White Bear Press

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AncestryDNA: All it takes is some saliva PAGE 3A

A downtown trip down memory lane or, more precisely, Clark Avenue and Third Street BY DEBRA NEUTKENS EDITOR

When the area expert presents her lecture on historic downtown White Bear Lake, it starts on Clark Avenue. The dirt road was the grand promenade to the lake for St. Paulites after they stepped off the train in the late 1800s. In Part I of her slide show tour at the library recently, Historical Society Executive Director Sara Markoe Hanson explained that Clark Avenue was the city's main street because it was in the heart of town when White Bear Lake was platted in 1871. According to Hanson, the avenue was wide so visitors could make their way to the water. “That is why people came to White Bear Lake. At least, that's what the railroad people believed.” Over the years, the block continued to improve. It wasn't paved until 1910. “We hear stories about why it's called Clark Avenue,” Hanson continued. “There was a Clark family living on the street. The family would race their horses up and down it. More likely, Clark was named for a railroad executive. Many streets were named for railroad people.” Next on the pictorial tour is a building on SEE DOWNTOWN, PAGE 8A

WHITE BEAR LAKE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | SUBMITTED

Clark Avenue circa 1915. Note the streetcar tracks that led to Banning Avenue before turning north.

WHITE BEAR LAKE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | SUBMITTED

The fire station and city hall was a wooden structure built in the 1880s. The jail was to the right.

WHITE BEAR LAKE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | SUBMITTED

The Original Order of Oddfellows prepares to march in a parade in front of the Mercantile Co. barn.

Students study community history through trees BY SARA MARIE MOORE VADNAIS HEIGHTS EDITOR

MAHTOMEDI — A cross-section of a 280-year-old tree that toppled next to White Bear Lake last year is a new kind of textbook studied by students at Mahtomedi High School. “It's like a book – it's a little history book,” said senior Acadia Hegedus. Environmental science teacher Jim Lane is borrowing a cross-section of the Native American marker tree that toppled near Lake Avenue last summer from the White Bear Lake Area Historical Society. Lane approached the organization about the possibility of using part of the tree for his class and offered to sand and seal it, said Sara Markoe Hanson, the society's executive director. The marker tree that toppled near Lake Avenue last

summer dates to 1738, said Lane, who dated it himself. Smaller growth rings can be observed around the time a supervolcano erupted in South America in about 1815. It affected the tree for about 20 years. This was also during the time of western expansion and harsh growing seasons for Native American cultures could have influenced the interaction of westerners and Natives, Lane noted. The tree has large growth rings from about the 1870s to 1910, when the Midwestern Bread Bowl agricultural industry was expanding, Lane added. Then, during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, small growth rings are seen. Last summer, the tree toppled near the shore of White Bear Lake. It was likely used as a marker tree for Native Americans due to its twisted branches,

SARA MARIE MOORE | PRESS PUBLICATIONS

Mahtomedi High School seniors Acadia Hegedus, Cheyanne Simpson and Claire Zophy studied a fallen bur oak tree.

SEE HISTORY LESSON, PAGE 9A

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