Becoming the Twin Cities: Swindles, Schemes, and Enduring Rivalries

Whethermotivated by visionary ideals or commercial gain or political ambition, manyhave tried to unite Minneapolis and St. Paul into one city, and all havefailed. This book explains why.Why haven’t Minneapolis and St.Paul merged into one city? In Becoming the Twin Cities, award-winningwriter Drew M. Ross uncovers the nineteenth-century history of scheming andself-dealing, social rivalries and political grudges, and utopian idealism andpersonal ambition that explains how the Twin Cities became the separate citieswith different governments and distinct personalities that we know today.Beginning with thestory of Fort Snelling’s founding and Joseph Plympton’s expansion of a reservearound it, Ross follows up with the land-grabbing and money-making schemes ofHenry Rice and Franklin Steele, explores the rivalries between localRepublicans and Democrats (and their partisan newspapers), and details thebattles over the locations and significance of the capitol, the state fair, andthe Midway neighborhood. Figures like Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and tavern keeperStephen Desnoyer, visionary architect Horace W. S. Cleveland, religious leader(and land speculator) Archbishop John Ireland, and the pugnacious publisherBill King—all had a hand in the push-pull tension that has fundamentally shapedthe Twin Cities to this day. Unlike FortSnelling’s river confluence location from which the cities were born or the St.Anthony Falls that powered their growth, the Twin Cities do not align to anatural or inevitable division on the map. Instead, people made the borderbetween Minneapolis and St. Paul, attempted to erase it, and ultimatelyunderscored it. Becoming the Twin Cities examines the historicalunderpinnings of a beloved American metropolitan region’s unique identity. Read more