Remembering Rollie

We are saddened to note that longtime Robbinsdale historian Rolland “Rollie” Heywood died on August 20, 2023, at age 92. He is remembered as an invaluable font of knowledge for anyone who wanted to know … Read more

Miss Pollard’s Public Library

Moving Came Often for the Library, by Susan Kuehn, Minneapolis Star, August 22, 1951 On almost any summer day, especially the rainy ones. the Robbinsdale library looks like a school in session. Blond braids and … Read more

Hail to the Chief

The first Library and a 1912 map illustrating Robbinsdale’s proxinity to the biggest city in the state. The image at the top of the post  John Bloberger  and  A group of Parker School kids in … Read more

Library Club Ladies

1907 To support the Library Board, the Library Club was organized on January 3, 1907, with 26 members. Mrs. C. W. G. Hyde was first president. At that time books were available from 9 to … Read more

A Swift Postcard

    Born in Boston in 1848, George Swift came to Minnesota with his parents. At the age of 13, Swift enlisted as a drummer boy at Fort Snelling. During the War Between the States … Read more

September Member News

  September Meeting Announcement Tuesday, September 24th at 1pm the Robbinsdale Public Safety Building (Fire and Police Building). Special guest speaker Darryl Sannes is a Civil War expert and will share information about Minnesota’s part … Read more

Souvenir Robbinsdale

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It can be conservatively predicted that within a few years the village of Robbinsdale, located just north of the city limits of Minneapolis will be noted as the choicest of its suburban beauty spots, remarkable for splendid residences, situated amid picturesque surroundings of woodland and lake.

Already the certainty that Minneapolis is destined to become a great metropolis has enhanced the values of land adjacent to the chain of lakes within its limits. Calhoun, Harriet, Lake of the Isles and Cedar to the extent that only people of considerable means feel they can afford home in their vicinity. Soon it will be only the rich whose mansions will mark the sites of the present pretty bungalows and the modest dwellings.
Today the conviction is being forced upon those who desire to enjoy the delightful combination of city and rual life, made possible by electric roads and the automobile, that location of their homes to insure permanency, must be in a new direction and where too, there will be more exclusiveness than along the boulevards and driveways which constitute the playground of the city.
The village of Robbinsdale, which nestles between two gem-like lakes, with dells and groves just off its main street, possesses just this ideal location, coupled with the same charm of natural scenery which is now beguiling to the Calhoun and Harriet district. In time Robbinsdale too will become the home of millionaires, but this period is farther remote. This is certainly foreordained as it is that the business district of Minneapolis is to be doubled, tripled and quadrupled in area.
It requires no stretch of imagination to prophesy this. The present rate of growth of Minneapolis and the natural distribution of its population will bring these changes about. The man is not infrequently met who can tell when he could have bought business sites now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few hundreds; who recollects when there were frame dwelling houses where now are sky scrapers, mammoth department stores and splendid office buildings. Most of these changes have come within ten years, with in which time too, whole districts of suburban property have been built up from farms and pasture lands…what then of the future…the next ten years or even five?

-Robbinsdale Souvenir, Suburban Minneapolis
1911

The Robbinsdale Library

The Robbiinsdale Library opened on January 4, 1926. The cost of construction was funded with donations from local citizens and the library club. The Hennepin County Library system took over the library in 1972, but … Read more

The Trumps at Twin Lake

In 1890 the Village Treasurer, John Trump built a general store on the corner of 42nd and West Broadway. A couple years later he enlarged the store and sold hardware in half of it. In … Read more