DBDF July 2008 Articles

Dayton's Bluff is picturesque - Read all about it

Almost a century ago, neighborhood leaders got together and produced a booklet titled Picturesque Dayton’s Bluff. In it they extolled the splendor of our neighborhood, the virtues of its people, and its general quality of life. The cover from one of the few remaining copies of this unique document is shown above. Steve Trimble’s article tells us what life was like around here in 1909.

NNO helps you know your neighbors and stop crime

Photo by Ed Lambert

A National Night Out event like this one in 2007 brings people together.

By erin sobaski
   Food, fun and neighbors—sounds like a summer get-together. And on National Night Out (NNO), that means a lot of neighborhood get-togethers! The 25th Annual National Night Out event takes place this year on Tuesday, August 5.
   National Night Out is a unique crime/drug prevention event sponsored by the National Association of Town Watch. It brings together involved citizens, law enforcement agencies, civic group, business, neighborhood organizations and local officials. NNO is designed to:
   *Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;
   *Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;
   *Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and
   *Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.
   The Dayton’s Bluff area has been participating in NNO since 1983. On average, we have around 10 to 15 block parties going on in the community. Some are large, with tents and grills fired up. Others are just a few people gathered with chips and soda. But all are important.
   Recently on the “Today” show, an anthropologist stated one of the reasons for the increase in crime and apathy of residents, is the loss of community. When neighbors don’t know each other and there is no sense of community, they have no concern for others. NNO is a chance to get to know your neighbors and build that sense of community. This will help drive crime and drugs out of the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood. And in addition, it’s a fun, family-friendly event!
   It’s not too late to plan your own block party. For more information, contact Karin DuPaul at 651-772-2075 or karin@daytonsbluff.org. Look for a listing of Dayton’s Bluff block parties in the August issue of the Dayton’s Blujf District Forum.

Invest Saint Paul wants your opinion

Over the next few months Dayton’s Bluff Community Council volunteers and staff will be going door to door in the Lower Bluff, the area between East 6th Street, Mounds Blvd., Hudson Road and Maple Street to ask residents to fill out surveys that will help them determine what improvements the residents would like to see in their neighborhood. When residents complete the survey their names will be entered in a drawing for prizes. If you would rather come to the Community Council office or a community meeting to fill out the survey, contact Karin at Karin@DaytonsBluff.org or 651-772-2075 to schedule a time.
   Invest Saint Paul is an intensive examination of several small areas in several Saint Paul neighborhoods, including Dayton’s Bluff. The idea is to get a close look at what the residents identify as things that should be improved. Then, working with the residents and various agencies, a list of things that need to be dealt with and worked on over the next several years will be developed.

Block club meetings

*Wilson Avenue Block Club meets on the second Wednesday of each month at Mounds Park United Methodist Church, at Earl and Euclid, at 6:30 p.m.
   *Beech/Margaret Block Club meets on the last Tuesday of each month at Bethlehem Lutheran Church, at Margaret and Forest, at 7:00 p.m.
*Margaret Rec Center Block Club meets on the second Thursday of each month at the Margaret Rec Center, at Margaret and Frank, at 6:30 p.m.
If you wish to have your block club listed, or need information about starting you own block club, please contact Karin at 651-772-2075 or Karin@DaytonsBluff.org.

It’s party time in Dayton’s Bluff

Photos by Karin DuPaul

Top: The Dayton’s Bluff Progressive Dinner was a great success with over 50 people attending. Three homes hosted around 16 people at each house for appetizers. Then three other homes hosted desserts. The evening was rounded out with everyone going to one home for beverages and good conversation. Above: Amy Hanford (left) visiting with host Marge Bleakmore.

On Wednesday June 6, the Earl/Wilson Block Club had a front yard barbeque. The idea was to have neighbors out in their yards to chat and get to know each other. Everybody that came brought different food to share and the residents at the end of the block shared their grills. One neighbor brought a giant puppet from the Mayday Parade in South Minneapolis so they could have their own Wilson Avenue parade.

On Friday, July 18 the Eastern District Police will host their monthly meeting for community members. The meeting is intended as a time to listen to and address people’s concerns about crime and other issues on the East Side.
The community meetings are held at the Eastern District police office at 722 Payne on the corner of Payne and Minnehaha Avenues on the third Friday of each month at 9:30 a.m.

