1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
3.
Saint Paul, Minnesota
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Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U. S. state of Minnesota. As of 2015, the estimated population was 300,851. Saint Paul is the county seat of Ramsey County, the smallest and most densely populated county in Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the states largest city. Known as the Twin Cities, the two form the core of Minneapolis–Saint Paul, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with about 3.52 million residents. Founded near historic Native American settlements as a trading and transportation center, the Dakota name for Saint Paul is Imnizaska. Though Minneapolis is better-known nationally, Saint Paul contains the state government, regionally, the city is known for the Xcel Energy Center, home of the Minnesota Wild, and for the Science Museum of Minnesota. As a business hub of the Upper Midwest, it is the headquarters of such as Ecolab. Saint Paul, along with its Twin City, Minneapolis, is known for its literacy rate. It was the city in the United States with a population of 250,000 or more to see an increase in circulation of Sunday newspapers in 2007. The settlement originally began at present-day Lamberts Landing, but was known as Pigs Eye after Pierre Pigs Eye Parrant established a tavern there. Burial mounds in present-day Indian Mounds Park suggest that the area was inhabited by the Hopewell Native Americans about two thousand years ago. From the early 17th century until 1837, the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the area I-mni-za ska dan for its exposed white sandstone cliffs. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a U. S. Army officer named Zebulon Pike negotiated approximately 100,000 acres of land from the local Dakota tribes in 1805 in order to establish a fort. The negotiated territory was located on banks of the Mississippi River, starting from Saint Anthony Falls in present-day Minneapolis, to its confluence with the Saint Croix River. Fort Snelling was built on the territory in 1819 at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, the 1837 Treaty with the Sioux ceded all local tribal land east of the Mississippi to the U. S. Government. Taoyateduta moved his band at Kaposia across the river to the south, fur traders, explorers, and missionaries came to the area for the forts protection. Many of the settlers were French-Canadians who lived nearby, however, as a whiskey trade flourished, military officers banned settlers from the fort-controlled lands
4.
Minnesota
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Minnesota is a state in the midwestern and northern regions of the United States. Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U. S. state on May 11,1858, the state has a large number of lakes, and is known by the slogan Land of 10,000 Lakes. Its official motto is LÉtoile du Nord, Minnesota is the 12th largest in area and the 21st most populous of the U. S. Minnesota is known for its progressive political orientation and its high rate of civic participation and voter turnout. Until European settlement, Minnesota was inhabited by the Dakota and Ojibwe/Anishinaabe, in recent decades, immigration from Asia, the Horn of Africa, and Latin America has broadened its historic demographic and cultural composition. Minnesotas standard of living index is among the highest in the United States, Native Americans demonstrated the name to early settlers by dropping milk into water and calling it mnisota. Many places in the state have similar names, such as Minnehaha Falls, Minneiska, Minneota, Minnetonka, Minnetrista, and Minneapolis, a combination of mni and polis, Minnesota is the second northernmost U. S. state. Its isolated Northwest Angle in Lake of the Woods county is the part of the 48 contiguous states lying north of the 49th parallel. The state is part of the U. S. region known as the Upper Midwest and it shares a Lake Superior water border with Michigan and a land and water border with Wisconsin to the east. Iowa is to the south, North Dakota and South Dakota are to the west, with 86,943 square miles, or approximately 2.25 percent of the United States, Minnesota is the 12th-largest state. Minnesota has some of the Earths oldest rocks, gneisses that are about 3.6 billion years old. About 2.7 billion years ago, basaltic lava poured out of cracks in the floor of the primordial ocean, the roots of these volcanic mountains and the action of Precambrian seas formed the Iron Range of northern Minnesota. Following a period of volcanism 1, in more recent times, massive ice sheets at least one kilometer thick ravaged the landscape of the state and sculpted its terrain. The Wisconsin glaciation left 12,000 years ago and these glaciers covered all of Minnesota except the far southeast, an area characterized by steep hills and streams that cut into the bedrock. This area is known as the Driftless Zone for its absence of glacial drift, much of the remainder of the state outside the northeast has 50 feet or more of glacial till left behind as the last glaciers retreated. Gigantic Lake Agassiz formed in the northwest 13,000 years ago and its bed created the fertile Red River valley, and its outflow, glacial River Warren, carved the valley of the Minnesota River and the Upper Mississippi downstream from Fort Snelling. Minnesota is geologically quiet today, it experiences earthquakes infrequently, the states high point is Eagle Mountain at 2,301 feet, which is only 13 miles away from the low of 601 feet at the shore of Lake Superior. Notwithstanding dramatic local differences in elevation, much of the state is a rolling peneplain. Two major drainage divides meet in Minnesotas northeast in rural Hibbing, forming a triple watershed, precipitation can follow the Mississippi River south to the Gulf of Mexico, the Saint Lawrence Seaway east to the Atlantic Ocean, or the Hudson Bay watershed to the Arctic Ocean
5.
