Stone Arch Road
I turned down a road I have never driven down, but I have passed almost daily for twenty years. It is a one way. On it I discovered the old Stone Arch, Woodland.
This is a historic structure for Woodland, but I know very little of it’s history. There is a much larger and impressive stone arch, once a double stone arch, in Northhome, Deephaven. They are not far apart...
posted by minnetonkafelix at 7:33 AM
2 Comments:
Thanks for the photo -- I'd only seen that arch in my copy of "Lake Minnetonka 1850-2000" by Leo Meloche and was never quite sure where it was!
After doing a little digging, here's what I found:
According to the City of Woodland website, the arch was constructed around 1900 for the private entry to the George M. Gillette summer estate. Architect was W.C. Whitney. Looks like George might have owned the entire point at the time!
He was a MN State Representative (R, of course!) from 1903-1905 and when first elected was: President, Gulf Slate Co.; Vice President, Electric Steel Elevator Co.; Vice President, Minneapolis Steel Machinery Co.; Secretary and Treasurer, Minnesota Malleable Iron Co.; and Former Secretary and Treasurer, Gillette-Herzog Manufacturing Company. (www.leg.state.mn.us/legdb/fulldetail.aspx?id=13006)
From info published in "History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest" (1923) found on USGenWeb.net, it looks like George might have gotten some valuable connections from his older brother, Lewis S. Gillette, who got his first job in town from James J. Hill and parlayed that into bigger and better things, including buying half of Herzog Mfg, and starting MN Malleable Iron and Electric Steel Elevator, among other things.
"Gillette-Herzog pioneered skeleton steel construction for mining and manufacturing building throughout the west and became the recognized authority on that subject." Its work was "found in every leading city and principal mining camp from Panama to Alaska, and between the years 1884 and 1900 there was scarcely an enterprise between Chicago and the Pacific coast requiring steel construction that did not confer with the Gillette company."
There's a link to an old photo of the George's arch at www.cityofwoodlandmn.org
Woodland is planning to make repairs to the arch this month.
Sally, thank you for the great information.
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