Riverside Hotel (St. Francis, Minnesota) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Riverside Hotel
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The Riverside Hotel viewed from the south
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 Location in Minneapolis–Saint Paul
Location in Minnesota
Location in the United States
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| Location | 3631 Bridge Street, St. Francis, Minnesota |
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| Area | Less than one acre |
| Built | c. 1860 |
| NRHP reference No. | 79001193 |
| Designated | December 26, 1979 |
The Riverside Hotel is an old building in St. Francis, Minnesota. It started as a house around 1860. Later, in 1891, it became a hotel. This was a busy time when the local lumber industry was growing fast in Anoka County, Minnesota.
The hotel is important because it shows what St. Francis was like when it was a "lumber boomtown." It is the only old business building left from that time. It is also connected to the Woodbury family, who helped start St. Francis and Anoka, Minnesota. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. Today, the building is a restaurant called the Rum River Inn.
Contents
The Woodbury Family and Early Days
The story of the Riverside Hotel begins with the Woodbury family. In 1855, Dwight Woodbury moved to Anoka to join his son, Albert. The Woodbury family helped plan and build both St. Francis and Anoka. They also built dams and sawmills in both towns.
Dwight Woodbury's Home
Around 1860, Dwight Woodbury built a house for his family. It was located right next to the Rum River. This house is the original part of what became the Riverside Hotel. It was a two-story building with a special "L" shape. It had a style called Gothic Revival architecture. The house had wooden siding and a pointed roof section called a gable. Some parts of the building are now covered with brick.
From Home to Hotel
After Dwight Woodbury passed away in 1884, his son John Woodbury moved to St. Francis. John built a large mill in town in 1891. This mill made different types of flour.
Becoming the Riverside Inn
Because of his mill, John Woodbury needed places for his workers to stay. So, he made the family home bigger. He started renting rooms to the workers who came for the busy seasons. This was when the house officially became a hotel. It was named the Riverside Inn.
St. Francis grew a lot around the year 1900. Many people worked in local factories and mills. These included the Shaddick Creamery and the St. Francis Starch Factory. The Riverside Inn was a key place for these workers to live.
Newspaper ads from that time show that different people owned the hotel after 1900. For example, J. H. Space ran it in 1906. The inn kept offering rooms to workers until John Woodbury's mill closed in 1923.
