The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and the surrounding area is the most highly populated area in Minnesota and the 15th-largest metropolitan area in the United States as of the 2000 census. Both built along the Mississippi River, Minneapolis is the largest city in the state, and St. Paul is the second largest and also the capital of Minnesota. There are other places around the world that are considered twin cities, but Minneapolis-St. Paul is one of the best known. Some consider Minneapolis to be the first city of the West, and Saint Paul to be the last old city of the East. http://www.world66.com/northamerica/unitedstates/minnesota/stpaul Often, the area is referred to "The Cities", both within Minnesota and even in the bordering states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas (many people in the area are drawn from these states by the perpetually healthy economy and flourishing cultural scene). Areas of Minnesota outside of the Twin Cities are collectively referred to as "Greater Minnesota" or "Outstate." Today, the two cities directly border each other and their downtown districts are about 10 miles (16 km) apart. The Twin Cities are generally said to be in "east central" Minnesota. The Cities are seen as the economic engine of the entire state, and draw workers from as far away as St. Cloud.
The U.S. Census Bureau defines the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington Metropolitan Statistical Area (most locals do not consider Bloomington to be a major city but a very large suburb; until the 2000 census the area was kept in Census records as the Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA) as a region of thirteen counties in both Minnesota and neighboring Wisconsin, an area which had a population of nearly three million people (2,968,805) in 2000. It is a rapidly growing area, estimates guess the population will increase to four million in 20 years. However, many people refer to an older seven-county area entirely within Minnesota when talking about the Twin Cities region. Many government actions in the 7-county region are coordinated by the Metropolitan Council. It is common for Outstate Minnesotans to refer to the area as the Cities. Three out of five state residents live in the Twin Cities region, although less than one in four people in the metro live in the two core cities.
| 7 counties | 13 counties | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Anoka Carver Dakota Hennepin Ramsey Scott Washington | Minnesota | Wisconsin | |
| Anoka Carver Chisago Dakota Hennepin Isanti | Ramsey Scott Sherburne Washington Wright | Pierce St. Croix | |
There are multiple "rings" of suburbs extending outward from the core area, and having two central cities can make it difficult for visitors or new residents to learn the arrangement of cities and towns. There are 188 municipalities in the seven-county region alone, and there are 334 in the thirteen-county region.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have competed for attention ever since they were founded, sometimes resulting in a fair amount of duplication of effort. The two cities have sometimes tried to outdo one another by building bigger or more extravagantly. In the 1950s, both cities competed for a major league baseball franchise, and there was a brief period in the 1960s where the two cities did not agree on a common calendar for daylight saving time, resulting in a period of a few weeks where the two cities were one hour apart. In the early to mid 1900s, the rivalry was particularly strong as each city sought for dominance over the other; this could occasionally erupt into inter-city violence, as happened at a 1923 game between the Minneapolis Millers and the St. Paul Saints, both of the American Association.
The cities' mutual antagonism was largely healed by the 1960s, and the simultaneous arrival in 1961 of the Minnesota Twins of the American League and the Minnesota Vikings of the National Football League, both of which identified themselves with the Twin Cities as a whole (the former explicitly named for both cities together) and not with either of the major cities (unlike the earlier Minneapolis Lakers), did much to unify the two. Since 1961, it has been common that any major sports team based in the Twin Cities is named for Minnesota as a whole, with the Twins and Vikings followed by the Minnesota North Stars (1967-93), Minnesota Muskies (1967-68), Minnesota Pipers (1968-69), Minnesota Fighting Saints (1972-77), Minnesota Kicks (1976-81), Minnesota Strikers (1984-88), Minnesota Timberwolves (1989-present), Minnesota Thunder (1990-present), Minnesota Lynx (1999-present), Minnesota Wild (2000-present) and Minnesota Swarm (2005-present).
Minnesotan musicians from all genres have gained notoriety over the years, with the singing Andrews Sisters gaining worldwide prominence during World War II, followed most notably by Hibbing, MN native Bob Dylan (who launched his career playing free shows on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota Minneapolis campus), to the rise of punk rockers Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, the Replacements, and the rhythm and blues stylings of Morris Day and the Time and Prince in the 1980s. R&B mega-producing team Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis have origins in the Twin Cities, and jazz musician Lester Young lived there for a time in his youth.
These later sources brought the Minneapolis music scene to national attention; the period from about 1977 to 1987 was a period of incredible dynamism in the Minneapolis music scene, with offshoots in the punk scene including Soul Asylum, Babes in Toyland, the Clams and many other seminal favorites, while Prince's immense power in the industry (which peaked during this period) created a Rhythm and Blues mini-empire at his Paisley Park Studios, based in suburban Chanhassen.
