The exterior of the Center Block Building in Gateway Park which was the location of the first Minneapolis Young Men's Christian Association rooms as of 1866.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Libraries, Kautz Family YMCA Archives
Parking lot in front of Alfred Parkers home on West Broadway. The son of a Methodist Clergyman, Alfred Parker was born in Maine in 1824. He served in the Mexican War and went to the California gold fields in the rush of 1849. In the early 1850s he came back east by rail and then up the Mississippi by steamboat to St. Paul. In 1854, Parker homesteaded a farm near what is now 42nd and Perry. In 1855 Parker married his neighbor's daughter, Elizabeth Malbon. Her father built the couple a fine house at 4109 Lakeland. A couple years later he built another house on an adjoining lot. The Parker house was used as a stopover by travelers and teamsters hauling on the Bottineau Road. Both houses, in the heart of the business district, were torn down in the 1970s.