Bridgeman's Ice Cream and Restaurants Part 3

Another Bridge-

man's restau-

rant is located at 4757 Hia-

watha Avenue in Minne-

apolis. This one is still in business. Mom and I went about a year ago. I hadn't been to a Bridgeman's in ages so it was quite a trip walking in. It smelled exactly the same and looked somewhat like the old Richfield restaurant. I got a burger and chocolate malt and Mom got a tulip sundae.

Bridgeman's Ice Cream and Restaurants Part 2

The following history is from the Bridgeman's website:

"Back in 1883, in Duluth Minnesota, an enterprising young man named Henry Bridgeman began peddling fresh milk, home to home, from a goat cart. Through hard work, persistence, quality products, and a little luck, his business grew into the largest dairy concern in the Midwest.

In 1936, Henry's sons, Chester and Roy Bridgeman decided to strike out on their own and opened the original Bridgeman's Ice Cream Shoppe. Their adventure was met with disbelief. Why would anyone open an ice cream shoppe in Minnesota? What about the Depression? But with hard work, persistence and of course, Bridgeman's Ice Cream, they opened not only one, but six Bridgeman Ice Cream Shoppes in eighteen months.

Bridgeman's Ice Cream and Restaurants

In the warmer months Mom and Dad would bring Sam, Pete and me to Bridge-

man's for ice cream cones. We loved the soft serve stuff at Dairy Queen but we loved Bridgeman's too because they had many more flavors. My favorite was peppermint bon bon. Mom's was cherry nut and I think Dad got rocky road. We'd usually go to the Bridgeman's in Richfield which is a suburb just south of where we lived in Minneapolis. The building is located on 66th Street just west of Lyndale Avenue. I took the photo you see here with my iPhone using the Hipstamatic app that I recently purchased. This app ages the photo taken and makes it look like a snapshot taken with an old camera in the 1950s or 1960s. The counter where we got ice cream cones was just behind the set of windows you see in the photo. The rest of the store was a restuarant with counters and booths. I remember in 1981 I was in the chorus of the play The Music Man by Meredith Wilson at Washburn High School. After one of the performances Mom and Dad took us to Bridgeman's for sundaes and EVERYONE (well it seemed like everyone) in the play was there with their families too.

Lake of the Isles Part 2

Lake of the Isles has a very odd shape with and "arm" that juts out to the north.

Lake of the Isles

Lake of the Isles has two wooded islands. The two wooded islands are actually wildlife refuges and it is prohibited to go on either of them. Mike's Island is to the north and Raspberry Island is to the south. The lake is surrounded by stately homes.

Washburn Park Water Tower Part 3

The other day I drove around the perimeter of the Tangletown neighborhood and saw for myself how really difficult it is to see the tower from street level. The tower is on the National Register of Historic Places.

(The photo is from my own collection and was taken on August 18, 2009.)

Washburn Park Water Tower Part 2

More from Wikipedia: "[Harry Wild] Jones, a well-known Minneapolis architect who also designed Butler Square and Lakewood Cemetery Chapel (both of which are in Minne-apolis), was well ahead of his time in creating the structurally-sound Washburn Park Water Tower. Along with William S. Hewett, the two men not only implemented modern hydro-engineering methods to the tower's design, but also its very own unique character. The story goes that as Jones was clearing underbrush at his home nearby, which was also in its construction phase, a giant eagle (with nearly an 8-foot wingspan) had attacked him. He had the eagle maimed, captured, and brought to town where it began attracting much attention. In part, he used the eagle's extraordinary dimensions (and the artistic skills of John Karl Daniels) to cast eight concrete look-alikes, that now sit atop the tower to watch over their former domain. In addition, eight 18-foot-tall 'Guardians of Health' were placed around the tower (one under each eagle), to prevent any bad-tasting or bad-smelling water pollutants from contaminating the water supply, which were believed to be the cause of many typhoid fever outbreaks around that time."

(The above photo is from my own collection and was taken on August 18, 2009. You can see one of the eagles at the top of the tower watching over one of the Guardians of Health.)

Washburn Park Water Tower

The tower really can be hard to see for the reasons the following article from Wikipedia gives:

"The Washburn Park Water Tower is one of 3 stone water towers built in Minneapolis during the early 20th-Century. The others are Kenwood Park Water Tower, just west of downtown, and Prospect Park Water Tower, in southeast Minneapolis. The ... [t]ower poses as a landmark of early 20th-Century architectural achievement within the Tangletown neighborhood on south Minneapolis, Minnesota, and has been doing so for nearly 75 years. Perched on top of one of the highest points in south Minneapolis, the tower is given the privilege to boast its unique location and role as an unofficial 'beacon' for incoming planes landing at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, yet remains hidden from much of the residents and visitors that pass by the base of the hill each day. This is mainly because large homes and tall oak trees scatter the hillside where the tower resides, and even more so, because of the clustered mess of streets and dead ends that compromise the towers' occupancy. Hence the name, 'Tangletown'."

(The above photo is from my own collection and was taken August 24th, 2009.)

The Heat

Despite the cold winters Minn-

eapolis can get very hot and humid during the summer. On Tuesday of this past week we hit 103 degrees! This is the first time we've cracked 100 in five years and, according to local weather guru Paul Douglas, the hottest it's been in Minneapolis since August 1, 1988. While growing up I remember we had a couple of window unit air-conditioners that we only used for sleeping on extremely hot nights. To stay cool we'd run through the sprinkler in the yard or head down to Pearl Park to use the wading pool. We also spent time at the public beaches at Lake Harriet and Lake Nokomis.

(The above photo is from my own collection and was taken 8-24-09. This is the beach we went to at Lake Harriet.)

Judy, Judy, Judy

Found this in the Strib this morning and just had to include it. The text says:

"Accompanied by 32 'hand-picked' members of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, Judy Garland fought through a case of laryngitis on May 11, 1958, to help her home state celebrate its centennial. More than 20,000 gathered at the U's old Memorial Stadium on that steamy Sunday to hear Garland belt out such hits as 'The Trolley Song' and 'For Me and My Gal.' Midway through one song, she stopped and said: 'Can I start again? I missed the lyric. Isn't this terrible? I was trying to be so good.' Garland, born 89 years ago this week, finished the show with - what else? - 'Over the Rainbow.'"

BEN WELTER