Dayton’s Bluff Take a Hike occurs on the first Saturday of most months. The next hike is Saturday, July 5th.We meet at 10:30 a.m. in Indian Mounds Park at Earl St. and Mounds Blvd. We’ll hike from Mounds Park to the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary and then walk along the Bruce Vento Recreational Trail through Swede Hollow Park to the new East Side Heritage Park. Along the way we will share stories and learn some local history of the area. The hike is about four miles long with some moderately rough terrain. Transportation will be available to return to Mounds Park, or you may hike back.
Join us and explore some of our parks and the regional trail. For more information contact Karin at 651-772-2075 or Karin@DaytonsBluff.org.

Microentrepreneur Class in September

    The next Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Microentrepreneur Class is starting in September. This program helps start-up and young businesses on the East Side. All East Side entrepreneurs are welcome.
   Class training lasts 8 weeks and includes topics such as operations management, marketing, financial management, one to one assistance with creating a successful business, and preparing a business plan, plus 8 hours of one on one time with the instructor. Those who successfully complete the course and locate their businesses in target neighborhoods are eligible for ongoing business support services.
   Some examples of businesses started by people who have previously taken this course include graphics, landscaping, photography, food service, restoration of wood furniture and works of art, custom floral design for weddings and events, and exterior and interior painting. The course is sponsored by the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council and the Neighborhood Development Center. There is a small registration fee based on a sliding fee scale. The next session will start in September and class size is limited.
   Please call Karin at 651-772-2075 or email Karin@DaytonsBluff.org for an application.

Get rid of a junk car and help the Dayton's Bluff Community Council

Budget Towing of Minnesota, Minnesota’s largest towing company, is owned by Roy Carlson, an active Dayton’s Bluff Community Council board member. Budget Towing will remove any junk car or truck—located anywhere in Saint Paul—and dispose of it at no charge to the vehicle owner or the property owner where it is located. The vehicle owner will receive paperwork for a tax donation, and Roy will also make a small donation to the Community Council for each car he tows.
Just call Karin at 651-772-2075 to find out how you can get a junk car out of the way—and help clean up Dayton’s Bluff.

By Barbara Sommerville
“Minnesota has a fine climate to live in but it’s worthless for flying.” Thus spoke Glenn Curtiss, after crashing his plane in two out of seven attempts to fly over the crowds at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds back in June of 1910. His comments, however, proved to be more a case of sour grapes than of actual fact. In the next years, Minnesota’s rarified air would produce many an intrepid flyer (not the least of which was Charles A. Lindbergh) who’d cut their aerial “teeth” on any turf available, from farming fields to an abandoned auto speedway.
At the dawn of popular aviation, a Minneapolis boy named Charles W. “Speed” Holman, a contemporary of Lindbergh’s, would rack up nine first-place trophies for aerial stunts and speed records throughout the Midwest, and so endear himself to the hearts of his countrymen that a major Twin Cities airfield would be posthumously named for him by the time of his too early death at age 32.

