On Tuesday, August 31, 2004, at 06:26 AM, Dorie Rae Gallagher wrote:
Floyd B. Olson needs to stay as named. When someone has a petition, there needs to be a counter of that movement. To talk about it is one thing, to act upon it is another....do something to assure the name is not changed.
Agreed- Olson Memorial Highway is a living reminder of our Minnesota tradition of progressive populism, so it's no wonder the revisionist Republicans would try to rewrite that history. And Dorie is correct, we need to make positive steps to maintain the historic legacy commerated by the Olson Memorial Highway. I'm suggesting a 1st annual DFL "road trip" on the Olson Memorial Highway this fall with stops in Minneapolis and other points along the way to call attention to the history along the road and DFL candidates. R.T. and DFL council members, we need you to take the lead on this and get the ball rolling- I'm willing to do the legwork to research the route and put the logistics together.
In the meantime, a brief history of Olson Memorial Highway is in order.
Olson Memorial Highway follows the rails of the Soo Line, a granger railroad built by Minneapolis milling interests to bring grain to their mills and in a bold and largely failed move, ship their flour across Wisconsin and Michigan's upper peninsula, bypassing Chicago and taking a straighter course to eastern and european markets. By the end of the 19th century Soo rails had already crossed Minnesota and were advancing across North Dakota.
Before there were numbered highways there were "Motor Trails", with communities along a route marking that route with a distinctive logo. A loose collection of dirt roads paralleling the Soo Line for over half the length of the Olson Memorial Highway, from Annandale to North Dakota, thus was designated the "Blue Trail" Shortly after World War One our nation began highway building with a vengance, with the numbering and funding of highways and their construction funded at both the state and federal levels. In fact, during those roaring 20s the initial routing of Minnesota's trunk highways was enshrined in our state constitution.
However, the cities along the Soo Line were pretty much bypassed, with US 12 serving the towns to the south and US 10S (later renumbered US 52) serving the towns to the north. While those U.S. highways were rapidly being improved and paved, farmers and townspeople bypassed by the new highways had nothing but disconnected dirt roads as an alternative to the but one railroad that served many towns. Meanwhile in Minneapolis the Bassett's Creek bottomlands neighborhood Hennipen County Attorney and now Governor Olson grew up in was becoming an unlivable slum.
In the depths of the great depression Governor Olson and the Farmer-Laborites pushed a massive highway building measure through the 1933 session of the state legislature. Included in that measure was the designation and funding of Minnesota Trunk Highway 55, to stretch from Hastings, across the graceful arches of the newly built Mendota bridge, along the flour mills of Hiawatha Avenue, west on 6th Avenue North, and following the Soo Line to North Dakota. Shortly thereafter demolition of the slums in Bassett's Creek bottoms began in preparation for the coming housing project.
After Governor Olson succumbed to cancer in 1936 while campaigning for the U.S. Senate the still under construction Minnesota Trunk Highway 55 was named Floyd B. Olson Memorial Highway in his memory. Thus the same Governor Olson who fought for the much needed good roads and jobs the 1933 Highway Bill provided was memorialized by it. The Olson Memorial Highway was temporally routed up West Broadway and west on Rockford Road while construction proceeded concurrent with the that of Sumner Olson Homes in North Minneapolis.
Through the Republican administrations of the last few decades much of Olson Memorial Highway has been all but abandoned. Beyond the Hiawatha Avenue expressway and Light Rail Line, built largely at the behest of DFLers, little improvements has been made. West of Glenwood the Olson Memorial Highway appears to have received little more than some fresh asphalt topping since it was first built by the WPA.
And to add insult to injury during those Republican administrations the "Floyd B. Olson Memorial Highway" signs disappeared from most of our Governor Olson's highway.
from just north of the Floyd B. olson Memorial Highway on the Northside,
Dyna Sluyter
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