Swede Hollow
7th Street Bridge
Originally uploaded by SnurriI'd heard about Swede Hollow for years before I ever knew what it was, and I'd never been there until yesterday, when I rode my bike through downtown to where Payne Avenue runs into 7th Street. It's a wooded ravine on the East Side, cut through the bluffs by Phalen Creek. Back in the 1850's it was settled by Swedish immigrants, hence the name. (Originally it was "Svenska Dalen.") They built shacks along the creek and lived in what I suppose could be called congenial squalor. The name stuck even after the population there became largely Italian, and later Mexican.
What's striking about the hollow is how secluded it is, even now; the sounds of traffic from nearby 7th Street and I-94 are largely muffled by the depth and vegetation. It would be easy to live there and believe the outside world didn't exist--almost as easy as it would be for the rest of the world (well, St. Paul, and specifically the then-prosperous neighborhood of Dayton's Bluff nearby) to pretend that there weren't desperately poor people living down in the Hollow.
There's not a single historical marker in the "Historic Forest"--even the sign I photographed was hidden at a side entrance to the trail. I saw no signs of the homes that were burned away in the 1950's, only an egret and a few ducks, and a tiny congregation having some sort of service up near the Hamm's Brewery. But there was a moment, as I stood near the Creek taking pictures, when I got chills. As I've been studying the history of my city I've begun seeing parts of it in four dimensions; the streets and buildings and neighborhoods that used to be, superimposed on what is now. And while I couldn't see the shacks that used to line the creek (or the outhouses that used to sit suspended above it), the reality struck me hard that people really lived here, and not only are they gone, but so is any trace that they were ever here. I suppose that will be the fate of all of us, but it's rarely been driven home to me in such a way.
To see more (not that there is much to see besides water and trees) check out my set at Flickr.