To: longnshort who wrote (333149 ) 4/14/2007 6:30:30 PM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to in 1820-1850 ?? My wife's family is from there and they say there was no such thing "During the last years of the nineteenth century Swede Hollow served as a funnel through which many Swedes entered the East Side. Swede Hollow was a "stepping stone" neighborhood, a temporary home where immigrants stayed only until they could afford to move up the hill. It was a place where impoverished newcomers could find cheap housing while they got started. It also served as a refuge for people who had fallen on hard times and needed a place to stay while they pulled themselves together again. It was a slum. As can be seen in (Illustration 6: Plate 4 Reuben Donnelly, Donnelley Atlas of St. Paul. 1982), unlike the residential areas surrounding it, the Hollow was not divided into a regular grid pattern of streets and alleys. In fact, the one street in the Hollow was much more like a country lane, meandering along the side of the creek. The steep valley walls prevented the laying out of neat town lots as in the rest of the city. Instead, the houses were crowded and clustered close together where space was available. Residents got their water from a natural spring and used the creek as their sewer. Of course, each house had its outdoor privy and some residents even cantilevered their outhouses over the creek. The houses were small, largely homemade, with a variety of additions and modifications. Most families had gardens and barnyard animals. "Although Swedes were everywhere, it is possible to see a pattern of concentrations. After 1870, the Swedish population increased rapidly. The city's two Swede Towns developed on the north side of the river in the Second and Ninth wards and south of the river along Washington Avenue, east of the Milwaukee Railroad Depot. This second area, known as Cedar-Riverside, became the most highly concentrated Swedish and Scandinavian section in the city. From these two central cores the Swedish population spread north west up the river. They moved east and south from the depot area into the Seward section of the city. At the turn of the century, 25% of the population in this area was Swedish. In the other northern areas, nine to fifteen percent had come from Sweden. The largely a self-contained Cedar Riverside neighborhood had low income housing on the river flats in an area known as Bohemian Flats and more substantial homes further south toward Franklin Avenue. There were at least two Snoose Boulevards here, Washington Avenue, the old homeless men district where the lumberjacks, farmhands and other seasonal workers hung out, and Cedar Avenue, which was lined with Scandinavian businesses, beer joints and theaters."macalester.edu
