In an effort to create what had
heretofore been a nonexistent downtown for the nascent St.
Louis Park, village leaders Hamilton and
Walker built two
opposing buildings on a street they called Broadway, now
called Walker Street. There were storefronts below and
offices above. Nowadays one might call it an economic
development incubator, providing reasonably priced and sized
spaces for companies to carry out their businesses until
they moved on to larger spaces. The Hamilton Building is
gone, but the Walker Building is still home to small
businesses that don’t rely on a lot of street traffic. For
try as they might, Walker and his associates never managed
to create that elusive Downtown St. Louis Park.
THE HAMILTON BUILDING
Joseph Hamilton built the red brick, two-story Hamilton
Building on Broadway (6509 Walker Street) in 1892. The first
floor of the building had four sections, and businesses
moved in and out frequently. In the early 1900's Hamilton's
son Charlie bought out Mr. Trenkley's grocery store and took
over all four sections of the building and ran his General
Store. On the second floor were the lodge halls for the Odd
Fellows (Chesley and Charlie Hamilton were members), and the
Masons met there as well when that group formed in 1923.
In the teens, the Hamilton Building burned to the ground
and the Walker Building across the street had extensive
damage in a spectacular fire made worse by below zero
temperatures and high snow. The building was rebuilt. When
Charlie Hamilton died, his son Willard took over the store
until 1943, when the Masons bought the building. It burned
to the ground for good on December 25, 1958, and in its
place the Masons built the current one-story Masonic Lodge
in 1960.
THE WALKER BUILDING
T.B. Walker built his yellow brick Walker Building across
the street from the Hamilton Building at 6516 Walker Street
starting in 1888 and completing it in 1892. The Walker
Building was also known as the Syndicate Building and later
the Manufacturer’s Agents Building. Together the Walker and
Hamilton Buildings were known as the Brick Block.
Like the Hamilton building, businesses came and went, and
moved from one building to the other frequently. Storefronts
housed such concerns as Doc Brown's barber shop and pool
hall (1904 and again starting in 1910), Swenson and Redeen
Grocery Store (since 1923), the St. Louis Park Drug Store
run by the Yeager family, the Stile Drug Store, Anderson
Bros. Dry Goods, Lambert Butcher Shop, Acme Venetian Blinds,
Dworsky General Merchandise and Grocery, and E.H. Shurson
Insurance and Real Estate. The American Legion met on the
second floor of the Walker Building until its own building
was built on Excelsior Blvd. Minnesota Rubber spent some
early time there. There was even a small moving picture
house operated by Jake Werner and Eric Liljenfors in 1907. One curious note from the Commercial Club minutes
of July 1917 indicates that Mr. Gorham (presumably the
manager of the building) refused to put in heat or toilets
in the upstairs of the Walker building.
In 1907 there was a rather serious fire that displaced many
tenants. An account says that originally the entire
brick building was two stories high, but after the fire the
one section was rebuilt to one story.
The fire department was located at the Walker Building until
1938.
The building was
sold on September 24, 1942 for $10,100. E.C. Ruble of
Willmar bought the large two story section of the building
for $7,000. The one story section was purchased for
$3,100 by J.K. Seirup. And the one story separate
building was purchased by developer Douglas Rees for $600.
The Walker Building still stands today as a functioning
office building on Walker Street. It was last sold in
November 1999 for $382,500.
This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.