The year was 1917, and the gawky high school dropout was a regular at the aforementioned speedway, now casually known as “Speedway Field”. Since its demise as an auto racetrack, its lumpy infield provided a lively testing ground for the emerging daredevils the newspapers dubbed “barnstormers”. The 19-year-old Charley, with the bushy black hair and perennial smile, had already earned the nickname “Jack-Speed” for his motorcycle moxie. Now the name carried over to an aerial career that was quickly earning him a reputation.
   Flying at fifty-miles per hour, and two hundred feet above the anxious crowds, Charley had incorporated a parachute jump, new at the time, into his Sunday show finale. However, what the young Charles was up to was a mystery to his father Judd, until one day, out of curiosity, Judd went to see for himself the death-defying antics of the famous “Jack-Speed”. One can imagine his thoughts upon recognizing the gutsy jumper as his own son. In what must have seemed like the deal of the century, Judd, in exchange for the promise that Charley would quit leaping out of airplanes, bought “Speed” his very first one, a war-surplus Curtiss Jenny.
   The Jenny was soon replaced with a racier bi-plane, the Thomas-Morse S4C Scout. By 1922, Holman and his friend and flying partner Al Blackstone had taken over the Larabee Brother’s “Flying Circus” and were barnstorming through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and the Dakotas. “The first time Holman ever took a ship up, he knew more about flying than some men will ever know if they study all their lives,” W. A. Kidder, founder of the Curtiss Northwest flying field, once said. “He loved flying. He loved motors, and he loved airplanes. He was a ‘natural’,” said Kidder. “Just as you have natural prizefighters, you have natural aviators.”
   By the fall of 1923, St. Louis was the hub of aviation enterprise, drawing hundreds of aerialists from all over the country to the National Pulitzer Races. Charles Lindbergh was there, assisting a friend who would compete in the parachute landing contest. “Speed” Holman, four years older than Lindbergh, competed too, and brought home the first-place trophy in the “stunt-flying” competition. He followed that up a year later, with the second-place honor in the unprecedented 1,140-mile speed race from Minot, North Dakota to Dayton, Ohio.
   Meanwhile, the old “Speedway Field” in Minneapolis was undergoing some changes. Renamed “Wold-Chamberlain Field”, after Ernest Wold and Cyrus Chamberlain, two Minneapolis aviators killed in action in Europe during WWI, it, along with its sister field in St. Paul, constituted the terminus for the new Twin Cities to Chicago airmail route. On September 4, 1926, Northwest Airways Inc. was formed to handle the federal post office contract. Its first pilot was, of course, “Speed” Holman. Its first plane – Holman’s Thomas-Morse Scout, upgraded now, with a ninety-horsepower Curtiss OX-5 engine.
   In August of 1927, Lindbergh made a visit to Wold-Chamberlain while on tour to celebrate his transatlantic crossing. At the same time, Northwest Airways (eventually, Northwest Airlines) opened passenger service, and “Speed” acquired the title of “Operation’s Manager” shortly afterwards. According to Noel Allard, the author of the comprehensive Holman biography, Speed, “his derived procedures and management became models of systems for other air-lines to follow. Northwest Airlines is really Holman’s legacy,” Allard told me.
   The New York to Spokane Air Derby was slated to take place the next month. By now, Holman was flying a factory-new Wright J-4 powered Laird, which he bought for 15,000 dollars in preparation for the race. In addition to the swooping eagle painted in white on both sides of the fuselage with the words “National Eagle”, the wings of the plane were lavishly painted with sparkling, bronze powder. To honor Lindbergh’s visit, Holman performed his signature “steep aerial climbs” and barrel rolls with the new Laird, wrapping-up with a bank turn at full throttle around the field’s perimeter, thrilling the crowd and threatening to steal the spotlight before Lindbergh made his appearance.
   As scheduled, the New York to Spokane air race took place in September. After a frantic take off from a fueling stop in Butte, Montana, and ripping off a tire in the process, Holman finished in sixteen hours and forty-two seconds –– taking home another first-place trophy. His reward was a check for ten thousand dollars. In the same week, he won the 300-mile race from Spokane to Portland, earning him another thousand dollars.
   On his return flight to Minnesota, while over the Rocky Mountains, the camshaft on the Laird broke, disabling the engine instantly. In order to maintain air speed, Holman pressed the nose of the plane down as he searched for a landing spot. Over peak after mountain peak, he swept along with the updrafts like a glider, gradually losing altitude until he spotted a pasture on the side of a hill. Barely clearing a fence, he managed to land the plane unharmed, then trudged off to the nearest farmhouse.
   Three days later, when “Speed” flew into the Twin Cities with a new engine, his hometown fans were ecstatic. They, along with the mayor of Minneapolis, threw him a victory parade, which rivaled the one given just a month earlier for Lindbergh. To show his appreciation, Holman performed a series of his favorite aerobatics, soaring and diving through the clouds like a dolphin at play in the ocean.
   In February, 1928 Charles Holman set the world record for 1,093 consecutive aerial loops. When, in turn, a French aerialist broke the record by eighteen, Holman quickly responded. Up in the morning sky over St. Paul, he took his Laird to 3,000 feet and commenced with a shallow dive. The sound from the engine attracted a mid-day crowd as folks left businesses and homes to gather around the airfield to watch. As the fuel tank emptied, the plane got lighter and the looping grew faster.
   Meanwhile, a clerk at Northwest stood on the roof of a hangar, keeping score on a large sheet of white board. After five hours, a cheer went up from the crowd as the number on the board reached 1,112, a new world record. But before quitting, Holman frolicked, making more loops and doing barrel rolls until his gas tank was nearly empty. The next day he received a telegram from Charles Lindbergh saying, “Good work.” Holman’s record of 1,433 consecutive loops stood for twenty-two years.
   Four hundred thousand people were on hand to watch the National air races in Chicago that August of 1930. There were fifty-one different events and 100,000 dollars total prize money on the line. In the main event, aviators would compete for the first ever Thompson Trophy sponsored by the Cleveland firm, Thompson Products, Inc. Holman would pilot the “Solution”, a hastily constructed new Laird that’d been designed only three weeks earlier.
   The one-hundred-mile race consisted of twenty laps over a five-mile course, encircling the grandstand. As the race got underway, the swarming airplanes accelerated to speeds in excess of two-hundred-miles per hour. Meanwhile cockpits were filling with carbon monoxide. One pilot had already succumbed to the poison gas –– blacking out and dying in the crash that followed. Holman, however, managed to hang on through the sickening episode to take first place, and the Thompson Trophy. But he chose not to keep the 5,000 dollar prize money. Instead, he handed it over to Lee Schoenhair, the aviator who gave up his bid to compete in the race to let Holman fly the “Solution” in his place. “I don’t care so much for the money,” said “Speed”, “I just couldn’t stay out of that race!”
   And on his way home, he just couldn’t resist breaking into Red Jackson’s Flying Circus performance to buzz the stands at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. “It’s Speed Holman,” cried his exuberant fans. “His life was packed with thrills,” wrote a reporter in the Minneapolis Journal. “His uncanny skill had become almost a myth among airmen and the public.”
   When “Speed” wasn’t test-flying aircraft or hopping passengers for Northwest, he enjoyed flying into the northern woods of Minnesota to deer hunt. On one occasion, he’d landed in a small clearing and went hunting. After coming back with a large deer, which he packed in the plane, he knew the added weight would make it tough to gain enough speed to fly out of the field again. He solved the problem by tying the plane with a rope to a sturdy tree at one end of the field, and revving the engine until it hit full throttle. Then he sliced the rope, and he, the plane, and the deer, sprung out of the clearing like a stone from a slingshot.
   On Saturday May 17th, 1931 the temperature in Omaha, Nebraska was over 90 degrees and getting hotter. The muggy afternoon offered little relief to the pilots who would compete in that weekend’s air show. All the top names were there, and all were having some kind of trouble.
   Two planes nearly collided in mid-air and others were barely able to control their machines. But the 20,000 spectators were waiting to see “Speed” perform in his shiny black Laird.
   “’Speed’ Holman thought no more of the dangers of stunt flying than you do of taking an automobile ride,” said Kidder to a journalist at the St. Paul Dispatch. “‘Speed’ was so sure of himself, he knew so much about flying and had so much confidence in a ship and motor, that the thought of an accident just never occurred to him.”
   Holman had taken the Laird up to 2,500 feet. He sprinted back to earth at full throttle, swooped across the grandstand with a deafening roar and repeated the sequence several times. As the crowd gasped, “Speed” launched into a series of death-defying barrel rolls, and executed a perfect “knife-edge” across the field, with his wing tips perpendicular to the ground. Within minutes he was back at 2,500 feet and diving toward the earth. Every spectator was on tiptoe.
   At a hundred-fifty yards from the grandstand, he pressed the nose of the Laird forward and flipped upside down as his thundering plane flashed in the sunlight twenty feet off the ground. He repeated the stunt twice, but the second time, the safety belt in the inverted Laird broke loose, and though he fought mightily for the controls, “Speed” hit the ground at two-hundred-fifty-miles per hour.
   “If anything should happen to me,” “Speed” once said, “bury me on the highest point in Acacia cemetery.” Telegrams of condolence from the fraternity of aviators poured in by the hundreds. Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh’s was one of the first, followed by Lieutenant Jimmie Doolittle, and Eddie Rickenbacker. The New York World Telegram editorial read this way a few days later:
   “They buried ‘Speed’ Holman on the highest point between Chicago and Minneapolis, along the route of the Northwest Airways, where he can forever keep invisible charge over the great airline system that he loved and managed so well. He ran his airline safely and sanely… But he was wild and woolly when he sat in his own personal plane.
   “Holman died as Rockne died, at the peak of his career. He died as he lived, with a roar and a flash at three hundred miles per hour.”
   Charles “Speed” Holman’s funeral was the largest in Minnesota state history. He was the first aviator to be inducted into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame. His grave is on a direct line between the St. Paul and Minneapolis airports––a route that he flew thousands of times. To this day the St. Paul municipal airport is named Holman Field.