While contemporary local artists continue to enjoy critical acclaim such as hip-hop duo Atmosphere and frontman Slug's label Rhymesayers Entertainment, and the smaller Doomtree, and commercially successful pop-rockers Semisonic. things have slowed considerably - but the Twin Cities are still the region's musical hotbed. The area has also shown an unusual affinity for certain artists. For instance, while largely unnoticed on their home turf in New York City, the Twin Cities accounted for the majority of national sales for Soul Coughing's second album Irresistible Bliss during its first eight weeks of release; this followed from the fledgling fan that Soul Coughing found here while touring for their first effort, Ruby Vroom.
Minnesota and Wisconsin have also contributed significantly to comedy in its many different forms. Ole and Lena jokes can't be fully appreciated unless delivered in the sing-songy accent of Scandinavian-Americans, and Garrison Keillor is known around the country for resurrecting the old-style radio comedy with A Prairie Home Companion. Local television had the satirical show The Bedtime Nooz in the 1960s, while area natives Lizz Winstead and Craig Kilborn helped create the increasingly influential Daily Show decades later. The standup scene of Minneapolis-St. Paul during the 1980s and 1990s was a major force in national comedy. Joel and Ethan Coen have produced many films featuring dark comedy, and numerous others brought the offbeat cult shows Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Let's Bowl to the national cable-waves from the Twin Cities.
It is common for residents of the Twin Cities area to own or share cabins and other properties along lakes and forested areas in the central and northern regions of the state, and weekend trips "up North" happen through the warmer months. Ice fishing is also a major pastime in the winter, although each year some overambitious fishermen find themselves in dangerous situations when they venture out onto the ice too early or too late. Hunting, snowmobiling, ATV riding and numerous other outdoor activities are also popular. This connectedness with the outdoors also brings a strong sense of environmentalism to many Minnesotans.
Some other sports teams gained their names from being in Minnesota. The Los Angeles Lakers get their name from once being based in Minneapolis, the "City of Lakes" (Minne-"lake" or "water" in Dakota, -polis-"city" in Greek. Minnesota is also known as the "Land of 10,000 Lakes". The Dallas Stars got their name from being a Minnesota team, the Minnesota North Stars, as Minnesota is also known as "The North Star State".
The annual Twin Cities Marathon is held in the fall.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have combined to submit bids to host both the 2008 Democratic National Convention and the 2008 Republican National Convention. They are competing against Denver and New York to host the Democratic Convention, and against New York, Cleveland and Tampa to host the Republican Convention. The Democrats would hold the convention at the St. Paul Xcel Energy Center, while the Republicans have not announced their preferred venue: either the Xcel Energy Center, or in Minneapolis, the Target Center, or the Metrodome.
At one time in the 1840's, there was a battle between the Ojibwe and Dakota Sioux tribes on the north end of downtown Stillwater. As the two tribes battled, the settlers of Stillwater hid in their houses. The two tribes were fighting because the Ojibwe were moving in from the north, attempting to push out the Dakota. The Ojibwe themselves were pushed west from other tribes to the east, who were being displaced by white settlement.
The oldest farms in the state are located in Washington County. Lake Elmo, just southwest of Stillwater, is a farm town that was started at a farm on the southwest corner of the intersection of curent day Manning Ave. and 30th Street, just east of Lake Elmo. The barn on this farmstead still stands, it was built in 1875 and restored in 1998. The old farmhouse was initially built in 1852. The wood beams in the barn are solid white pine nearly two feet in diameter. This is significant because white pine does not grow that big anymore.
A series of settlements that were precursors to the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis formed a few miles away from the fort along the Mississippi. The villages leading to the creation of St. Paul went by a number of different names, including Pig's Eye and Lambert's Landing.
Fort Snelling held jurisdiction over the land south of Saint Anthony Falls, so a town known as Saint Anthony sprung up just north of the river. For several years, the only resident to live on the south bank of the river at that point was Colonel John H. Stevens, who operated a ferry service across the river. As soon as the land area controlled by Fort Snelling was reduced, new settlers began flocking across to a new village of Minneapolis. The town grew quickly, and Minneapolis and Saint Anthony eventually merged.
The Grand Excursion, a trip into the Upper Midwest sponsored by the Rock Island Railroad, brought more than a thousand curious travelers into the area by rail and steamboat in 1854. The next year, in 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published The Song of Hiawatha, an epic poem based on the Ojibwe legends of Hiawatha. A number of natural area landmarks were included in the story, such as Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Falls. Tourists inspired by the coverage of the Grand Excursion in eastern newspapers and those who read Longfellow's story flocked to the area in the following decades.
