Robbinsdale Revisited

Episode 53: Robbinsdale was established, platted, and planned as a streetcar suburb in the late nineteenth century by Andrew B. Robbins, who understood that reliable transit to Minneapolis was essential for attracting residents. The local transit system evolved significantly over time, transitioning from horse-drawn and gasoline-powered cars to an electric line established through a popular villag...

Episode 52: Take a hike through the parklands and green spaces where Robbinsdale, Minneapolis, and Golden Valley all come together! This episode uncovers everything from garbage dumps, artificial waterfalls, and dance-hall breweries to clothing-optional beaches, epic ski-jumping, and the trailblazing civil rights icons who fought to integrate our local golf courses. We'll have a seat on Sunset Hil...

Episode 52: Explore the history of the iconic "Cootie" toy and its inventor, William Herbert "Herb" Schaper, who launched his toy empire from his Robbinsdale home. Created in the late 1940s after Schaper whittled a wooden fishing lure into a bug-like creature, The Game of Cootie grew from a basement operation assembled by neighborhood women into an international classic that sold over 50 million c...

Episode50: This collection of memories captures the tight-knit, small-town charm of growing up in Robbinsdale, highlighting iconic local landmarks like the Terrace Theater, Merwin Drug, and the Meat Market. Residents fondly recall simple childhood pleasures, including ice skating at local parks, indulging in Whiz Bang Days festivities, and spending allowance money on treats like malts, candy, and...

Episode 49: Pete and Crystal play 20 questions and discuss how they became involved in preserving local history through the stories, artifacts, photographs, and people that shaped their communities. They explore the histories of Robbinsdale and Golden Valley, including Andrew B. Robbins, early settlers, local industries, community development, and the ways the two suburbs have evolved alongside Mi...

Episode 48: Let's turn back the clock and go shopping in Robbinsdale. Our city spent the late 20th century tossing retail concepts at the wall. We paved over our best swamp for strip mall, attempted to put a little "Dale" in Robbinsdale with the indoor Terrace Mall  and dropped Town Center right across the street from Robin Center in a desperate attempt to boost our tax base. After decades of comm...

Episode 47: Take a Sunday drive through the history of Highway 100, originally constructed in the late 1930s as "Lilac Way," Minnesota’s first regional beltway bypass. It details how WPA workers, under the direction of engineer Carl F. Graeser and landscape architect Arthur R. Nichols, built thousands of lilac plantings, custom stone features, and seven distinct roadside parks to serve Depression-...

Episode 46: Buckle up for a ride down Victory Memorial Drive, a striking piece of Twin Cities history parked along our border with the big city! Born after WWI as Theodore Wirth’s grand vision for a "living memorial," the parkway originally featured 568 regimental elms—funded by park patriarch Charles Loring—to honor fallen local service members. Over the decades, this storied corridor became a ba...

Episode 45:The Tale of Twin Lake! On this episode of Robbinsdale Revisited, we dive into the colorful history of one of the community’s most iconic landmarks—from Andrew B. Robbins’s magnificent lakeside mansion to the Trump family (No! They are not related!), who became a fixture of Robbinsdale for nearly sixty years. We’ll visit Trump’s Landing, hear the astonishing story of the Trumps defending...

Episode 44: We dive into the rich history of 3730 Toledo Avenue North and explore how the former Robbinsdale High School weathered the post-war baby boom and produced an incredible roster of pop-culture legends. They recount famous alumni, from garage rock pioneers, The Trashmen to an unprecedented roll call of 1980s professional wrestling icons. Finally, the episode charts the school's dramatic 1...

Episode 43: Let's look into the life of Adelaide Robbins Gillette—daughter of Robbinsdale founder Andrew B. Robbins—and her family's prominent standing in Minnesota's Gilded Age society. The show traces her life from an elite high school romance and academic achievements at the University of Minnesota to the tragic 1912 death of her young husband, Ralph Perkins Gillette, who was struck by lightnin...

Episode 42:  Crystal and Pete take us back to the early 1920s when a simple grass field served as a bustling hub for daredevil pilots and home-built kit planes. They spotlight the fearless aviatrixes who stole the show—like Gene Du Rand jumping from a frigid 19,000 feet—proving these high-flying women were never just winging it in the skies. The hosts ground the history in the airfield's vital Civ...

