Off to St Paul and the Mighty Mississippi

 America's Great River

St. Paul to New Orleans

September 17 - November 1, 2022

September 17, 2022

We fly from KCI at noon, Saturday, September 17 to St Paul.  We arrive at 1:30, in time to head to the cruise ship at the Mississippi River.

Viking Mississippi

Hosting 386 guests in 193 all outside staterooms, the new state-of-the-art Viking Mississippi is inspired by our award-winning Viking Longships® and ocean ships and will feature clean Scandinavian design, as well as public spaces that are familiar to guests but that have been reimagined for Mississippi River voyages. Purpose-built for the Mississippi, the ship’s cutting-edge design, expansive windows and comfortable amenities will make it the first truly modern cruise ship in the region.

Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County.  Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center of Minnesota's government.  The Minnesota State Capitol and the state government offices all sit on a hill close to the city's downtown district.  One of the oldest cities in Minnesota, Saint Paul has several historic neighborhoods and landmarks, such as the Summit Avenue Neighborhood, the James J. Hill House, and the Cathedral of Saint Paul.  Like the nearby and larger city of Minneapolis, Saint Paul is known for its cold, snowy winters and humid summers.

For additional info, read below OR see  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Paul%2C_Minnesota.

As of the 2021 census estimates, the city's population was 307,193, making it the 67th-largest city in the United States, the 12th-most populous in the Midwest, and the second-most populous in Minnesota.  Most of the city lies east of the Mississippi River near its confluence with the Minnesota River.  Minneapolis is mostly across the Mississippi River to the west. Together, they are known as the "Twin Cities" and make up the core of Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the third most populous metro in the Midwest.

The Legislative Assembly of the Minnesota Territory established the Town of St. Paul as its capital near existing Dakota Sioux settlements in November 1849.  It remained a town until 1854.  The Dakota name for where Saint Paul is situated is "Imnizaska" for the "white rock" bluffs along the river.  The city has two sports venues:  Xcel Energy Center, home to the Minnesota Wild, and Allianz Field, home to Minnesota United.

Saint Paul has a mayor–council government.  The current mayor is Melvin Carter III, who was first elected in 2018.

Burial mounds in present-day Indian Mounds Park suggest the area was inhabited by the Hopewell Native Americans about 2,000 years ago.  From the early 17th century to 1837, the Mdewakanton Dakota, a tribe of the Sioux, lived near the mounds after being displaced from their ancestral grounds by Mille Lacs Lake from advancing Ojibwe.  The Dakota called the area Imniza-Ska ("white cliffs") for its exposed white sandstone cliffs on the river's eastern side.  The Imniza-Ska were full of caves that were useful to the Dakota. The explorer Jonathan Carver documented the historic Wakan tipi in the bluff below the burial mounds in 1767.  In the Menominee language St. Paul was called Sāēnepān-Menīkān, which means "ribbon, silk or satin village", suggesting its role in trade throughout the region after the introduction of European goods.

After the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, U.S Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike negotiated approximately 100,000 acres (40,000 ha; 160 sq mi) of land from the indigenous Dakota in 1805 to establish a fort.  A military reservation was intended for the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers on both sides of the Mississippi up to Saint Anthony Falls.  All of what is now the Highland Park neighborhood was included in this.  Pike planned a second military reservation at the confluence of the St. Croix and Mississippi rivers.  In 1819, Fort Snelling was built at the Minnesota and Mississippi confluence.  The 1837 Treaty with the Sioux ceded all tribal lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S. government.  Chief Little Crow V moved his village, Kaposia, from south of Mounds Park across the river a few miles onto Dakota land.  Fur traders, explorers, and settlers came to the area for the fort's security.  Many were French-Canadians who predated American pioneers by some time.  A whiskey trade flourished among the squatters and the fort's commander evicted them all from the fort's reservation.  Fur trader turned bootlegger "Pig's Eye" Parrant, who set up business just outside the reservation, particularly irritated the commander.  By the early 1840s, a community had developed nearby that locals called Pig's Eye (French: L'Œil du Cochon) or Pig's Eye Landing after Parrant's popular tavern.  In 1842, a raiding party of Ojibwe attacked the Kaposia encampment south of St. Paul.  A battle ensued where a creek drained into wetlands two miles south of Wakan Tipi.  The creek was thereafter called Battle Creek and is today parkland.  In the 1840s-70s the Métis brought their oxen and Red River Carts down Kellogg Street to Lambert's landing to send buffalo hides to market from the Red River of the North.  St. Paul was the southern terminus of the Red River Trails.  In 1840, Pierre Bottineau became a prominent resident with a claim near the settlement's center.

In 1841, Catholic missionary Lucien Galtier was sent to minister to the French Canadians at Mendota.  He had a chapel he named for St. Paul built on the bluff above the riverboat landing downriver from Fort Snelling.  Galtier informed the settlers that they were to adopt the chapel's name for the settlement and cease the use of "Pigs Eye".  In 1847, New York educator Harriet Bishop moved to the settlement and opened the city's first school.   The Minnesota Territory was created in 1849 with Saint Paul as the capital. The U.S. Army made the territory's first improved road, Point Douglas Fort Ripley Military Road, in 1850.  It passed through what became St. Paul neighborhoods.  In 1857, the territorial legislature voted to move the capital to Saint Peter, but Joe Rolette, a territorial legislator, stole the text of the bill and went into hiding, preventing the move.

                                    Red river ox cart and driver in St. Paul

The year 1858 saw more than 1,000 steamboats service Saint Paul, making it a gateway for settlers to the Minnesota frontier or Dakota Territory.  Geography was a primary reason the city became a transportation hub.  The location was the last good point to land riverboats coming upriver due to the river valley's topography.  For a time, Saint Paul was called "The Last City of the East."  Fort Snelling was important to St. Paul from the start. Direct access from St. Paul did not happen until the 7th bridge was built in 1880.  Before that, there was a cable ferry crossing dating to at latest the 1840s. Once streetcars appeared, a new bridge to St. Paul was built in 1904.  Until the town built its first jail the fort's brig served St. Paul.  Industrialist James J. Hill founded his railroad empire in St. Paul.  The Great Northern Railway and the Northern Pacific Railway were both headquartered in St. Paul until they merged with the Burlington Northern.  Today they are part of the BNSF Railway.

On August 20, 1904, severe thunderstorms and tornadoes damaged hundreds of downtown buildings, causing $1.78 million ($53.68 million today) in damages and ripping spans from the High Bridge.  During the 1960s, in conjunction with urban renewal, Saint Paul razed neighborhoods west of downtown for the creation of the interstate freeway system.  From 1959 to 1961, the Rondo Neighborhood was demolished for the construction of Interstate 94.  The loss of that African American enclave brought attention to racial segregation and unequal housing in northern cities.  The annual Rondo Days celebration commemorates the African American community.

Downtown St. Paul had skyscraper-building booms beginning in the 1970s.  Because the city center is directly beneath the flight path into the airport across the river there is a height restriction for all construction.  The tallest buildings, such as Galtier Plaza (Jackson and Sibley Towers), The Pointe of Saint Paul condominiums, and the city's tallest building, Wells Fargo Place (formerly Minnesota World Trade Center), were constructed in the late 1980s.  In the 1990s and 2000s, the tradition of bringing new immigrant groups to the city continued.  As of 2004, nearly 10% of the city's population were recent Hmong immigrants from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and Myanmar.  Saint Paul is the location of the Hmong Archives.