About Frogtown/Summit-University
Frogtown Neighborhood Profile Summit-University Neighborhood Profile
Frogtown/ Thomas-Dale:
- History: Settled in 1880s as a working-class neighborhood. Attracted newly arrived immigrants during the early 1900s from Austria and Germany, with some Poles, Swedes and Hungarians.
- Present: Dominated by University Avenue, Thomas-Dale is traditionally (and more commonly) known as "Frogtown" to the locals, and has been regarded as a neighborhood in transition for decades. Throughout transition, one thing remaining in this neighborhood is the rich culture and diversity.
Summit-University:
- History: Summit-University also includes the historic and gentrifying Cathedral Hill neighborhood, as well as what remains of old "Rondo" - once a full-fledged neighborhood of the city in its own right. Lower Rondo (known to the locals as "Cornbread Valley") served as the center of St. Paul's thriving African-American community dating back to the Civil War, but was nearly obliterated by the construction of Interstate 94 in the late 1950's.
- Present: Another neighborhood in transition, "Summit-University" is the heart of the local Hmong community as well as the city's other Asian communities, of whom Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians are represented in large numbers.
Who’s Who From FSU
- LeRoy Neiman, artist
- Jim Lange, original TV host of "The Dating Game"
- Frederick McGhee, first black criminal lawyer west of the Mississippi River
- Warren Spannaus, former Minnesota attorney general
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, writer
- Dave Winfield, Baseball Hall of Fame left fielder
- Charles M. Schultz, author of the Peanuts comic strip
- Gordon Parks, photographer, filmmaker, and writer
- Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube
- Cy Thao, first Hmong-American politician to serve as a Representative in the legislature
- Toni Carter, first African-American to serve as a Ramsey Country Commissioner in Minnesota
Books
Some titles available through Amazon.com
- "Frogtown: Photographs and Conversations in an Urban Neighborhood," by Wing Young Huie, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1996.
- "Where We Live,'' by Judith Martin and David Lanegran, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1983.
- "St. Paul: The First 150 years," by Virginia Brainard Kunz, The Saint Paul Foundation, 1991
- “Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul's Historic Black Community,” by Kateleen Jill Hope Cavett and David Vassar Taylor, Syren Book Company, 2005
- “The Days of Rondo,” Evelyn Fairbanks, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1990