The area used to have a lot of passenger rail service, both interurban streetcar systems and fairly high speed interstate rail. For a time, the Minneapolis-St. Paul area was one of the few places where the Mississippi could be crossed by railroads, as the river was too wide to cross by bridge at points farther south. A great amount of rail traffic once rumbled through the area, often carrying grain to be processed at mills in Minneapolis or other goods to St. Paul to be transported along the Mississippi. St. Paul had long been at the head of navigation on the river, until new lock and dam facilities were added upriver.
Passenger travel hit an early peak—eight million people went through Saint Paul Union Depot in 1888, a year when about 150 trains came and went daily. Before long, other crossings were built farther south, so travel through the region to the west declined. In an effort to combat the rise of the automobile, some of the earliest streamliners ran from Chicago, Illinois to Minneapolis and St. Paul, eventually running out to distant points in the Pacific Northwest. Today, the only vestige of this interstate service comes by Amtrak's Empire Builder service, running once daily in each direction. The line is named after James J. Hill, a railroad tycoon who settled on Summit Avenue in St. Paul at what is now known as the James J. Hill House.
Interstate 94 comes into the area from the east and heads northwest from Minneapolis. Two spur routes form the I-494/I-694 loop, and I-394 continues west when I-94 turns north. Additionally, Interstate 35 splits in Burnsville in the southern part of the Twin Cities region, bringing I-35E into St. Paul and I-35W into Minneapolis. (This is one of only two examples of an Interstate highway splitting off into branches and then rejoining into one again; the other split occurs in Dallas-Fort Worth, where I-35 splits into I-35E for motorists who want to go into Dallas, and I-35W for traffic heading into Fort Worth.) They join together again to the north in Forest Lake and continue to the highway's terminus in Duluth.
Other major highways in the area include:
The main airport in the region is Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP), which is the main hub for Northwest Airlines. A number of other smaller airports are also in the area, a number of which are owned and operated by the Metropolitan Airports Commission (the same organization operates the main MSP airport). Some people even commute by air to the Twin Cities from the northern part of the state.
A variety of rail services are currently being pondered by state and local governments, including neighborhood streetcar systems, intercity light rail service, and commuter rail options out to exurban communities. In addition, Minnesota is one of several states in the Midwest examining the idea of setting up high-speed rail service using Chicago as a regional hub.
Twin Cities Public Television operates both KTCA and KTCI. Hubbard Broadcasting Corporation owns KSTP and has a second TV station, KSTC, which is not affiliated with any network. KMSP and WFTC have now merged as well, and KARE currently has a marketing agreement with KPXM. The only station with its main studios in Minneapolis is WCCO, while St. Paul is host to KSTP/KSTC, KTCA/KTCI, and KMWB. Other stations are located in the suburbs. For much of the last two decades, KARE has had the most popular evening newscasts of the area channels. On the other end, KSTP has struggled to maintain ratings on its news programs. KMSP has had a 9 o'clock newscast since at least the early 1990s when it was an independent channel.
Communities in the region have their own public/educational/government-access cable television channels. One channel, the Metro Cable Network, is available on channel 6 on cable systems across the seven-county region.
Several television programs originating in the Twin Cities have been aired nationally on terrestrial and cable TV networks. KTCA created the science program Newton's Apple and distributes a children's program today. A few unusual comedic shows also originated in the area. In the 1980s, KTMA (predecessor to KMWB) created a number of low-budget shows, including cult classic Mystery Science Theater 3000. The shortlived Let's Bowl started on KARE, and PBS series Mental Engineering originated on the St. Paul cable access network.
For decades, WCCO radio was the most well-known and most popular broadcaster in the region, with an all-day talk format. WCCO was eventually pushed out of the top spot by KQRS, a classic rock station with a popular morning show.
KSTP also has some fairly popular radio stations, with pop music format on FM and a talk format on AM. KSTP-AM and FM are owned by Hubbard Broadcasting. In 1985, Hubbard - valued at $400 million - was a large corporate media companies in the United States; in 2005, valued at US $1.2 billion, Hubbard is a fairly small major-market media operation.
Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) is also a major force in the state and across the country, best known across the U.S. for the variety show A Prairie Home Companion. Based in St. Paul, MPR is reportedly the nation's second-most powerful public radio organization behind National Public Radio (of which MPR is an affiliate).
