Frog Town

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About Frog Town

Photos should be historic or of historic buildings or locations in the Frog Town Neighborhood of Saint Paul Minnesota.

I guess the name is a little odd and deserves some explanation.
One of the more popular explanations is that Frogtown is an ethnic slur aimed at the French who first settled this area. There is some historic truth to this, the area was settled by the French. An early French landowner, Benjamin Lafond, left his mark on the area by naming Lafond Avenue after himself. It is even said that some of the surrounding streets are named for his sons Edmund, Charles and Thomas. Sherburne Avenue may have once been named Ellen Avenue for his daughter.
Others say that Archbishop John Ireland coined it almost 100 years ago. It is said that while standing in Calvary Cemetery he looked across a large section of marshland filled with croaking frogs and said "That sounds like a frog town" (Pioneer Press 7/28/74.) The land was particularly marshy and could have contained a high frog population. The Austro-Hungarians in the area called it Froschburg (frog city.)
Yet another theory I have heard is that the name may have come from the fact that the couplers on the railroad cars were called "frogs" and so many railroad workers lived in the area.
I guess we may never really know for sure!

District 7, known historically as Frogtown and officially as Thomas-Dale, is located northwest of downtown St. Paul in the north central part of the city. Lexington Parkway bound the district to the west, Interstate 35 E on the east, University Avenue and a one block section of Aurora Avenue on the south, and the Burlington Northern railroad tracks on the north. Although primarily a working and middle class residential neighborhood it contains a substantial number of industrial and important business districts.

For more information on this neighborhood use the following link:
www.rchs.com/neighborhoods/frogtown.htm

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