This is St Cloud Minnesota history, so if you've never been here, you can skip this post, guilt-free ☺ :
Funny how something can stick in your craw for years, a puzzle that's just niggling there, waiting to be figured out...and suddenly, there's a rainy day in June that seems perfect for illustrating the problem to see if any of you readers have an answer or explanation ☺. If you do, leave a comment, ok?
Ok, here are two postcards picturing Immaculate Conception church (the German Church) and St Mary's school as they were between 1896 (when the school was built) and 1920 (when the church burned down). These buildings stood on west St Germain Street at the 900 block. We know the street car tracks turned north on 9th right in front of the church (enlarge the left pic), and that the church property blocked 9th going south from there, shown on the map.
This 1896 map fragment shows the school and church on the north shore of Lake George, and wow, both buildings look to be far back from the street, don't they...but the photo postcards have them flush with St Germain. How can that be? The school is still there, and if you approach from the walkway beside the current church, the school is indeed behind an office building to its north. Here's the satellite view, and a few 2015 street view pics.
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| (Red vehicle above the R) |
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| See the red vehicle (middle bottom of the satellite pic)? This would be the view from there, looking north/northeast. (There was obviously an addition built on the south face of the original school building--it doesn't match the mansard roof style at all, but the brick color matches). So, my burning question is: how come the school is now an entire office building south of where it was originally?? |
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| A little farther east, still looking north. |
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| This view is from approximately the same place as the first pic up there--see the school roof line behind the red brick St Mary's Building? |
LOL...I've tried for an hour to grab the outline from the first postcard to superimpose on this view, but DAMN, Paint.net isn't cooperating.
Here's where your imagination comes in.
Shortly after I clicked "Publish", Larry sent these two pertinent vids!
They're quite interesting even if they don't answer the burning Q.
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