Schornstein Grocery and Saloon, commercial/residential building in Saint Paul, Minnesota
The Schornstein Grocery and Saloon is a brick building in Saint Paul built in 1884 in the French Second Empire style. The ground floor held a grocery store and saloon, the family lived on the second floor, and a large hall occupied the third floor for community gatherings.
William Schornstein arrived in Saint Paul in 1873 from Germany and first worked as a bartender. After a fire destroyed an earlier building in 1884, he built a new brick structure designed by architect Augustus Gauger in the French Second Empire style. The family operated the business until 1920, shaping generations of neighbors.
The building served as a gathering place for the German-American community, particularly for residents with German roots. The large hall on the third floor hosted meetings, weddings, and celebrations that helped neighbors maintain their customs and traditions together.
The building sits at the corner of Wilson Avenue East and Bates Avenue North in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood. The French architectural details and mansard roof are clearly visible from the street, making a walk through the area a good way to see the neighborhood's historic architecture.
The building was designed by architect Augustus Gauger, a German immigrant who came to Saint Paul and shaped the city with many European-style structures. The reconstruction after the 1884 fire shows the family's resilience, choosing to rebuild larger and more ornate rather than give up.
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