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In 1913 several families worked with the Gluek Brewing Company to create the Crystal Heights sub-division just west of France Avenue North, on either side of 36th Avenue North. The group enlisted local Albert P. Reidhead Company to sell off their 350 lots. Crystal Lake Heights was launched a few years before Robbinsdale’s streets were changed to eliminate duplication and unify the alphabetical system between the villages of Crystal, Golden Valley, and Robbinsdale. Crystal Lake Road became West Broadway. Indianola became Indiana and Gloucester was renamed Grimes.
Crystal Lake Heights was sold as a nucleus around which new homes would attract folks away from booming South Minneapolis developments. The Albert P. Reidhead Company boasted that Robbinsdale had no factories, spewing dust and smoke, no saloons, and the new development was surrounded by the charm of natural scenery. Crystal Heights was destined to become a community of homes. The addition was fully platted with graded streets. In 1914, Reidhead reported the sale of a dozen lots in the addition sold at prices varying from $95 to $495. Terms as low as $5.00 down and $5.00 per month were offered. The pace of sales picked up after the rerouting of streetcar tracks through the addition. Half-hour service to downtown Minneapolis, began when Twin City Transit to over the line from the local North Side Street Railway Company. Crystal Lake Heights is only about four miles from downtown.
1913 Advertising in the Minneapolis Tribune had these bullet points
1. Note the new location of the car line. Cars will be running over this new line by 1914.
2. This new line will place Crystal Lake Heights nearer the center of the city in time as well as distance, than any part of Lake
Harriet. (See the circles in diagram.)
3. Lake property in Minneapolis has always been valuable. Crystal Lake Heights is valuable now as lake property, and it will be
more so as time goes by.
4. Crystal L a k e Heights is as near the center of the city as the South Shore of Lake Calhoun.
5. Figure the prices of lots all around the four mile circle. Nowhere are the prices so low as at Crystal Lake Heights. Yet it has
every advantage the others have. Buy now.
6. Take the 5 mile circle—you’ll find lots selling anywhere along the Southern side never less than $300 and often as high as $3500. Look
at our prices below.
7. Note that Washburn Park, Lake Harriet, Lynnhurst, Minnehaha Falls and the Dan Patch Depot all lie out further than does Crystal Lake Heights.
8. On the car line, lake property, building restrictions, wooded lots, near Glenwood-Camden Parkway; that’s Crystal Lake Heights.
If you look through covenants inserted into the deeds of Crystal Lake Heights properties on the University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice website, you’ll notice the language contained is often;
Said premises shall not be assigned, sold, or leased by the grantee, his heirs, administrators or assigns to any person not of the Caucasian race.
Racial covenants like this can be found in the deeds of properties throughout the city of Robbinsdale. These discriminatory clauses were inserted to prevent people who were not white from buying or renting homes. These covenants were legally-enforceable and anyone who challenged them risked forfeiting their claim to the property. They were designed to keep neighborhoods segregated. Developers often worked with park commissioners to make land adjacent to racially-restricted neighborhoods into public green space. The use of racial covenants was legal in Minnesota until 1953
The Robbinsdale Historical Society and Robbinsdale Human Rights Commission are committed to researching and sharing the history of racial covenants and their impact on our community. Resources are available to promote a greater understanding and build networks of people who wish to get involved and address how racial covenants impact our cities today.
Just Deeds is acting now to help homeowners and cities by providing free legal and title services, along with access to online tools and volunteer opportunities.
Mapping Prejudice is a team of historians, geographers, librarians, digital
humanists, and community activists seeking to expose structural racism. You can see the 26,000 racial covenants Mapping Prejudice volunteers have found so far, and download shapefiles, spreadsheets, and static cartography on their website: