Bohemian Flats, Minneapolis

Summary: Bohemian Flats, located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River just below the Washington Avenue bridge, was a community of immigrants that flourished between 1869 and 1929.  Here rents were cheap, and despite the annual spring floods, newcomers settled in.  The earliest to make their homes here were Dutch and Irish, Swedes followed, but by the 1880s, Slovaks and Czechs predominated.  Immigrant men found easy access to jobs in the flour and lumber mills just upriver and in the barrel-making establishments that provided needed containers for the mills and the several breweries along the river.

 

Bohemian Flats, located on the West Bank of the Mississippi River just below the Washington Avenue bridge, was a community of immigrants that flourished between 1869 and 1929. Here rents were cheap, and despite the annual spring floods, newcomers settled in. The earliest to make their homes here were the Dutch and the Irish. Swedes followed, but by the 1880s, Slovaks and Czechs predominated. Immigrant men found easy access to jobs in the flour and lumber mills just upriver and in the barrel-making establishments that provided needed containers for the mills and the several breweries along the river. The single house of worship in the neighborhood was originally built to serve Swedish immigrants. It was acquired in 1888 by the newly established Slovak Lutheran congregation, which named it the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saint Emmanuel.

 

Category: Settlement House     Neighborhood: Cedar Riverside