May Friday History: Minnehaha Park
By Matt Goff, Kraus-Anderson Historian/Archivist
J.L. Robinson, the founder of Kraus-Anderson, built some of the first buildings within Minnehaha Park, and one of them has survived until today. In 1903, Robinson began a working relationship that would last for decades when he built a wood pavilion designed by Harry Wild Jones. Jones was park commissioner at the time, and his designs for buildings around Lake Harriet are better known. This is partly because the Lake Harriet buildings were more ambitious, but it is also true that the pavilion at Minnehaha Park burned down after only a year.
In 1905 J.L. Robinson built a replacement (this time out of concrete, a less flammable choice), but for whatever reason, Harry Wild Jones didn’t design this structure. Both the 1903 and the 1905 buildings were called refectories, meant to provide “refreshments of a clean and wholesome nature at a reasonable cost.” A refectory was the park board’s answer to the saloons, restaurants and casual entertainment venues that surrounded Minnehaha Park at the turn of the century. A 1905 report claimed that the new park amenities have “done much to redeem Minnehaha from its unsavory reputation and make it a place where women and children can visit and enjoy their picnics without fear of insult.” The urban geography of Minneapolis has changed so much that it is difficult to imagine Minnehaha Park as the “Minnehaha Midway” that it once was, but the refectory that J.L. Robinson built over a century ago is back to serving its initial function, housing Sea Salt, a popular casual dining restaurant within the park.
Images are courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
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