St. Louis Park, Minnesota
St. Louis Park is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 50,010 at the 2020 census.[2] It is a first-ring suburb immediately west of Minneapolis. Other adjacent cities include Edina, Golden Valley, Minnetonka, Plymouth, and Hopkins.
St. Louis Park
United States
1852
November 19, 1886
Nadia Mohamed (nonpartisan)
10.85 sq mi (28.09 km2)
10.63 sq mi (27.53 km2)
0.22 sq mi (0.56 km2)
899 ft (274 m)
50,010
48,827
US: 821st
MN: 20th
4,705.49/sq mi (1,816.82/km2)
2,914,866 (US: 16th)
3,693,729 (US: 16th)
UTC-5 (CDT)
27-57220
0650797[4]
The Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, which has a major collection of antique radio and television equipment, is also in the city. Items range from radios produced by local manufacturers to the Vitaphone system used to cut discs carrying audio for the first "talkie", The Jazz Singer.
The Coen brothers set their 2009 film A Serious Man in St. Louis Park c. 1967. It was important to the Coens to find a neighborhood of original-looking suburban rambler homes as they would have appeared in St. Louis Park in the mid-1960s, and after careful scouting they opted to film scenes in a neighborhood of nearby Bloomington,[5][6] as well as at St. Louis Park's B'nai Emet Synagogue, which was later sold and converted into a school.
History[edit]
Early developments[edit]
The 1860s village that became St. Louis Park was originally known as Elmwood, which today is a neighborhood inside the city. In August 1886, 31 people signed a petition asking county commissioners to incorporate the Village of St. Louis Park. The petition was officially registered on November 19, 1886.
The name "St. Louis Park" was derived from the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway that ran through the area; the word "Park" was added to avoid confusion with St. Louis, Missouri.[7]
In 1892, lumber baron Thomas Barlow Walker and a group of wealthy Minneapolis industrialists incorporated the Minneapolis Land and Investment Company to focus industrial development in Minneapolis. Walker's company also began developing St. Louis Park for industrial, commercial and residential use.
Generally, development progressed outward from the original village center at the intersection of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway with Wooddale Avenue. But Minneapolis soon expanded as far west as France Avenue, and its boundary may have continued to move westward had it not been for St. Louis Park's 1886 incorporation.
By 1893, St. Louis Park's downtown, then located along Broadway (current-day Walker Street) near Lake Street, had three hotels and several fraternal meeting halls, and many newly arrived companies surrounded downtown. Around 1890, the village had more than 600 industrial jobs, mostly associated with agriculture implement manufacturing at the massive Moline Plow Company factory once located just south of downtown.
Geography[edit]
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 10.86 square miles (28.13 km2), of which 10.64 square miles (27.56 km2) is land and 0.22 square miles (0.57 km2) is water.[9]
Interstate 394, U.S. Highway 169, and Minnesota State Highways 7 and 100 are four of the main routes in St. Louis Park.
Government[edit]
St. Louis Park operates under the Council/Manager form of government. An elected City Council sets the policy and overall direction for the city. Then city workers, under the direction of a professional city manager carry out council decisions and provide day-to-day city services. The city manager is accountable to the City Council. St. Louis Park voters elect the mayor and six (two at-large and four ward) City Council members to four-year terms. The mayor and at-large council members represent all residents; the ward council members are primarily responsible for representing their ward constituents.
Politics[edit]
St. Louis Park is in Minnesota's 5th congressional district, represented by Ilhan Omar, a Democrat. The town was placed in this district, which includes traditionally liberal segments of Minneapolis, in the redistricting after the 1990 census. Before that, St. Louis Park had been part of the 3rd congressional district, along with Edina and other more conservative suburbs. The 3rd district was represented by Republicans Clark MacGregor and William Frenzel from 1961 until 1991.
Succeeding Jake Spano, mayor Nadia Mohamed is the first elected Somali American mayor of a US city. She won election to the position on November 7, 2023.[17]
Education[edit]
Public schools[edit]
The St. Louis Park School District, Independent School District 283, is home to seven public schools serving about 4,200 students in grades K–12 students. St. Louis Park is the only school district in Minnesota in which every public school has been recognized as a Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education.
In the 1960s, the proportion of school-age children in St. Louis Park was much higher than it is now, although the population has not changed much. Due to declining enrollment over the years, there have been several changes to schools in the district:
There are over 2,700 businesses in St. Louis Park, including:
The city employs 252 people and the school district (District #283) employs about 762.