Twin City Bronze - Part 2

Usually, when I encounter a statue on my bike rides I am able to make a "Minnesota connection".  These are the "expected" monuments. There are also, however, the "unexpected", which makes it fun to keep looking.

The Expected

It is not surprising to find a mammoth statue of Leif Eriksson near the state capitol building since Leif discovered Minnesota and is rumored to have lived in Kensington for a time in the 1300's. I choose to ignore the other, later claimant on the opposite side of the capitol, Christopher Columbus.

Leif Eriksson

And it is also not surprising to find Father Hennepin on Hennepin Avenue before the Basilica of St. Mary, the very first basilica established in the United States. Father H's explorations and missionary work were a major part of my 6th grade Minnesota History class. Remember - Hennepin, LaSalle, LeSueur and Pierre "Pigs Eye" Parrant? Vive la France

Father Hennepin

Hubert Horatio Humphrey is stationed before the Minneapolis City Hall. Hubert served as mayor of Minneapolis from 1945 to 1948 after which he was promoted to the US Senate and then to Vice President under Lyndon Johnson and then lost the 1968 presidential race to Richard Nixon. "The Happy Warrior".

HHH

John Pillsbury, the great flour magnate and supreme University of Minnesota regent and benefactor, graces a knoll on the U of M campus. However, he stands not in front of Pillsbury Hall, a block or so east on Pillsbury Drive, but rather across from Burton Hall. Go figure.

John Pillsbury

F. Scott Fitzgerald of 'Great Gatsby' fame and husband of Zelda, was a St. Paulite, can be found in Rice Park. Did you know his name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald? Apparently he was a distant relative of that amateur poet.

And Herb Brooks is puzzlingly stationed by the Ordway Theater. After the 1980 "Miracle on Ice", he's Minnesota's closest thing to a saint.

And of course , Mary Richards, still tossing her tam on Nicollet Mall, although she has been moved inside. Not a big fan of worshipping TV characters.

Mary Tyler Moore aka Mary Richards

Thomas Lowry, best known by this blogger and readers for the founding of his namesake metropolis. He currently stands in Triangle Park, Minneapolis. [Editor note: I am drafting a petition to the Minneapolis Park Board to have him moved to a site next to Sequoia Coffee, Highway 55 & Main St., Lowry, MN.]

Thomas Lowry, Street Car magnate

The Unexpected.  The "what the heck" statues?

The surprising "what the heck?" moments from my catalog of statues are the most fun. What's the story behind these?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's not really that surprising to find a statue of the great poet in Minneapolis, given his Gitchee-Gumee epic, but he sits off in the weeds - dressed in a toga no less. He's hard to find. You must walk down a dirt path below the Minnehaha Park's Pergola Garden - and he's deteriorating badly, along with the rest of us. (Editor note: full disclosure - he's not bronze). I suspect few are aware of his existence.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

HWL in the weeds

It turns out the good Henry, carved by sculptor Andrew Gewant, was the center-piece of the now defunct Longfellow Zoological Gardens, a bustling zoo on southern reaches of Minneapolis. Henry and the Longfellow House are all that remain of that zoo, incorporated into Minnehaha Park. The zoo was privately established in 1907, was immensely popular and easily reached at the end of a street car line. A perfect Sunday afternoon outing. The zoo featured animal shows with lions, elephants, seals, and a monkey house. Minnehaha Creek was diverted for a seal pond. The zoo ran into hard times in the 20's and eventually many of the animals were moved to Como Park and the land deeded to the city in the 30's.

Longfellow Zoological Gardens ~1910. Photo courtesy Library of Congress

What to do with Henry.  No funds could be found to move him, so he sits today in his original location which is now out-of-sight back in the weeds. [Editor note:  it's actually a prairie restoration]



Gunnar Wennerberg

Gunnar Wennerberg

Gunnar is tucked away near the Stevens' House in Minnehaha Park. Gunnar was a well known (by Swedes) Swedish poet and singer and statesman in the mid 1800's. As far as I can tell, he was never in Minnesota. The statue, sculpted by Carl Johan Eldh, was erected in 1915, funded by the Wennerberg Memorial Society. Svenskarnas Dag irrational exuberance, I believe. Or perhaps a Scandinavian art war to counter the Norwegian "Ole Bull" statue in Loring Park.

Wikipedia has this faint praise for Gunnar's work:

"His poems, to which their musical accompaniment is almost essential, have not ceased, in half a century, to be universally pleasing to Swedish ears; outside Sweden it would be difficult to make their peculiarly local charm intelligible."

General Emiliano Zapata

Zapata stands on Lake St. in Minneapolis. The statue is a gift from the Mexican state of Morelos. Zapata, a native of Morelos, fought in the Mexican Revolution for the rights of peasants that in 1914 led to the overthrow of the Mexican government. Lake Street has seen waves of immigrants over the past 200 years and General Zapata represents the indomitable spirits of all nationalities. The statue was unveiled in 2013.

