#dayton's

Dayton's Building

The Dayton's Project opens this week in the former Dayton's Department Store building in downtown Minneapolis. The building permit index cards in our collections offer a glimpse into the building's growth through the years. Here are a few highlights:

1901: Permits are first issued to George Dayton to build his store

1915-1916: Additions to the building cost an estimated $97,360

1936-1937: Air conditioning installed

1945: $1 million addition brings building to 12 floors

1961 - 1963: Creation of the 8th floor auditorium

1971: Skyway added to the new IDS Center

Maurice Rentner for Dayton’s 1956

7th Street Before Dayton’s

The corner of 7th Street and Nicollet Mall in the heart of downtown Minneapolis is a well-travelled corner. For over a century, Dayton’s department store (later Marshall Fields and Macys, and now the Dayton’s Project) has been the corner’s centerpiece. The statue of Mary Tyler Moore, added much more recently, also draws many to the area. Perhaps unnoticed behind Mary’s hat-throwing likeness is a small plaque hinting at the intersection’s life before she and Dayton’s came to 7th Street.

From 1882 to 1895, Westminster Presbyterian Church anchored this popular downtown corner. The congregation, founded in 1857, built its first sanctuary on 4th Street between Hennepin and Nicollet avenues in 1861. On March 11, 1883, Westminster formally dedicated its new, larger space at the corner of 7th and Nicollet. The building cost $150,000 to build, and its main auditorium could hold 1,200 people. On the morning of September 6, 1895, fire broke out in one of the church’s cupolas. Despite efforts by the fire department, the roof collapsed, and the interior of the church was heavily damaged.

Almost immediately, talk began of relocating the church out of the downtown core. An editorial in the Minneapolis Tribune the day after the fire boldly stated that:

The people of the city would like to see the Westminster lot on Nicollet avenue covered with a modern business block, and a new and more imposing Westminster church arise on some commanding site nearer to the homes of the people.

The paper’s editorial board got both of its wishes. Westminster Presbyterian Church opened its new building in 1897 at the corner of Nicollet and 12th St. S (its current location), in what was then a residential area. By 1902, the church’s old location had become Dayton’s.