Lowry Hill

Lowry Hill Neighborhood

Since the 1880's, Lowry Hill has been one of the posh neighborhoods of Minneapolis, situated to the immediate west of downtown, surrounding the Walker Art Center. (see red outline). The even posher Kenwood borders it to the west.

Minneapolis also has a "Lowry Tunnel" and a "Lowry Avenue" and a "Lowry Bridge" and a "Lowry Park". This strong Lowry presence piques my interest as I hail from the sleepy village of Lowry, Minnesota, somewhat to the west of Minneapolis. Turns out there is a strong connection.

Lowry Bridge (author photo)

Lowry Park (author photo)

Lowry Tunnel (Star-Tribune)

The lawyer, Thomas Lowry, arrived from Illinois in the late 1860's. Interestingly, Thomas' choice of profession may have been influenced by the family's lawyer - Abraham Lincoln.  In the early 1870's Lowry and a partner acquired 148 acres of "prairie" to the west of Minneapolis, albeit with a rugged hill known as the "Devil's Backbone". The hill was considerably higher than it is currently because in the course of developing the area Lowry had the top of the hill "chopped" and hundreds of thousands of cubic feet of dirt moved to the marshy lower area - now the Walker's Sculpture Garden.  An 1879 artist rendering of the area is on a Loring Park historical marker located at Grant St. , west of Nicollet Mall. See https://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=91406

Thomas Lowry home (Mpls Historical)

The first "Lowry Hill" house was Lowry's own, located where Walker Art Center now sits.  With Lowry's exemplary "model home", the area soon became the place to build for the city's shaker's and movers. Donaldson of department store fame, W.S. Nott of fire engine fame and Lowry's architect himself, Frank Long among his neighbors. 

Lowry subsequently became involved in other ventures - the Twin Cities street car system - and, significantly to me, a partner in the Soo Line Railroad, which had a station at a lonely spot in west-central Minnesota in the 1890's. The residents decided to name the spot "Lowry" after the railroad and street-car tycoon.

So out of curiosity, I recently did a bicycle tour of Lowry Hill Neighborhood looking for some of the early homesteads. I was happy to see that not every residence was a "mansion".  Most of the houses pictured below were built between 1900-1910.

Somewhat ostentatious. Original owner was Charles Pennington, Soo Line President.

Once the home of Minnesota Governor, John Lind

And even better ...