Zapata

Nathan Hale

Nathan Hale in Nathan Hale Park, Summit Ave, St. Paul

September, 1776, as he was about to be hanged in New York by the British for spying, Nathan Hale said: "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country". Well deserving of tribute, but how did he end up on Summit Avenue?

Well - Nathan Hale was a graduate of Yale and the statue was offered to that university. The Yale curator thought the statue made Hale look too old, so the offer was rejected and Nathan came to Minnesota, the first Revolutionary War tribute west of the Mississippi. The statue was erected in 1907.



Johan Fredrik Schiller

Schiller in Como Park, St. Paul

The Schiller statue was created in Berlin and gifted to the City of St. Paul by the U.S. German Society and St. Paul's German citizens in 1907. Perhaps not coincidental that Norwegian, Ole Bull & Swede, Gunnar Wennerberg came to town about the same time.



Indian hunter and dog

Indian hunting with dog

In a non-functioning fountain on Summit Ave, St. Paul


Lumberman

The Lumberman

In Camden neighborhood, North Minneapolis.

Copyright © 2017 Dave Hoplin

[All photos from the author's collection, except where noted]

Twin City Bronze - Part 1

The Twin Cities are home to a remarkable number of bronze statues and as far as I can tell, not a single general-on-a-horse. Many honor artists, writers or musicians - though there is a fair sampling of politicians - and many are tucked in out of the way locations. I have bumped into (not literally) a number of them on my bicycle tours.

Hiawatha and Minnehaha

Prior to my generation, memorizing poetry was a standard grade school requirement. My grandmother could recite poem after poem from memory and my mother won an award for reciting "The Village Smithy" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow before her 3rd grade class. Memorization is now pas·sé , as is memory itself, thanks to our friends at Google. However, there is one poem I did memorize in elementary school - "The Song of Hiawatha" - also by Longfellow. Well, to be honest, I memorized just the first stanza, the "By the shores of Gitchee Gumee / By the shining Big-Sea-Water / Stood the wigwam of Nokomis ...". Turns out there are some 22 chapters in this epic poem. It is written in trochaic tetrameter in case you wondered.

And as you may know, this is all "Minnesota Stuff". Gitchee Gumee is now known as Lake Superior. Nokomis was Hiawatha's grandmother and has a Minneapolis lake, park, street and library bearing her name. And then there is Hiawatha and his love, Minnehaha. Apparently, there was a real Hiawatha, one of the founders of the Iroquois Nation, but the one we are concerned with here is fictional, the subject of Longfellow's poem. Hiawatha not only has a lake, street, school etc. bearing his name, but also a light rail line and a golf course (soon to disappear) and a bank. Minnehaha has a street, a creek that runs from Minnetonka to the Mississippi and Minneapolis' best park named for her. And tucked back in the weeds just upstream from Minnehaha Falls is this:

Bronze of Hiawatha & Minnehaha

The statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha was created by Jacob Fjelde, a Norwegian immigrant, so the pair look pretty Scandinavian. The statue was installed in 1912.

Ole Bull

Keeping on the Scandinavian theme, tucked away on the fringe of Loring Park at the edge of downtown Minneapolis, you will find a statue of Ole Bull, erected in 1897, also by Jacob Fjelde, and here the Norwegian likeness seems appropriate.

Ole Bull

Ole Bull was an internationally famous Norwegian virtuoso violinist, an acquaintance of Chopin and Paganini. In the 1840's he made an extensive concert tour in the USA. In his grade school years, my father was a member of Mrs. Lesley's Lowry Children's Orchestra - in the violin section. He claimed that he was destined to supplant Ole Bull in the annals of violin virtuosity, but his brother Don, sat on his violin thus ending a budding career. This was during the depression years so a replacement was not in the cards.

Norman Borlaug

The next obscure statue is of Norman Borlaug. I suspect the name is unfamiliar to you. Dr. Borlaug was an agronomist and humanitarian whose work to produce high-yield, disease resistant wheat is credited with saving a billion lives from starvation. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970.

Norman Borlaug

His statue is modestly placed in a green space on the University of Minnesota, St. Paul Campus. Here's to more praise for humanitarians.


Twin City statuary seems to be making a comeback. There are over 100 Peanuts character statues scattered around the Twin Cities. These are all fiber glass. Poor Charlie Brown. Another embarrassment. Maybe more on this another time.

And the Minnesota Twins are getting into the "swing" with bronzes of the famous circling Target Field.  I'll let you guess who these two are. Hint: not Sid Hartman.

To be continued.

Copyright © 2017 Dave Hoplin

Vintage Lowry Photo

Help me out here.  There are several people in this 1950ish Lowry photo I cannot identify.

