On this page you'll be introduced to historic sites in the
Mendota area. Some of them are simply interesting points of local
interest, but many have a unique place in the history of Minnesota
or have even been deemed of National significance. Each is well
worth the trip to see in person and, hopefully, this page will help
you understand these sites and the role they played in our rich
history.
 |
Indicates a site that is of National historic significance and
has a marker in place from the National Register of Historic
Sites. |
Location: Minnesota Highway 55
When it opened on November 8, 1926, the
Mendota Bridge was the longest continuous concrete-arch bridge in
the world, measuring 4,119 feet. Great fanfare occasioned the
opening with a telegraph from President Calvin Coolidge. Two huge
caravans of approximately 15,000 cars met in the center of the
bridge and Minnesota Governor Theodore Christianson untied golden
ropes for its formal opening. The bridge was dedicated to the
"Gopher Gunners" of the 151st Field Artillery who died in World War
I. Replacing the old ferry which ran between Fort Snelling and the
Village of Mendota since the mid-1800's, the bridge cost $1,870,000
and was designed by Minneapolis engineer Walter H. Wheeler and
nationally famous engineer C. A. P. Turner. Koss Construction
Company supervised the project which took an average of 200 men
two-and-one-half years to construct.
Location: Willow Street
Henry Sibley viewed the Mendota area for the first time
in 1834 when he was a 23 year old clerk for the American
Fur Company: "When I reached the brink of the hill overlooking
the surrounding country, I was struck with the picturesque
beauty of the scene...but when I descended to...where
the hamlet was situated, I was disappointed to find only
a group of log huts..." The following year he began construction
on his house at Mendota on what is today Willow Street.
He hired stonemason John Miller, who used stone quarried from
the surrounding bluffs. River mud served as mortar. Hand-split
shakes covered the roof, and hand-cut wooden pegs joined the large
timbers used by beams. The laths were formed using willows and
rushes woven together with vines and grasses and plastered with
mud. In later years, modern laths and plaster replaced them.
The building served as Sibley's bachelor home and office for
nine years, accommodating the Indians he had befriended.
In 1843 he married Sarah Jane Steele, sister of Franklin Steele,
the sutler at Fort Snelling. Mrs. Sibley changed the office into
the parlor, and an office addition was added to the house's east.
Here, the new territorial governor Alexander Ramsey, conducted his
first business in 1849.
The Sibleys were gracious hosts and entertained many of the prominent people
who arrived n the territory including General Lewis Cass,
Henry R. Schoolcraft, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Lieutenant
John Charles Fremont, George Catlin, and Stephen Douglas.
Sibley built a new home in St. Paul in 1862 and sold his Mendota
home to the parish of St. Peter's Catholic Church. For the next
decade it served as a convent and industrial school for girls
before it was leased to several parties, including Burt Harwood, a
well-known artist, who used it for a studio and art school. It
later became a storehouse and subsequently a place for the
homeless.
The St. Paul Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution
purchased the house in 1910 and restored it for public opening that
year. Over the years many pieces of Sibley's original furniture
found their way back to the house and the house looks much as it
did when Mrs. Sibley entertained there 130 years ago.
There is another house near the Sibley
House which was built by Pioneer Hypolite Du Puis in 1854.
During the 1950s it served as the Sibley Tea House operated by the Daughters
of the American Revolution. Today it is the visitor's
office for the Sibley House.
The difficulty of a circle rail route prompted
the railroad to seek a direct route through Mendota. An
early town council approved a grade through the center
of town and obtaining fill from between 2nd and 3rd Streets.
The route is now abandoned, but the ridge and bridge remain
and can be seen near the Sibley and Du Puis Houses.
The site is now operated by the Minnesota Historical
Society.
The Faribault House was built in 1836
originally as a tavern when the young town of Mendota was then part
of the Michigan Territory. This structure featured locally quarried
stone with basement storage vaults for large quantities of food and
liquor. The two upper floors were built with hand-hewn studs with
willow branches interwoven between them, packed with mud, straw,
and covered with plaster. The house also originally featured a
ballroom and a frame structure with a kitchen and sleeping quarters
at the rear.