By Wally Waranka, President, Dayton’s Bluff Community Council:
   Here is another response, below, to my request to hear more from the people of Dayton’s Bluff. What do you think of what is being said? Let me know your views.
   I can’t agree more with the letter posted in this last month’s Dayton’s Bluff Forum. I am an investor who found a love for the architecture and character of homes in Dayton’s Bluff. I am also a licensed real estate agent who works primarily with other investors. Given my love for the area, I try to steer as many as I can to Dayton’s Bluff. However, I have found that not only does the City not care about Dayton’s Bluff; they do everything they can to discourage investment into this historical area. I own multiple homes in Dayton’s Bluff and all are meticulously maintained, but you would never know it based on all the “complaints” the City sends me. Monthly, I am threatened with criminal charges because a neighbor kid has tossed trash in my yard and it was on the ground for more than one day.
   I find it ironic that now Dayton’s Bluff is doing a vacant home tour. The reason many of the homes are vacant in the first place is because of the strict rules set by the Heritage Preservation Council regarding how a homeowner can repair his/her own home. These requirements (“Historically correct”) are extremely costly and many of the homeowners in this area are low income and simply cannot afford to do the repairs as required. Therefore, their only option is to walk away. That said, I agree that if the home can be done historically correct it should be. The problem is that the HPC does not enforce its rules across the board. I can give you many examples of homes that have ignored the rules and the owners have not been held accountable. This despite my many complaints to both Amy Spong and Kathy Lantry.
   The second problem is that St. Paul unfairly enforces the city codes. Several federal lawsuits are pending regarding this practice. In any other area of town, peeling paint and a ripped screen is not an issue. In Dayton’s Bluff not only is it a major issue, they threaten criminal charges if left unaddressed; not to mention that they “sweep” every neighborhood in Dayton’s Bluff on a monthly basis. There has NEVER been a “sweep” in many other areas of the city.
   As a person who has invested thousands of dollars and even more hours in this neighborhood, I can tell you that I will NEVER purchase/rehab another home in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood. This is a feeling that has been expressed by every investor I talk to. As a licensed real estate agent, I have never successfully steered an investor to Dayton’s Bluff despite the fact that I “put my money where my mouth is.” The city wants to promote owner/occupant and get away from rentals. That I understand. What they don’t seem to get is that if an investor purchases a property and spends thousands of dollars rehabbing it they are not going to turn it over to someone that will just tear it up. That is not why they are in business. Most likely they will resell it to an owner/occupant who will pay increased taxes to the city based on the rehab. It is a win/win situation.
   Add all of this to Mayor Coleman’s annual double-digit property tax increases and ask yourself, “Why would anyone want to invest in Dayton’s Bluff?” I write this not because I am disgruntled, quite the opposite. I love the area as well as the architecture and want to see the area revitalized. It frustrates me to no end that the City is doing everything they can to DISCOURAGE investors.
    If enough eyes are opened we can make a difference. Thank you.
    James Richards
   Do you have any thoughts or responses to what has been said here? Let me know, either by a letter to the Dayton’s Bluff Community Council, c/o Wally Waranka. 798 E. 7th St., St. Paul, MN 55106 or to my e-mail: Wallysue1@earthlink.net

