Robbinsdale Historical Society
Sharing Your Past To Build Our Future
For more than a century, the Girling and Ambrose families have been woven into the history of Robbinsdale. Thomas Herbert Girling, born in England in 1865, arrived in Minnesota in the late nineteenth century and … Read more
Let’s tell the tale of Captain Billy Fawcett, whose unlikely publishing empire began in Robbinsdale and eventually reached national and international prominence. Born Wilford Hamilton Fawcett in Canada in 1885, Fawcett was restless from an … Read more
A Civil War veteran, Jay Elijah Nash, moved to Minnesota in 1869 and established a 40-acre dairy farm on the eastern shore of Crystal Lake in 1880. Driven by his experiences in war, Jay became … Read more
CRYSTAL LAKE TO BE MADE BEAUTY SPOT Plans for dredging the southern end of Crystal lake and the constructing of a boulevard around the lake to connect with the Glenwood-Camden boulevard which comes within a … Read more
The complicated intersection of Oakdale, West Broadway, Lowry Avenue, and Victory Memorial Drive has been a Northside crossroads for over a century. A variety of development pressures and transportation innovations led to the creation of … Read more
In 1917, the Miller and Hurlbutt families worked with the Reidhead Company realtors to subdivide and create the Robbinsdale Home Gardens addition between 42nd and 46th Avenues North, east of Vera Cruz over to Toledo … Read more
In 1940, Fred B. Snyder worked with Thorpe Brothers Real Estate and Mortgage Company to open a new Robbinsdale addition known as Snyder’s Victory Memorial Drive. These 75 foot lots between 36th and 38th Avenues … Read more
My Mother and Father (Hazel Clarke and Archibald B. Vaughan) moved to Robbinsdale, MN in 1934. Our family consisted of five boys, Edward, Ellwood, Robert, Archie, Jr., and Westley; and four girls, Genevieve, Phyllis, Barbara and Phyllis’ daughter, … Read more
Our biggest and most interesting juvenile contest is our annual Dog Derby. This event is held each year on the ice at Crystal Lake and the boys and girls from Hennepin County towns are invited … Read more