Located on the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is Minnesota’s capital, an almost-prosperous city of around 275,000 residents, 110,000 households, and 60,000 families. A diverse community with a rich and colorful history, it plays host in 2008 to the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and the Republican National Convention at the new and spacious Xcel Energy Center, affectionately knows as The X.
2008 is the 150th anniversary of Minnesota’s statehood; the Minnesota Territory was founded nine years earlier, in 1849.
A city with a checkered past, people have been living in it’s present confines for some two-thousand years (if you count the Hopewell indian tribes). Had it not been for a Catholic priest named Lucien Galtier, who dedicated the first church in the town to his favorite Saint, you might well be reading about the city of Pig’s Eye. A true-blue, all-American city, Saint Paul was founded by Pierre “Pig’s Eye” Parrant and friends on the traditional values of drinkin’, smokin’, smugglin’, and bootleggin’, activities that remain somewhat popular to this day.
Saint Paul’s current mayor is Chris Coleman. He’s not related to Republican poster-boy and previous mayor Norm Coleman, whose octegenarian philanthropist father likes to fund those parts of society without, as they say, visible means of support.
Minnesota’s most-forgettable former Governor, Jesse Ventura, once complained that the streets of Saint Paul had been laid out by “a drunken Irishman”, with some cause; the organic development of road rights-of-way in the city have led to a system with, shall we say, character. Visitor be warned; maps are your friend.
If the streets aren’t crooked enough to confuse you, feel free to turn your mind to the question of why the city of West Saint Paul is south of the city of Saint Paul, and/or why North Saint Paul is to Saint Paul’s east. Most locals know the answer to the former…