Peabody and Stearns
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Peabody & Stearns was a premier architectural firm in the Eastern United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, the firm consisted of Robert Swain Peabody and John Goddard Stearns, the firm worked on in a variety of designs but is closely associated with shingle style. With addition of Pierce P. Furber, presumably as partner, bayley House,16 Fairmont Ave. Newton Kragsyde,27 Smiths Point Rd. Manchester-by-the-Sea - Demolished 1929. Building,195 State St. Springfield U. S. Custom House Tower, unitarian Church of the Messiah,508 N. Garrison Ave. Turner Building,304 N. 8th St. St. Louis - Demolished 1902, St. Louis Club, T. E. Huntley Ave. George Blackman House,5843 Bartmer Ave, St. Louis Alvah Mansur House,3700 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis Charles F. Morse House,200 E. 36th St. Kansas City - Demolished, henry L. Newman House,21 Westmoreland Pl. Security Building,319 N. 4th St. St. Louis, St. Louis John T. Davis House,17 Westmoreland Pl. St. Louis James J. Hill House,240 Summit Ave, St. Paul - Peabody & Stearns were fired from the project in 1889. Union Depot,509 W. Michigan Ave. Duluth Elberon Casino, Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville Central Railroad of New Jersey Terminal, Jersey City George W. Childs-Drexel House,1726 Locust St. Philadelphia Nathaniel Holmes House, Morewood & 5th Aves. Harvey Childs House,718 Devonshire St. Pittsburgh Sarah Drexel Fell House,1801 Walnut St. Philadelphia Durbin Horne House,7418 Penn Ave, Pittsburgh Joseph Horne & Co. Dept. Pittsburgh East Liberty Market,5900 Baum Blvd, Pittsburgh Remsen V. Messler House,651 Morewood Ave. Pittsburgh Laurento, Darby-Paoli Rd. Villanova - Demolished 1980s, penshurst, Conshohocken State Rd. Lower Merion - Demolished. Krisheim,7514 McCallum St. Philadelphia Westview, Westview Rd. Bryn Mawr - Demolished, frederick S. G. DHauteville House,489 Bellevue Ave. Nathan Matthews House,492 Bellevue Ave, Newport Grace W. Rives House,30 Red Cross Ave. Newport The Breakers,44 Ochre Point Ave, Newport - Burned 1892, later replaced. Newport Vinland, Newport - Now Salve Reginas Mcauley Hall, Newport Pavilion, Eastons Beach, Memorial Blvd. Newport - Destroyed 1938 Ocean Lawn,51 Cliff Ave, Newport Rough Point,680 Bellevue Ave
6.
Richardsonian Romanesque
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Richardson first used elements of the style in his Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane in Buffalo, New York, designed in 1870. This very free revival style incorporates 11th and 12th century southern French, Spanish, the style includes work by the generation of architects practicing in the 1880s before the influence of the Beaux-Arts styles. It is epitomised by the American Museum of Natural Historys original 77th Street building by J. Cleaveland Cady of Cady, Berg and See in New York City. It was seen in communities in this time period such as in St. Thomas, Ontarios city hall and Menomonie. Some of the practitioners who most faithfully followed Richardsons proportion, massing and detailing had worked in his office and these include, Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow and Frank Alden, George Shepley and Charles Coolidge, Herbert Burdett. Bate designed the Grays Armory in this style in Cleveland, Ohio, the style also influenced the Chicago school of architecture and architects Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright. In Finland, Eliel Saarinen was influenced by Richardson, research is underway to try to document the westward movement of the artisans and craftsmen, many of whom were immigrant Italians and Irish, who built in the Richardsonian Romanesque tradition. The style began in the East, in and around Boston, as the style was losing favor in the East, it was gaining popularity further west. Stone carvers and masons trained in the Richardsonian manner appear to have taken the style west, as an example, four small bank buildings were built in Richardsonian Romanesque style in Osage County, Oklahoma, during 1904–1911. For pictures of H. H. Richardson’s own designs and some of the details, with the exception of the Richardson Olmsted Complex, none of the following structures were designed by Richardson. They illustrate the strength of his personality on progressive North American architecture from 1885 to 1905. They are divided into categories denoting the various different uses of the buildings, civic Buildings Educational Institutions and Libraries Service-related buildings Churches and chapels Residences Henry Hobson Richardson H
7.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
8.
