Robbinsdale was named for entrepreneur, politician, and real estate developer Andrew Bonney Robbins. While serving in the Minnesota State Senate, Robbins often passed through the area just north of Minneapolis by train. He was impressed by the landscape, its rolling hills and lakes, and he purchased 90 acres of land. In 1887, he platted a tract called Robbinsdale Park.
In 1890, Robbins built a sixteen-room, Queen Anne-style fantasy home of turrets, porches, and dormers for his wife and five daughters along the shore of Twin Lake. The house had five fireplaces, electricity, and indoor plumbing. Robbins landscaped the estate with eight acres of lawn, walks, fountains, shrubs, and two tree-lined entrance roads.
Three years later, Robbbinsdale was incorporated as a village. A. B. Robbins worked tirelessly to attract residents, businesses, and industry. When the Minneapolis transit company refused to extend a streetcar line to the area, he built his own. City dwellers came out to the village in droves to enjoy hunting, fishing, boating, and bathing on the beaches of Robbinsdale’s lakes.
Robbins continued to hold court at his estate on Twin Lake until he passed away in the summer of 1910 at the age of sixty-five. His will made his wife and his eldest daughter, Edith Robbins Daniel, joint executors of his estate. Daniel found her life’s work in carrying forward her father’s plans for developing Robbinsdale. In 1911 she went into real estate with her sister, Amy Robbins Ware. Dozens of Robbinsdale homes were erected and sold under their supervision. Daniel also taught in Robbinsdale’s Schools and served on the school board for twenty-five years.
In the 1920s, the village gained notoriety with every new issue of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang. Created by local veteran Wilford Hamilton Fawcett, the little humor magazine led to his printing and publishing empire that included the magazines True Confessions and Modern Mechanix, as well as the Captain Marvel comic books.
Take a trip back through time and learn about the wonderful city of Robbinsdale, Minnesota. This 43-minute presentation is filled with stories about life here, from the periods of the first settlers to the founding of the village to its growth as a city.
In the years following World War II residents of the little bedroom community woke up to a building boom. During the 1940’s and 50’s Robbinsdale added over 10,000 citizens. Inside the city’s three square miles, houses, schools, and shopping centers appeared overnight. There were drive-ins, soda fountains, car sales, and sock hops over at the high school.
Along with the rest of the country, Robbinsdale grew up in the 20th century, but with the old neighborhoods and the little main street on West Broadway, it still feels like a small town. These days the Andrew B. Robbins name has been all but forgotten. In a metropolitan area with suburbs with names like Golden Valley, Richfield, and Eden Prairie, most people think our city was named for a bird.
It is the mission of Robbinsdale Historical Society to collect, preserve, and tell the story of our city’s past. We hope this website will help shed a little light on the history of the streetcar suburb Andrew B. Robbins dreamed up so long ago.
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Images of America: Robbinsdale, by Pete Richie
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The Andrew B. Robbins residence on Twin Lake is featured in the image at the top of this post.