Horse-drawn streetcar in Minneapolis; sign reads Sixth Street, Monroe Street and Eighth Avenue, c.1885. This photograph shows a second team of horses ready to relieve the team on the horsecar.
With the rapid growth of the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the mid-nineteenth century, the need for a reliable form of public transportation became apparent. Horse-drawn streetcars provided the answer and sparked the growth of what would become one of the most extensive streetcar systems in the country.
Sitting on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River and the city of St. Paul, the 36,500-square- foot, forty-two-room James J. Hill House stands as a monument to the man who built the Great Northern Railway. It remains one of the best examples of Richardsonian Romanesque mansions in the country.