Roper: The ‘birthplace of Minneapolis’ is ready for its next chapter. Let’s tell the whole story.

Historical buildings peppered across the Twin Cities remind me of the generations of people who have taken pride in this place. We are lucky to have these physical connections to the past, despite all that’s been wrecked.

From modest homes to stately edifices, old structures remain standing because people find uses for them and invest in their upkeep. By contrast, buildings that have no modern relevance are vulnerable to “demolition by neglect.”

I am therefore worried about the future of the John H. Stevens House in Minnehaha Park, which was once among the most celebrated properties in Minneapolis. The house had been downgraded to a rotting afterthought several years ago, when unknown culprits repeatedly torched the place. Somehow, it survived.

It is now entering an uncertain new chapter as its owner, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, wraps up repairs. I hope we can rally some interest in its future and lean into some difficult history as we reimagine it for the 21st century.

Unlike the grand buildings around town that catch our eye, the 175-year-old Stevens House is small and tucked away in a park, and it boasts few striking architectural details. Its 19th-century prairie plainness makes me imagine Michael Landon chopping firewood in the front yard.

When I mention it to people, they sometimes assume I am talking about the elegant Longfellow House nearby — which honors a poet who never set foot in Minnesota. Or they might bring up the oldest house in the city, the 1848 Ard Godfrey House, which was built in what was then St. Anthony.

But the easy-to-overlook Stevens House is arguably the most historic structure associated with Minneapolis’ early municipal history.

John Stevens built the house along the Mississippi River around 1850 on what was then part of the Fort Snelling military reservation, after agreeing to provide a ferry service to St. Anthony.

Located where the downtown post office stands today, the Stevens House became the meeting spot of the burgeoning settlement that became Minneapolis. It’s where Hennepin County’s commissioners convened for the first time, and where they decided to call their county seat “Minneapolis.” (After settlers trashed the first name, “Albion.”)

“It is safe to say that no other city of its size in America is the possessor of such an interesting and important part of its beginning as this,” the Minneapolis Journal, a predecessor of the Minnesota Star Tribune, reported in 1892 after it purchased the home. “Just imagine what Chicago or New York would give for the first house built in those cities.”

At the Journal’s suggestion, thousands of schoolchildren pulled it to Minnehaha Park in 1896. That event is considered the “earliest example of historic preservation in Minneapolis,” according to a plaque erected in the 1980s by the Junior League of Minneapolis, which led a major restoration of the property. The plaque describes the house as the “birthplace of Minneapolis.”

When I visited the Stevens House several years ago, its exterior was being consumed by rot, peeling paint, animal holes and moss. So I wrote a story criticizing the Park Board for failing to maintain the property. The organization operating the museum was running on fumes.

About two months later, the arsons began.

Someone lit the house on fire in August 2022 — thankfully, the damage was fairly limited. A couple weeks later, it happened again. The worst fire happened in early October.

I’m still shaken by those fires, which remain unsolved. I remember soberly reading about the last one on my honeymoon.

Despite vocal apathy among some commissioners, the Park Board nonetheless fixed up the property. In addition to repairing the fire damage, the Park Board gave it a new paint job, furnace, air conditioning and concrete paths. A 6-foot ornamental steel fence will be installed this fall.

But there’s no plan for operating the house. It needs a new vision. The nonprofit organization that oversaw programming is inactive.

The most obvious source of tension around the Stevens House is its affiliation with a painful era in Minnesota history, when white settlement displaced Native Americans in this region. The U.S. government took most Dakota-held land in 1851 treaties, which effectively launched the development of what became Minneapolis and many other cities. We know it wasn’t a fair deal.

Prominent Dakota chiefs met with government agents at the Stevens House, according to an 1890 history authored by Stevens, which documents frequent interactions with local Native Americans.

There is no sense whitewashing history, which can be ugly.

Stevens’ book sometimes describes Native Americans as “savages.” Minneapolis Mayor Robert Pratt applied the same label to Native Americans when the house arrived at Minnehaha Park, where he celebrated their replacement by “churches, schools and thousands of Christian homes.”

I have learned that researching history often means grappling with two truths at the same time. I am proud to be part of the long tradition of this newspaper, for example, but have also publicized (through our “Ghost of a Chance” project) flagrant racism in its past. So I hope we can find value in our municipal history while also being up front about the harm that accompanied it.

Great strides are being made these days to promote the Indigenous perspectives that were left out of history books authored by white men like Stevens. The renovation of Fort Snelling in recent years is a good example.

At the downtown riverfront, specifically, the Native-led Owámniyomni Okhódayapi organization is reclaiming former federal property and planning changes that will elevate Dakota culture there. I reached out to the organization to talk about the Stevens House, but they declined to comment because it is outside the scope of their work.

The Park Board should convene a meeting with some key entities to discuss the Stevens House’s future, with invitations to Dakota tribal representatives, Hennepin History Museum, the Minnesota Historical Society, the State Historic Preservation Office, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation and Preserve Minneapolis.

And if you have ideas about the future of the Stevens House, or thoughts about its history, please send them my way at eric.roper@startribune.com.

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