THE BRICK BLOCK

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.

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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.