Happy Birthday Richfield

[Richfield 1954]

StarTribune had an interesting story about the upcoming 100th birthday of Richfield, MN. Thought some of you former Spartans out there might be interested.

As Minnesota's self-styled "oldest suburb" begins its centennial celebration this month, Richfield is not only acknowledging its past but also saluting its future.

Named for its rich black prairie soil, Richfield in 1858 stretched over 63 square miles, encompassing what is now Minneapolis from Lake Street south, Edina and St. Louis Park, part of Hopkins, the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport and much of Fort Snelling State Park.

Once known as the fertile home of vegetable-selling truck farmers with names like Bachman and Wagner, after World War II Richfield became the classic 1950s suburb with waves of newly built ramblers pushing cows off the farm fields. The population nearly doubled in just a few years.

Comments

myotus said…
The "oldest suburb" of Minnesota comes from a creative play on history where the land that made up Richfield surrounded Fort Snelling. Suburb comes from the latin Suburbium - the land outside the walls/fort.

While the title is not directly referring to the modern post war suburbanization in the 1940s and 1950s it obviously isn't shying away from those suburban roots.

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