Swede Hollow, Saint Paul

Coordinates: 44°57′37″N 93°04′34″W / 44.9603°N 93.0760°W / 44.9603; -93.0760

Swede Hollow was a neighborhood of St. Paul, Minnesota. It was one of a large group of neighborhoods collectively known as the East Side, lying just to the east of the near-downtown Railroad Island neighborhood, and at the northwestern base of Dayton's Bluff. It was capped in the north by the sprawling Hamm's Brewery (with its imposing Hamm family mansion), and in the south by the historic Seventh Street Improvement Arches. Although one of the oldest settlements in the city, it was also arguably the poorest as each wave of immigrants settled in the valley.Swedes, Poles, Italians and Mexicans all at one point called the valley home. A similar community just downstream called Connemara Patch also existed for Irish immigrants.

History

Originally the area was a small, steep, wooded ravine cut through by Phalen Creek. The first settler, Edward Phelan, moved there in 1841. Phelan fled Minnesota in 1850 after perjury charges arose but not before being leaving a mark that would change what was once Mill Creek to Phalen. Among the earliest inhabitants to settle permanently in the isolated spot were Swedish immigrants. First arriving in the 1850s, they gave their new home the name "Svenska Dalen," a designation that remained (in English translation) long after the original settlers had moved on, to be replaced by a wave of Italian immigrants in the early 20th century. At the time of the neighborhood's demise in the mid-fifties, it had attracted a collection of Mexican families as well.