Thatcher Imboden - Uptown Minneapolis

The Dakota village of Eatonville, located on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun, was established in 1829 with the cooperation of Dakota chief Cloudman and Fort Snellings Indian Agent, Major Taliaferno. The United States was actively encouraging local Indian tribes to shift to an agricultural lifestyle, and the federal government provided Cloudmans village with goods and assistance. Not all local Dakota approved of the village, and Eatonville was established with only 12 families. Several years later the villages population reached 125 and its residents had raised nearly 1,000 bushels of corn. Shown here is the village in the summer of 1835, as painted by artist George Catlin. The village was abandoned in 1839 after local Dakota and Chippewa tensions erupted in violence. (Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison Jr.)

Brothers Gideon and Samuel Pond, originally from Connecticut, came to Minnesota in 1834 in search of potential converts to Christianity. They received permission from Fort Snellings Major Taliaferno to live near the village of Eatonville on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun. Neither brother had formal religious training, nor knowledge of the Dakota language or customs. They quickly set to work learning the Dakota language, developing an alphabet so that Biblical works could be translated and published in the language. Both brothers later wrote prolifically about their experiences living with the Dakota. Shown here is Gideon Pond. (Courtesy Hennepin History Museum.)

The Ponds cabin was located on the eastern shore of Lake Calhoun where Saint Marys Greek Orthodox Church now stands. This drawing of the cabin was based on the detailed descriptions later given by the Pond brothers. Gideon Pond described the cabin of oak logs, carefully peeled, as 12 feet wide by 16 feet long, with tamarack logs from a local grove holding up the roof. The cabin had one window, a gift of Major Lawrence Taliaferno, and a door with a lock. The cost of the cabin was one shilling, used for nails. Gideon Pond also recalled the early days of the cabin: the formal opening exercises consisted in reading of a section from the old book by the name of the Bible, and prayer to Him who was its acknowledged author. The banquet consisted of mussels from the lake, flour, and water. The site of the cabin itself had been selected by Cloudman. As Gideon Pond recalled, the reason he gave for the selection was that from that point the loons would be visible on the lake. The Ponds lived in the cabin until 1836. The cabin was torn down in 1839 and its materials used for fortifications during the ongoing Dakota-Chippewa conflicts. (Courtesy Minneapolis Public Library.)

Colonel William Kings Lake Calhoun Pavilion was built in 1877 at the bluff above what is now 35th Street and East Lake Calhoun Boulevard. King, one of the founders of the Minneapolis Tribune , owned large tracts of land in south Minneapolis and the Uptown area. The pavilion was later purchased by real estate magnate L.F. Menage and was turned into a hotel named the Lyndale. In addition to the attractions offered by the lake itself, visitors to the hotel could enjoy the dancing hall, billiards, and a wide variety of other pursuits. The fashionable resort hotel was destroyed by fire in 1888. (Courtesy Minneapolis Public Library.)