Pen & Ink

2008

Saint Paul features an exceptional number of green areas and parks.  The larger parks in the center of downtown are Rice, Kellogg, Wacouta and Mears.  Mears Park is in the heart of the Lowertown Historic District.  Lowertown comprises the eastern third of downtown - the lower elevation here is where the city’s origins lie.  It allowed easy access to and from the adjacent Mississippi River and the steamboats which were the earliest form of transportation which brought new immigrants and supplies to the frontier town of the mid 1800’s.  Many of the Lowertown’s earliest structures remain.  Though the factories and most of the warehouse businesses are gone, residences, artist studios, offices, restaurants and pubs now occupy these restored buildings; many of which

are on the National Register of Historic Places.