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 a roundabout that served the area until the early 1960’s.
In the 1890’s, the Camden and Victory neighborhoods of North Minneapolis were mostly rural, from 53rd Avenue North down to Lowry Avenue. After industry arrived, the area filled in with the homes of shingle makers, flour millers, brick makers, and railroad construction workers. Lowry Avenue became a busy street after the first Lowry Bridge over the Mississippi River was completed in 1905.
Meanwhile over in Robbinsdale, Andrew B. Robbins was prodding development of a newly acquired and platted 90 acres north and west of Crystal Lake. The Minneapolis streetcar went only as far as the intersection of Penn and 32nd Avenues North. On May 10, 1890, a meeting was held to talk about streetcar service between Minneapolis and Robbinsdale. Everyone at the meeting was in favor of Robbins building such a line.
A year later, work began as tracks were laid at Penn Avenue and 32nd. The street car route avoided the hill on the south end of Crystal Lake by traveling along what is now Oakdale and France Avenues North. By November tracks had been laid to the Johnson Road (36th Avenue North) and Hubbard Avenue.
In 1915, West Broadway became part of the Jefferson Highway route passing by the roadside rest area that became Graeser Park, through historic downtown Robbinsdale, and continuing along the Bottineau Road into north Minneapolis.
The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board had begun acquiring land for the Grand Rounds in 1910. Victory Memorial Drive was completed in 1921 and was dedicated to commemorate the servicemen and nurses from Hennepin County who died in World War I. The new parkway’s design catered to the automobile. Earlier parkways, like the ones that wrap around Minneapolis’s chain of lakes, were built for horse-drawn carriages. In 1929, the Park Board noted “the necessity for a proper grade separation at the intersection of the parkway at Lowry Avenue and West Broadway.” An under-crossing for West Broadway was suggested, but never built.
In the 1920’s streets were laid out in Robbinsdale’s McNair Manor neighborhood. York and Xerxes Avenues North crossed Lowry Avenue and jogged slightly to continue on either side of Victory Memorial Drive.
A rerouting of Jefferson Highway was proposed in 1929, putting it through Robbinsdale and Crystal for five miles in order to eliminate three dangerous railroad crossings, lessen the traffic in the business district, and avoid the streetcar tracks by skirting the west shore of Crystal Lake. Construction didn’t start until 1932, after a swampy area was filled on the east side of Crystal Lake. It became State Highway 52 in 1934, which later became County Road 81, aka Bottineau Boulevard, following the route originally named after fur trader Pierre Bottineau. This was used as the main road connecting Minneapolis and the northwest until I-94 and I-494 were completed.
Around the Circle in 1945 ( Courtesy of Hennepin County Library)
In 1942 the Minneapolis City Engineer formally requested permission to construct a traffic circle at the intersection of Glenwood-Camden Parkway and West Broadway to ease the flow of traffic through the area. The fantastic traffic circle was built just east of the hospital with at least seven entrances and exits. The Dutch Treat Dairy Bar sat in front of the hospital on the southwest side of the intersection where Oakdale, Lowry, Victory Memorial Drive, and York all came together.
The St. Cyr flower shop and greenhouses were on the other side of Oakdale. After the dairy bar closed a little superette, the Circle Mart, was named for the old roundabout. The founder of what would become North Memorial Hospital, Dr. Samuelson, built a clinic next door. On the Minneapolis side, a broasted chicken restaurant was a popular destination. In 1958, Highway 52 (later 81) was upgraded to four lanes. Neighborhood legend has it that kids had no business riding a bike without training wheels until they could make it around the traffic circle no-handed.
Finally, in 1963 the circle was removed and replaced with an elaborate system of under- and overpasses. The intersection and Victory Memorial Drive caught the eye of a Hollywood producer and appeared in the award-winning 1972 feature film Slaughterhouse-Five.
Image at the top of the post courtesy of Hennepin County Library