Along with much of Minnesota, the Twin Cities area was shaped by water and ice over the course of millions of years. The land of the area sits on top of thick layers of sandstone and limestone laid down as seas encroached upon and receded from the region. Erosion caused natural caves to develop, which were expanded into mines when white settlers came to the area. In the time of Prohibition, at least one speakeasy was built into these hidden spaces—eventually refurbished as the Wabasha Street Caves in St. Paul.
While a few of the caverns have been cleaned up and are safe places, most are not. Over the decades, many people have been injured and killed while exploring them. A number of these incidents involved asphyxiation, sometimes caused by smoldering fires which used up much of the oxygen in the caves and left deadly levels of noxious gases behind.
Because it is comparatively easy to dig through limestone and there are many natural and man-made open spaces, it has often been proposed that the area should examine the idea of building subways for public transportation. In theory, it could be less expensive in the Twin Cities than in many other places, but the cost would still be much greater than surface projects. Additionally, a number of existing utility lines would have to be moved. There are extensive networks under the cities, particularly St. Paul where at least seven distinct tunnel systems have been built since the 1840s. Most are still used today.
Lakes across the area were formed and altered by the movement of glaciers. This left many bodies of water in the region, and unusual shapes may appear. For example, Lake Minnetonka out toward the western side of the Twin Cities consists of a complex arrangement of channels and large bays.
Of the major U.S. metropolitan areas in the lower 48 states, Minneapolis-St. Paul is farther north than all but Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon.
The average annual temperature at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport is 45.4° F. Monthly average daily high temperatures range from 21.9° F in January to 83.3° in July; the average daily minimum temperatures for the two months are 4.3° and 63.0° respectively.
Minimum temperatures of 0° F (-18° C) or lower are seen on an average of 29.7 days per year; 76.2 days do not have a maximum temperature exceeding the freezing point. Temperatures above 90° F (32° F) are reported on 15, according to the same climatic threshold normals. Those above 100° F have been rare in recent years, the last occurring in 1995. The lowest temperature ever reported at the station was -34° F on January 22, 1936; the highest, 108°, was reported on July 14 of the same year.*
Precipitation averages 29.41" a year, and is most plentiful in June (4.34") and February (0.79") the least so. The greatest one-day rainfall amount was 9.15", reported on July 23, 1987. The city's record for lowest annual precipitation was set in 1910, when 11.54" fell throughout the year; interestingly, the opposite record was set the following year, which observed a total 40.15".*
At an average of 56.3 inches per year, snowfall is generally abundant (though some recent years have proved an exception).*
A normal growing season in the metro extends from late April or early May through the month of October. The USDA places the area in the 4a plant hardiness zone. [http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-nm1.html
Buildings have gone up and been torn down rapidly across the region. Some city blocks have been demolished six or seven times since the mid-19th century, and will undoubtedly reach an eighth or ninth cycle in short order. No single architectural style dominates the region. Instead, the cities have a mish-mash of different designs, although structures from a few eras stand out. There were once a great many stone buildings constructed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style (or at least Romanesque-inspired variants). Minneapolis City Hall is one big example of this, though buildings of all types—including personal residences such as that of James J. Hill—were similarly designed. A few decades later, Art Deco brought several structures that survive today, including St. Paul City Hall, the Foshay Tower, and the Minneapolis Post Office.
St. Paul and Minneapolis in particular went through some massive urban renewal projects in the post-World War II era, so a vast number of buildings are now lost to history. Some of the larger and harder to demolish structures have survived. In fact, the area might be signified more by bridges than buildings. A series of reinforced concrete arch spans crossing the Mississippi River were built in the 1920s and 1930s. They still carry daily traffic, but remain pleasing to the eye despite their age (a number have undergone major repair work, but retain the original design). Several of the bridges are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. They include the Cedar Avenue Bridge, Intercity Bridge (Ford Parkway), Robert Street Bridge, and the longest, the 4119 ft (1255 m) Mendota Bridge next to Fort Snelling. The area is also noted for having the first known permanent crossing of the Mississippi. That structure is long gone, but a series of Hennepin Avenue Bridges have been built since then at the site.
Both downtowns have extensive networks of enclosed pedestrian bridges known as skyways. Individually, the cities appear to have the largest such networks outside of Canada. However, the combination of the two cities' networks is believed to make the largest system in the world. Skyways have their drawbacks however. Most prominently, they reduce the amount of foot traffic at street level, so the cities appear to have little activity. An additional problem is that the skyways tend to be closed fairly early—especially in Minneapolis—but they are hives of activity on weekdays.
Cities in Minnesota | Minneapolis-St. Paul | Twin cities | Metropolitan areas of the United States | Regional rivalries | 2008 Democratic National Convention
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