Amazing Grace Assembly of God
1237 Earl St.
651-778-1768
Sun 9:30 am - Sunday school all ages
Sun 10:30 am - morning Worship
Sun 6:00 pm - evening Worship

Hmong Asbury United Methodist
815 Frank St.
651-771-0077

Bethlehem Lutheran Church
655 Forest St.
651-776-4737
Sun 9:00 am - Morning Service
Sun 10:15-11:15 am - Sunday School & Bible Hour
Sun 11:15 - Hmong Service

Faith Temple - Templo De Fe
1510 Payne Ave
651-778-0096
Sun 10:30 am - Spanish Bilingual Service
Sun 6:00 pm – Spanish Bilingual Service
Wednesday family night

Mounds Park United Methodist
1049 Euclid St.
651-774-8736
9:15 am - Sunday School, 4-year-old through Adult
10:30 am - Worship

Our Savior’s Lutheran ‘LCMS’
674 Johnson Pkwy
651-774-2396
Sun only - 8am Worship, 9:20 education hour
Sun 10:45am - Worship

Sacred Heart Catholic Church
840 E. 6th St.
651-776-2741
Sat 4:00 pm – Mass
Sun 9:00 am – Mass
Mon, Wed, Fri 8:00 am – Weekday Service

St. John of Saint Paul Catholic Church
977 E. 5th St.
651-771-3690
Mon-Sat. 8:00 am – Mass
Sat 4:15 pm - Mass
Sun 9:00 am, 11:00 am - Mass

St. John’s Church of God in Christ
1154 E. 7th St.
651-771-7639
Sun 9:30 am - Sunday School
Sun 10:45 am - Worship
Wed 7:00 pm - Bible Study

St. John Ev. Lutheran
765 Margaret St.
651-771-6406
Sun 9:30 am - Worship
Thurs 6:30 pm - Worship