James J. Hill
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James Jerome Hill, was a Canadian-American railroad executive. He was the executive officer of a family of lines headed by the Great Northern Railway, which served a substantial area of the Upper Midwest, the northern Great Plains. Because of the size of this region and the economic dominance exerted by the Hill lines, Hill was born in Eramosa Township, Wellington County, Upper Canada. A childhood accident with a bow and arrow blinded him in the right eye and he had nine years of formal schooling. He attended the Rockwood Academy for a short while, where the head gave him free tuition and he was forced to leave school in 1852 due to the death of his father. By the time he had finished, he was adept at algebra, geometry, land surveying and his particular talents for English and mathematics would be critical later in his life. After working as a clerk in Kentucky, Hill decided to move to the United States and settled in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first job in St. Paul was with a steamboat company, by 1860, he was working for wholesale grocers, for whom he handled freight transfers, especially dealing with railroads and steamboats. Through this work, he learned all aspects of the freight, during this period, Hill began to work for himself for the first time. During the winter months when the Mississippi River was frozen and steamboats could not run, Hill started bidding on other contracts, because of his previous experiences in shipping and fuel supply, Hill was able to enter both the coal and steamboat businesses. In 1870, he and his partners started the Red River Transportation Company, by 1879 he had a local monopoly by merging. In 1867, Hill entered the business, and by 1879 it had expanded five times over. During this same period, Hill also entered banking and quickly managed to become member of several major banks boards of directors. He also bought out bankrupt businesses, built them up again, Hill noted that the secret to his success was work, hard work, intelligent work, and then more work. During the Panic of 1873, a number of railroads, including the St. Paul, the StP&P in particular was caught in an almost hopeless legal muddle. For James Hill it was a golden opportunity, for three years, Hill researched the StP&P and finally concluded that it would be possible to make a good deal of money off of the StP&P, provided that the initial capital could be found. Hill teamed up with Norman Kittson, Donald Smith, George Stephen, together they not only bought the railroad, they also vastly expanded it by bargaining for trackage rights with Northern Pacific Railway. In May 1879, the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and his first goal was to expand and upgrade even more
9.
Cathedral of Saint Paul (Minnesota)
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The Cathedral of Saint Paul is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. It is the Co-Cathedral of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, one of the most distinctive cathedrals in the United States, it sits on Cathedral Hill overlooking downtown St. Paul and features a distinctive copper-clad dome. It is the third largest completed church in the United States, and it is dedicated to Paul the Apostle, who is also the namesake of the City of St. Paul. The current building opened in 1915 as the cathedral of the archdiocese to bear this name. On March 25,2009, it was designated as the National Shrine of the Apostle Paul by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the first church building in what became the Archdiocese was a small log chapel built at the urging of Father Lucien Galtier. He came to the area when the settlement was known as Pigs Eye. The chapel, measuring 25 feet by 18 feet, was dedicated on November 1,1841, crétin immediately started to build a larger church to serve the fast-growing population of St. Paul. The second building still proved to be too small for the needs of the diocese, so he started plans for a third cathedral in 1853. Construction of the building, at the corner of St. Peter and Sixth Streets in Downtown St. Paul, started in 1854 and was completed in 1858, having been delayed by the Panic of 1857 and Crétins death. The third cathedral was built of stone, measured 175 feet long and 100 feet wide, Thomas Grace was the bishop at the time the cathedral was completed. The building of the current cathedral was instigated by Archbishop John Ireland in 1904, the site was formerly occupied by the deteriorating mansion of entrepreneur Norman Kittson. Charles H. F. Smith and Alpheus Beede Stickney, two businessmen in St. Paul, purchased the land and donated it to the archdiocese, masquerays open design allows visitors unobstructed views of the altar and pulpit. Masqueray died in 1917, having completed only a few designs for the interior, the dome of the cathedral is 76 feet in diameter and 186 feet high. Warm-colored paint and gold leaf were added during a renovation of the dome in the 1950s. The exterior walls of the cathedral are Rockville granite from St. Cloud, the interior walls are American Travertine from Mankato, Minnesota. The interior columns are made of several types of marble, the interior is illuminated by twenty-four stained glass windows featuring angelic choirs. There is also a window in the transept designed by Charles Connick. Electric lighting was installed in 1940, heroic size marble statues of the four evangelists, sculpted by John Angel, are set into the niches of the piers in the four corners of the Church
10.