Episode 41: Crystal and Pete take a read through Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, a wildly popular 1920s humor magazine created by Robbinsdale veteran Wilford Hamilton Fawcett. Despite its humble beginnings on a family-operated hand press in 1919, the pocket-sized joke book grew to sell hundreds of thousands of copies monthly, funding the town's first skyscraper and putting the small community on the po...

Episode 40: Crystal Boyd presents Roberta Lee Scoville’s 1976 history of Robbinsdale tracing the community's growth from Dakota homeland and early farming settlement through the arrival of the railroad, Andrew B. Robbins, the streetcar, and the village's incorporation. Along the way, it highlights colorful stories about early residents, businesses, schools, fires, local ordinances, and everyday li...

Episode 39: In the early 1900s, strict Sunday closing laws in Minneapolis transformed Robbinsdale into a rowdy, saloon-packed haven for thirsty crowds until political crackdowns forced the community to vote itself dry. The return of alcohol after prohibition brought a lucrative municipal liquor store monopoly and restrictive 3.2% beer laws that kept private bar owners strictly handcuffed. This biz...

Episode 38:The Nash family helped shape Robbinsdale for nearly a century, leaving their mark on farming, business, politics, public service, and recreation. Civil War veteran J. Elijah Nash became a dairy farmer, hardware merchant, and two-time Socialist candidate for governor. His son George built a thriving hardware and plumbing business, served as fire chief, and a flyer of weather flags above...

Episode 37:  The remarkable history Robbinsdale schools along Regent Avenue. This ten-acre site served as the educational heart of Robbinsdale for more than a century. Beginning with the ambitious 1889 construction of the Lutheran Theological Seminary, this special extended episode follows the evolution of the property through the Parker School, Robbinsdale Public School, Robbinsdale High School,...

Episode 36: Follow the life of Esther Robbins Scott, the adventurous youngest daughter of Robbinsdale founder Andrew B. Robbins. Through a remarkable collection of family papers discovered in a Plymouth townhouse, we meet a gifted writer, athlete, dog lover, and keeper of history. From her humorous childhood stories and University of Minnesota days to her courtship, marriage, and passion for breed...

Episode 35: Here's the extraordinary life of Wilford Hamilton Fawcett, the Canadian-born soldier, journalist, and publisher who transformed Robbinsdale into the unlikely birthplace of a national publishing empire. Pete and Crystal explore how Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang exploded from a tiny West Broadway office into a multimedia powerhouse that launched pulp magazines, celebrity culture, comic book...

Episode 34: Explore the history, ecology, and cultural significance of Bassett Creek, blending personal childhood memories with a deeper look at its role in the western Minneapolis area. Crystal and Pete discuss the creek’s Dakota name, Ȟaȟá Wakpádaŋ (“Falls Creek”), its glacial origins, and its importance to Indigenous communities. They also trace how urban development transformed it from a natur...

Episode 33: We trace the rise and fall of the Historic Terrace Theater, the lavish million-dollar movie palace that became a symbol of suburban luxury and innovation in the 1950s. The episode explores how the ambitious Volk brothers transformed movie going with elegant design, personal customer service, and nonstop reinvention as the theater adapted to changing audiences, Hollywood trends, and the...

Episode 32: We explore the history of movie theaters in Robbinsdale and the greater Twin Cities, focusing on the Volk brothers and their chain of “luxury” neighborhood cinemas. This episode traces the evolution from the small 1926 Robin Theater to major mid-century landmarks like the Riverview and the elaborate Terrace Theater, highlighting their architecture, innovations, and cultural impact. The...

Episode 31: Adelaide Walker Robbins helped shape Minnesota from its frontier days through the early twentieth century, serving first as a teenage Civil War nurse before becoming a teacher, writer, church leader, and civic builder the communities of  Willmar and Robbinsdale. Married to our town's founder Andrew B. Robbins and sister of Lumber Barron Thomas B. Walker, she spent decades helping estab...

Episode 30: We trace the life of Amy Robbins Ware, a fiercely independent Robbinsdale woman whose work carried her from art studios and library clubs to the battlefields of World War I France. Through her letters and personal writings, we discover a woman driven by duty, creativity, and a stubborn insistence that women’s contributions deserved to be remembered. Her story touches everything from wa...

Episode 29: Did you ever say “My, how I’d like to have lived in the good old days.”? No cares or worries, no electric lights, no gas or oil to heat with, no vacuum cleaner, no automatic washer or dryer, no electric refrigerator or deep freeze, no radio or T.V. and but few telephones, no automobile or airplane, no atomic bomb. If they didn’t have all of these, what did they have, and how did they g...