Sweatt Manufacturing

Shortly after Andrew B. Robbins moved his family to Robbinsdale, he gathered a group of investors and built the Hubbard Specialty Manufacturing plant. The firm made chairs, wheelbarrows, camp furniture, grocery boxes, and wooden washing … Read more

Fly Robin Fly

  The Robbinsdale Airport opened in 1919, but civilian flying was halted during World War II. In 1942 the Robbinsdale Airport’s 23 planes were organized as part of the Civilian Air Patrol. Most of the … Read more

The M.W.A. Park

A streetcar stopped at the Modern Woodsman of America Park at Johnson Road (36th Avenue) near the southwest tip of Crystal Lake . In the early 1900’s, the lake came up to about where Rainbow … Read more

Save the Date! The Next Membership Meeting is March 26th!

Save the Date! The next Robbinsdale Historical Society membership meeting is Tuesday March 26th. City Engineer Richard McCoy will be on hand to discuss the history and ongoing environmental improvements to Crystal Lake. Membership meetings … Read more

The Ewald’s Milk Wagon

  The Ewald Bros. Dairy, established in 1886, started out with a herd of cows in South Minneapolis. They moved north to Golden Valley when the Minneapolis Park Board bought the land around Lake Hiawatha. … Read more

The Howard Lumber Fire

On Sunday, May 4th, 1941 the Howard Lumber Yard  caught fire. It got so bad that Minneapolis had to send out two pumpers. Damages were estimated at $30,000. Two horses used for hauling and housed … Read more

Victory Circle

Here’s an interesting old aerial photo of the complex intersection of Oakdale, Lowry Avenue, and Victory Memorial Drive in 1950. The Dutch Treat Dairy Bar sat on the southwest side of the intersection where Oakdale, Lowry Avenue, Victory Memorial Drive and Xerxes call came together. After the dairy bar closed a little superette was named for the old roundabout at the beginning of Victory Memorial Drive opened up. Neighborhood legend has it that a kid had no business riding a bike without training wheels until they could make it around the traffic circle no handed. In the 1960′s the Victory Circle Mart became North Drug and Victory Hospital became North Memorial Hospital and has since expanded across the street and into the next two blocks. Victory Memorial Drive is still Victory Memorial, but North Drug moved into the Oakdale Medical Center and the building was torn down.

Read more

Robbinsdale’s Band Plays On and On

In the early 1900s, Robbinsdale was a small community on the northwestern edge of Minneapolis, with a population of just 520. Because city leaders and citizens were eager for the community to grow, William F. … Read more

The Blacksmith Shop

The blacksmith shop became a village fascination  to young and old alike. It stood on the corner of West Broadway and Rockford Road. The shop was built by Haakon Christensen, a Norwegian emigrant arrived in … Read more