Minnesota Historical Society
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The Minnesota Historical Society is a nonprofit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U. S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota Constitution and it is headquartered in the Minnesota History Center in downtown St. Paul. Although its focus is on Minnesota history it is not constrained by it and its work on the North American fur trade has been recognized in Canada as well. The Minnesota Historical Society operates 31 historic sites and museums,26 of which are open to the public, MNHS manages 14 sites directly and 10 in partnerships where the society maintains the resources and provides funding. Five sites are being held for preservation but are closed to public access, seven of the sites are National Historic Landmarks and 16 others are on the National Register of Historic Places. Seven sites lie within Minnesota state parks, and three are elements of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, journals and other documents of the Minnesota Historical Society. Minnesota Historical Society / Internet Archive
11.
Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
12.
Clarence H. Johnston Sr.
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Clarence Howard Johnston Sr. was an American architect who practiced in the State of Minnesota during the late 1800s and early 1900s. His work specialized in domestic, religious, and public architecture, johnstons parents, Alexander Johnston and Louise Johnston, moved to Waseca County, Minnesota in 1856, along with a few other families. They established a settlement named Okaman on the shores of Lake Elysian and their first son, John Buckhout Johnston, was born in 1858, and became a prominent manufacturer and businessman. Clarence Johnston was born August 26,1859, the family then moved to Wilton, which was then the county seat of Waseca County, and Alexander Johnston took over the publication of a local newspaper. In 1861 the family moved to Faribault and their third child, Grace, was born March 2,1862. They moved again, to Saint Paul, where their fourth child, after moving briefly to Hastings, the family returned to Saint Paul permanently in 1868. Alexander Johnston was then a reporter for the Saint Paul Daily Pioneer, Johnston started attending Saint Paul High School in 1872 and took on a job as a clerk at the law firm of Rogers and Rogers. His mother died May 8,1874, at the age of forty-two and that same year, Johnston quit his clerical job and began work at the firm of Abraham M. Radcliffe as a draughtsman. Radcliffes firm was a training ground for aspiring architects at the time. In September 1876, Cass Gilbert joined Radcliffes firm as an apprentice, in the fall of 1878, Gilbert and Johnston enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. There they met James Knox Taylor, who had grown up in Saint Paul. Gilbert and Johnston, along with Taylor, had opted to take the special course in architecture. However, Johnston was forced to drop out after one term due to financial reasons and he moved back to Saint Paul and worked briefly at the firm of Edward Bassford, where the firm was more conscious of costs to the client in the design and construction process. This influenced Johnston to view economic constraints as a challenge to be solved by inventiveness, during these years, Gilbert and Johnston kept in touch through a large number of letters. In January 1880, Cass Gilbert departed to Europe for an architectural tour, Gilbert wrote back to Johnston urging him to make a similar trip, but Johnston was preoccupied with a job offer from Herter Brothers in New York. One of the projects on which he worked during his tenure at Herter Brothers was J. P. Morgans brownstone house on Madison Avenue at 36th Street. In the summer of 1880, Cass Gilbert returned from Europe and settled in New York, working for the firm of McKim, Gilbert and Johnston, along with their MIT classmate Francis Bacon, shared rooms at 40 Irving Place. That same year Johnston, Gilbert, Bacon, Taylor, and William A. Bates founded the Sketch Club, accounts vary on which members were actually the founders of the club
