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History of Downtown Hastings, Minnesota
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The name
of the city was drawn from a hat, but its location was not
chosen by accident. The four partners that made the claim for
this townsite in 1851 were veterans of the fur trade with a
practiced eye for the best locations in the territory. Alexis
Bailly, his son Henry G. Bailly, Alexander Faribault and Henry
Hastings Sibley knew Oliver's Grove from their American Fur Company
days. US Army Lieutenant W. G. Oliver commanded a detachment
guarding supplies here in the winter of 1819/20. The boats were
stopped by low water on their to Fort St. Anthony, later named
Fort Snelling. Oliver left his name on a grove of trees where
they camped.
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This area was not opened to settlement until 1851. In order to make
and keep a claim, a shelter had to be built and occupied. Henry G.
Bailly built a cabin, under the rights of his license to trade, at
Oliver's Grove in 1850. The claim was surveyed in 1853 and the
partners each put a name in the hat; Hastings was drawn!
In January, 1856, the population of Hastings was
650 people; one year later it was nearly 2,000. Hastings was incorporated
by the Territorial Legislature and named the seat of Dakota County
in 1857.
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The Levee on First Street between
Ramsey and Sibley, about 1860.
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first large buildings were constructed
of local limestone. Logs floated to a stream sawmill beside the
Mississippi were turned to lumber for small frame houses and shops
that soon lined First, Second and Third Streets from Bailly to
Ashland. |
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The
Spiral Bridge was built in 1895. It owed its unique design to the
desire of downtown businesses to bring traffic down on Second Street,
rather than over it.
Meloy Park, under the spiral, was named for John
C. Meloy, a former Mayor and partner in the Gardner & Meloy
Elevator, who sold the lot for the bridge approach for one dollar.
When the bridge was torn down in 1951, the lot reverted to his heirs and
was purchased by the American Legion. |
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Photo and text courtesy
of Hastings Historic Handbook |
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