Identified:

• Leo, Blanche, Barbara Dahl
• Signe Greenfield
• Martin, Marian, Lorraine, Harold, Merlin Heggestad
• Ole , Esther Hoplin
• Glenn, Ruth, David Hoplin
• Dave Nelson
• Olaf Nelson
• ...

Who are the rest?  Please use the comment field below to help me out.  Thanks in advance.

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 ...

What do you wish for your children?

Unfortunately I cannot credit the source, but I once read a survey of mothers of the world by nationality. The single question asked was: "What do you most wish for your children?"

The results are of course generalizations, and perhaps predictably, the most common reply from Chinese mothers was "honor" and from American mothers "happiness".  I was struck, however, with the response of Italian mothers. They wished their children to be "good". This is something my grandmother Esther might have said, although I suspect she might have said "kind". 

It's the preference for the active over the passive. You can be assessed "good" by what you do not do. You don't lie or cheat your customers or your spouse; you don't bully your classmates; you don't bad-mouth people. But to be judged "kind" requires action - the proverbial "random act". It implies a life of dedication, service, self-sacrifice. It means placing the needs and wants of others ahead of your own. It means living the golden rule. It means treating everyone you meet with respect. I believe this style of life is the road to inner happiness, so perhaps the Italian mother and the American mother are really expressing the same wish, albeit the Italian mothers' hope offers a "highway" to happiness. 

Unfortunately, I fear many Americans equate happiness with pleasure. Pleasure is fleeting. Pleasure is a feeling. Happiness is a state of being. Happiness endures and despite the Constitution cannot be found by endless pursuit. (I must be careful here and not trespass on the realm of philosophers and theologians.) But, I believe true happiness is an inner quality and in its truest form, stems from an examined life and positive action in the lives of others. It's a hard road in today's society. Why live morally when the immoral seem to prosper? A little Socrates never hurts with a difficult topic: Socrates says that virtue (i.e. kindness/goodness) and happiness are inextricably linked. 

There is a New Testament translation that renders the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) as "Happy* are they ..." rather than KJV "Blessed are they ...". When I first read that, I was uncomfortable. I thought it sounded trite. But on reflection, when I think of happiness as inner contentment and purpose and not glee, I find that "Happy are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" apt.



*The original Greek word for “Blessed” is "Makarios, which means "happy." The term beatitude comes from the Latin noun beātitūdō which means "happiness".

Copyright © 2017 Dave Hoplin

A Meeting in the Pacific

In March of 1944, at the height of the war in the Pacific, this article appeared in the Minneapolis Star Journal and was republished by the Pope County Tribune (article below) & the Starbuck Times. It tells of a meeting for a reunion between two sailors: my father, Glenn Hoplin, an electrician's mate aboard the battleship USS New Jersey, and his brother Oliver, a pharmacist's mate aboard the carrier USS Nassau.

What a heart-warming story for the folks back home!  However ... if you believe the US Navy would provide a motor launch during wartime between ships so a couple of brothers could have a reunion, I have some land in the Everglades you might want to purchase. The story is completely bogus - this non-event was verified to me by my father.  It was one of a series of Navy propaganda stories for consumption by the home front. 

Sorry to disillusion you.

Copyright © 2017 Dave Hoplin

#scenesonabikeride

When I was a kid, during the summer, my Schwinn bicycle was my ticket to adventure. With my baseball glove looped on the handlebars, I could cruise the 4 north-south & 4 east-west streets and 2 alleys of Lowry with impunity. And accompanied by other adventurers, we would venture into the great unknown - down the "old road" to the stockyards, across the tracks past the depot to the old elevator road, west to Chippewa Creek, south to Malmedal Lake or east to the Horse Lake dump grounds.



This love for the bicycle has never left me.








I still cruise my community, albeit a bit more expansive than Lowry environs and regularly venture outwards to the greater Minnesota unknown. The Twin Cities and Minnesota in general have a treasure of amazing trails.

I often take a photo or two on my rides.  What follows, in no particular order, offers you a tag-along on a few of my rides. These are all Minnesota locales, with the exception of Wisconsin's Red Cedar Trail.

Fort Snelling

Lake Como - St. Paul version

Midtown Greenway

Minneapolis from the North

Sabo Bridge

Root River Trail

Red Cedar Trail

Stone Arch Bridge

Lowry Bridge

Fort Snelling Cemetery

Sheridan Memorial

Swede Hollow

Pilot Knob

Harriet Island

Raspberry Island

Hastings

Sakatah Singing Hills Trail

Cannon Valley Trail

Schaar's Bluff

Cemetery Crawl

Witches Hat Tower

Douglas Trail

Gateway Trail

Luce Line Trail

35W  Bridge Collapse Memorial

F Scott Fitzgerald Home

Frank Lloyd Wright crawl

Mississippi River

Mississippi River

Cedar Lake Trail

Nordeast

Nicollet Island

Minnehaha Falls

Coffee breaks