But for a time, transportation in Hopkins was all about cars. The city had a reputation as a “cars and bars” town, with teens cruising Mainstreet every weekend. Along the thoroughfare, which used to be called Excelsior Boulevard and Excelsior Avenue West, there were six major car dealer show rooms and 12 car sales lots in 1962. That same year, Hopkins boasted $1,200 in new car sales per capita compared to Minneapolis’ $200, according to Hopkins Through the Years, a Hopkins Historical Society book. According to the …
Friday, June 1, 2012
Kristin Kaspar researched and wrote a history of the Hopkins Library in celebration of the library’s centennial.
Kristin Kaspar studied history in Augsburg College and was a member of the school’s history club. She works as a software quality assurance analyst, so she considered it fortuitous when a chance encounter led to an offer to write an article on the Hopkins Library’s 100th anniversary. “It’s fate,” she marveled. “They didn’t know me. I didn’t have anything published.” Kaspar, a Hopkins resident, was well suited to delving into the library’s past, though. In addition to a love of writing and history, she grew up in Minnetonka, just on the other side of Shady Oak Road. Her family has deep roots in this area and worked at the businesses that made Hopkins. As the library prepares to celebrate its anniversary Sunday, Hopkins Patch sat down with …
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Hennepin County Library - Hopkins
22 11th Ave. N.,, Hopkins, MN
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Corinne
11:46 am on Friday, April 26, 2013
Old Red Owl office/warehouse location. more ›