Swede Hollow: A hidden world of immigrant beginnings.

ByValerie

Swede Hollow is framed at one end by the stone 7th Street Improvement arches and the abandoned Hamm’s Brewery on the other end. As you pass through, imagine this space crowded with houses, which were homes to hundreds of people.                 Hidden among the interstates, parking lots, and businesses of east St. Paul, MN, is…

‘Cap” Wigington and the Towering Achievements of America’s first Black Municipal Architect.

ByValerie

Clarence Wigington’s early years and training. The 1910 census records only 59 black architects, artists, and draftsmen in the United States.  Clarence Wesley Wigington was born in 1883 into this culture of segregation, oppression, and limits for African Americans. He never got formal training or a degree, or a certification in architecture, but his skills…