By Lesley Sauls and Glenda Winders
Through the sound of increasing wind, we could hear thunder boom. A window crashed as a board flew through it, and a crackled voice on the radio repeated desperate warning to seek shelter. We huddled in a dim basement with a group of strangers and waited for the tornado to pass overhead.
Fortunately we were in no real danger. We were in a simulated tornado shelter at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul for a weekend getaway, and this re-enactment was just one of the unforgettable exhibits we encountered there.
The room dedicated to Minnesota weather included information about Midwestern winters with deep snows and cold temperatures. The warm and idyllic summers of lake cottages and deep-woods camping were also honored, and a replica of the weather tower that once indicated changes in temperatures and precipitation to the city by a series of colored lights is on display.
In another part of the center we walked through a sod hut, felt fur pelts and tried to lift dense and heavy voyageur packs similar to those used by trappers in the early days of the area. We learned about the expectations put on Native American children who were asked to abandon their culture and assimilate to new ways, and we wound through a dark maze that replicated an iron mine, complete with jackhammers and TNT for hard-hat-clad children to explore.
Another creative display in the center was called "If These Walls Could Talk." In the duplicated rooms of a real Minneapolis house, visitors could hear the stories of the various immigrant families who had made it their home in the last century. Through the former residents' verbal anecdotes, printed words and artifacts, guests could feel the joy, pride and sometimes pain that had been played out between these walls.
The most moving display was dedicated to the people of the Greatest Generation who endured the Depression and fought in World War II. With nods to movie houses, soda shops, televisions and air travel, the display also included raw and chilling accounts from the front lines. In a replicated C-47 we sat through a demonstration like that in the tornado shelter, but in this one we heard and felt the hits of mortar as we flew over the beaches of Normandy and experienced the palpable the fear of those who lived to share their stories in this demonstration. This is the only area that might be too intense for small children.
After a light lunch in the center's cafe, we walked less than a half-mile to the Minnesota State Capitol, where we joined a tour and learned about its history. Completed in 1905, the grand building is made of 23 kinds of stone with marble from around the world.
The most controversial use of stone was the architect's insistence on bright white Georgia marble for the stately dome. Constructed just a few decades after the end of the Civil War, many felt it would be unseemly to use stone from a Confederate state. But the dazzling marble won out and is a stunning addition to the capitol. Within its rotunda stand four larger-than-life statues honoring important Minnesotans from the Civil War that were fittingly carved out of Minnesota granite. In other more subtle ways the war and President Lincoln are repeatedly acknowledged throughout the building.
Our tour guide took us to the Supreme Court chamber, the Senate chamber and the chamber of the House of Representatives. In each hall he answered questions and shared interesting facts about the building's design and uses. We learned how voting takes place and about pages' responsibilities.
We saw portraits of Minnesota's many governors and had coffee in the building's rathskeller cafe. The German design and decorations on the walls of the cafe were chosen to honor the large German immigrant population in Minnesota at the time of the capitol's construction. Although the murals were lost during the 20th century, they have been restored to their original elaborate and sometimes humorous designs.
Next we walked a block back past the history center to meet up with a free daily tour of the majestic Cathedral of St. Paul that towers over its namesake city on Cathedral Hill. A quiet and knowledgeable gentleman walked us through the breathtaking space and pointed out symbolic angels painted in the lofty dome, detailed characters woven into wrought-iron gates and various architectural styles used in this perpetually changing building.
Behind the intricately designed rood screen that separates the cathedral's nave and apse is the Shrine of Nations. Here are statues that honor six European ethnic groups' patron saints with marble from their homelands adorning each individual shrine. In the area dedicated to St. Therese of Lisieux is also a stone from the French castle where Joan of Arc was imprisoned in the 1400s. In 2012 another important stone, this one from the tomb of St. Paul, was gifted to the Cathedral of St. Paul by the Vatican as a sign of spiritual affinity between the Roman basilica and the Minnesota cathedral.
Closer to the front of the church we were surprised to see a computer and cell phone incorporated into the decorations of another iron gate — a nod to the present times, according to our guide. Behind that gate we visited a replica of Michelangelo's Pieta. The original statue is housed in Rome and was damaged shortly after the cast for this replica was made. The cast for the statue we saw was instrumental in restoring Michelangelo's masterpiece, the only sculpture he ever signed after being told he was too young at age 24 to have created such a stunning work of genius.
The second day of our weekend getaway took us off of the bluffs surrounding St. Paul and down toward the Mississippi River and the city's older buildings. Initially a settlement called Pig's Eye Landing in 1838, the community became the state capital 20 years later when Minnesota became a state. The city was the launching place for the Northern Pacific Railway that connected the Midwest to the West Coast in the late 1800s and was a safe getaway for notorious gangsters in the early 1900s. We walked through historic Union Depot and the modern RiverCentre, where hockey games, conferences and concerts are among the many events held each day.
Across from RiverCentre is the Science Museum of Minnesota, where we spent an entire afternoon absorbing interactive information. An oversized aerial photograph of the city that adorns the foyer gave us a bird's-eye view of the Twin Cities. We tracked our visit and the path of the Mississippi River before heading into the museum for a traveling IMAX movie about dinosaurs that reeled us back through time and brought to life our ancient predecessors.
After the movie, we dove into the many exhibits on offer in this dynamic museum. We tripped down a musical flight of stairs and looked deep into each other's eyes with the help of a magnifying machine. A short but mind-bending presentation taught us about optical illusions, and we had the opportunity to see a clear tank fill to varied levels with red "blood" that illustrated the amount pumping through our different-sized bodies. In a re-created TV news studio, we laughed as we read from Teleprompters and presented a mock news program, and we learned about recent additions to the periodic table before walking into a black-walled room where light displays had a vivid impact. Atop the building is perched a real tugboat into which we climbed and pretended to drive as we looked down on the Mississippi with its many barges below us.
Slightly older than its twin city, Minneapolis, St. Paul feels historic and intimate. It is peppered with unusual multicultural restaurants that include Russian (Moscow on the Hill is a favorite), Kurdish and Ethiopian cuisine, and it is home to a wide variety of theater options, one of which is the Fitzgerald, home to Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion."
We finished off our short visit with a tour through the nefarious Wabasha Street Caves, where speakeasies and hideouts for illustrious gangsters such as John Dillinger were hidden during Prohibition. Our lively guide described escapades that ranged from shootouts to secret appearances by such well-known entertainers as Tommy Dorsey.
This is one very colorful state capital!
WHEN YOU GO
Minnesota History Center: www.minnesotahistorycenter.org
Minnesota State Capitol: www.mnhs.org/historic-sites/minnesota-state-capitol
Cathedral of St. Paul: www.cathedralsaintpaul.org
St. Paul RiverCentre: www.rivercentre.org
Science Museum of Minnesota: www.smm.org
Wabasha Street Caves: www.wabashastreetcaves.com
Moscow on the Hill: www.moscowonthehill.com
Lesley Sauls and Glenda Winders are freelance writers. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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