PiPress Archives

04/10/2025

It's easier than ever to follow the wild swings we've seen on Wall Street this week. But 85 years ago, real-time stock market updates likely meant a trip to your broker's office.

Here at Jamieson & Co. in downtown St. Paul’s Endicott Building, anxious traders watch as ticker prices are chalked up on the blackboard in June 1940. Hitler's invasion of Poland the year before had caused a monthslong selloff in stocks.

📸: Pioneer Press file photo

To view a gallery of our photos, visit twincities.com/throwback.

04/05/2025

“Of plot there is very little, save for some hectic love affairs that are not above reproach, the author’s aim and interest all being centered on Gatsby himself,” wrote the books editor of the St. Paul Daily News. “Personally I don’t think the fellow was worth so much effort.”

The book’s lukewarm reception in the local press may not be surprising given its author’s complicated relationship with St. Paul, one historian said.

04/03/2025

The paddleboat Capitol makes its way down the Mississippi River from St. Paul on July 1, 1932. The Streckfus Line’s 280-foot excursion steamer was a frequent visitor to the Saintly City during the summer navigation season.

To view a gallery of all our photos, visit twincities.com/throwback.

📸: Pioneer Press file photo

03/31/2025

On this date in 1934, the most wanted man in America traded shots with St. Paul police at a Lexington Parkway apartment complex.

As a Ramsey County jury downplayed St. Paul’s crime problem in March 1934, John Dillinger was shooting his way out of a Lexington Avenue apartment complex.

03/28/2025

“There was a lot of bad science happening at that time, and it was used to justify some pretty horrible behavior,” the grandson of one of the women said.

Spurred on by proponents of the pseudoscientific eugenics movement, Minnesota was one of 32 states to enact such a law during the first half of the 20th century.

03/27/2025

Moving day at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul brought the skeletons out of the closets on Oct. 9, 1964.

The museum was vacating its home in the John L. Merriam mansion to move into new digs at the St. Paul-Ramsey Arts and Sciences Center. Located north of the Capitol, the Merriam mansion has since been demolished.

The Science Museum is now located on Kellogg Boulevard, and the Arts and Sciences Center houses the History Theatre.

To view a gallery of our previous images, go to twincities.com/throwback

📸: Former Pioneer Press photographer Don Church

03/15/2025

Seventy-five years ago this week, a gang of Dayton's Bluff middle schoolers led police to the cave hideout of convicted killer William Raymond Nesbit.

A gang of local boys led police to the cave hideout of a wanted killer after recognizing his photo in the newspaper.

03/13/2025

That's a no-no," St. Paul police officer Frank Langan tells this unidentified St. Patrick's Day reveler as he tried to conceal his beer can outside Gallivan's bar in downtown on March 17, 1976.

To see a gallery of all our photos, go to twincities.com/throwback

📸: Pioneer Press photographer Bill Davis

02/15/2025

The shooting in broad daylight of a 22-year-old liquor hijacker from small-town Iowa exposed a nationwide criminal network.

02/14/2025

Coming Sunday! A local history newsletter from the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox every week: twincities.com/newsletters

04/28/2024

The debut issue of the Minnesota Pioneer – the state's first newspaper and the earliest ancestor of the Pioneer Press – hit the streets of St. Paul 175 years ago today.