The house was originally built for Jean Baptiste Faribault,
a well known fur trader and farmer for Fort Snelling who,
in 1820, became the first settler of Mendota and Dakota
County. The house and grounds were presented to and served
as a chapel and residence for the Jesuit missionary, Father
Galtier before the completion of the Church of Saint Peter
in 1853, to which Galtier was never named as pastor -
preferring to continue his missionary work instead. The
house passed through other ownership over the years serving
for some time as a hotel and later as a storage warehouse.
The Faribault House was restored first in 1936 by the
Minnesota Highway Commission (now the Minnesota Department
of Transportation) as part of a Civil Works Administration
project. The house (and other historic Minnesota houses)
were then donated to the Daughters of the American Revolution
(DAR). The DAR turned over management of the house to
the Minnesota Historical Society which restored the house
again in the 1980s.
Minnesota's oldest church in continuous use. In 1837
the Vatican established a new diocese (The Diocese of
Dubuque) which encompassed Iowa, Minnesota West of the
Mississippi, and parts of both North Dakota and South
Dakota. The parish of Saint Peter's pre-dates any permanent
place of worship. Jesuit missionary Father Lucien Galtier
had built a log church which later became the cathedral
of the Diocese of Saint Paul. Galtier relocated across
the Mississippi River to Mendota where he was given a
one room cabin by Jean Baptiste Faribault, which had been
Faribault's previous residence. The cabin, though, collapsed
one summer night in 1842 and Father Galtier was invited
to stay at Faribault's new home. Father Galtier conducted
mass from the Faribault house while he worked on the construction
of a new chapel, the first Church of Saint Peter, which
came into use in October of 1842. While the wood structure
wasn't much of a building it served its purpose and one
piece did survive: the altar (a simple rough cupboard)
is still preserved at the museum of the Saint Paul Seminary.
Galtier stayed at Saint Peter's until 1844. He was never
named as the pastor of Saint Peter's Church, instead opting
to continue his missionary work until he returned to his
home country of France in 1845.
In 1842 Father Augustine Ravoux was appointed to Saint Peter's Church. He made
the structure built by Galtier his residence and headquarters
in the area. The wood structure remained in use even after
the stone church was finished, serving as a rectory and
then as a school before being demolished to make way for
a railroad line. The current stone church was built in
1853 from locally quarried stone with hand-split shingles.
The cost for construction was $4,425.80. While the exterior
of the church remains much as it did in 1853, a number
of interior changes have happened over the years including
the addition of side galleries (1877); a sacristy-sanctuary
was made by converting the old rectory quarters, a new
steeple and belfry were built to replace those lost in
a storm, and the side galleries were removed (1881); new
pews and a different aisle arrangement, a three foot elevation
of the floor near the entrance for better visibility from
the back rows, a choir loft was added, and the church's
first furnace was installed(1902); stained glass windows
(1904); side altars, statuary, and new stations of the
cross (1909); and brown wallboard was finally added (1940).
The steeple was again destroyed by a storm in 1951 requiring
the construction of a replacement which was completed
in 1954, when the original furnace was also replaced.
In 1915 the City of Mendota felt it needed somewhere to
locally hold criminals and constructed a two cell jail.
The jail is no longer used by law enforcement.
However, the Mendota Jail is opened to the public one day each
year by the Mendota/West St. Paul Chapter of the Dakota County
Historical Society during the Mendota Days festival in July.
Lt. Zebulon Pike's land purchase in 1805 for Fort Snelling
included a portion of what is now Dakota County. The line ran
through land that presently includes Burnsville, Eagan, Mendota
Heights, and West Saint Paul. It doesn't actually run through
Mendota, but the 1805 land purchase completely encompassed the
current site of city. [ Read
More about the Military Reservation Line ]
Mendota Township used to also encompass other neighboring towns before
they incorporated seperately. Make sure you check out
the pages for Mendota Heights
and Lilydale too!
If you know of a local site in this area that you feel should be
acknowledged for its historic significance we'd love to hear about
it or help you to investigate and document the site. Please contact
the us at:
Dakota County Historical Society
130 Third Avenue North
South Saint Paul, MN 55075
| Telephone: 651/552-7548 |
Fax:
651/552-7265
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