Summit Avenue's Golden Age
The era when railroad magnates and lumber barons built the grand boulevard that became America's finest Victorian street.
The period from 1880 to 1910 represents Summit Avenue's golden age — the three decades when the boulevard evolved from a promising residential street into the longest continuous stretch of preserved Victorian architecture in America. During this extraordinary building boom, more than 370 homes were constructed along the 4.5-mile avenue, creating an architectural parade that documents the tastes, ambitions, and wealth of Minnesota's most successful families.
The golden age was fueled by the enormous fortunes generated by Minnesota's three great industries: railroads, lumber, and milling. James J. Hill, the "Empire Builder" who created the Great Northern Railway, set the standard in 1891 with his massive Richardsonian Romanesque mansion — at 36,000 square feet, the largest and most expensive private home in the state.
Hill's example inspired his peers and rivals to build their own grand residences along the avenue. Lumber barons like Frederick Weyerhaeuser, banking magnates like Amherst Wilder, and business leaders from every sector of the booming economy commissioned the best architects to design homes that would express their wealth and taste.
The architects who worked on Summit Avenue drew on the full range of styles available to them: Romanesque Revival, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, Shingle Style, Georgian, and eventually Prairie School and Arts and Crafts. The result is a remarkable open-air museum of American residential architecture, with each block offering a different lesson in the evolution of design.
Summit Avenue was more than a collection of fine homes — it was a social institution. The families who lived along the boulevard constituted Saint Paul's social elite, and the avenue functioned as a stage for the display of wealth and status. Balls, dinners, receptions, and other social events were held in the mansions' grand rooms, and a strict social hierarchy governed who was invited and who was not.
The golden age began to wane after 1910, as changing tastes, the income tax, and World War I reduced the appetite for grandiose residential construction. But the avenue's legacy was secure: it had created one of America's most remarkable neighborhoods and established Saint Paul's reputation as a city of architectural distinction.