About the Book

I self-published the prequel to this book in 1975, specifically about the names of city streets. For years I had hoped to find time to update that book. When I was contacted by the University of Minnesota Press in 2004 to publish a second edition, I spent over a year expanding the scope of the book to include the names of parks, cemeteries, islands, brooks, and creeks from the present and the past, as well as other distinctive place names in St. Paul. I also corrected some mistakes in the original text. All in all, I would say more than half of the book is new material.

I want to emphasize that almost the entire book is the result of my original research; months of time going through public records; and personal interviews. This is not like some history books which simply rehash or reinterpret material previously published. In addition to the “facts” there is some whimsy interspersed, as well as the opportunity to walk in the tracks of the Intrepid Urban Traipser.