Place:Edina, Hennepin, Minnesota, United States

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Edina is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States and a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis. Edina began as a small farming and milling community along Minnehaha Creek in the 1860s and became one of Minneapolis's first incorporated suburbs in 1888. In 2019, the population was estimated to be 52,857.

After years of being a streetcar suburb, Edina grew into a prototypical post-war suburb in the 1950s. The city was largely built to be car-centric and plays host to the nation's oldest indoor mall, the Southdale Center. The object of white flight from Minneapolis, Edina embraced sundown laws and racial covenants to keep the community white.

Major corporations, such as Dairy Queen, Great Clips, Edina Realty, and Caribou Coffee, have headquarters in Edina, and the city today is known for its shopping, parks, and high quality of life.

History

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Settlement

Edina began as part of Richfield Township, Minnesota. By the 1870s, 17 families, most of them immigrating as a result of the Great Famine of Ireland, had come to Minnesota and claimed land in the southwest section of what was then Richfield Township. They were followed by settlers from New England and Germany, who claimed additional land near Minnehaha Creek. The Baird and Grimes neighborhoods (which are both listed on the National Register of Historic Places) and the Country Club District (then known as Waterville Mills) in the northeast part of Edina were among the first areas to be established. The area then known as the Cahill Settlement, at West 70th Street and Cahill Road, was also an early community center and the home of Cahill School.

In 1888, the residents of the township held a meeting to consider founding a new village, thus separating themselves from Richfield Township. The idea was favorably accepted by those within the community and a committee was established to oversee the transition.

Naming

After the decision was made to form a new village, a debate ensued regarding the naming of the new village. Several town meetings were held in the Minnehaha Grange Hall, during which the names Hennepin Park, Westfield and Edina were suggested. Minutes taken by Henry F. Brown, a farmer and future owner (1889) of the Edina Mill, are summarized as follows:

At the next meeting, the name Edina was finally chosen with a vote of 47 for and 42 against.^[1]

There has been a prevailing myth about the decision to name the new village Edina, which states that two opposing communities—the Irish Cahill community and the Scottish Mill community—fought about whether to give the community an Irish name (Killarney Lakes) or a Scottish name (Edina). The 1860 census, however, indicates that there were no Scottish people in Edina in 1860, and only a couple were present at the time of Edina's founding (1888).^[2]

Morningside

The first suburban development in Edina occurred during the early 1900s in Morningside, a neighborhood in the northeastern part of the village. As Morningside grew, conflict arose between its residents who wanted more city services, and the residents of the rest of the village who wanted to maintain Edina's rural character. As a result of that conflict, Morningside seceded from Edina in 1920 and became a separate village. In 1966, however, the Village of Morningside once again became part of Edina.

Early settlement

Edina was not the first settlement in its location. According to historian Deborah Morse-Kahn, the Quaker village that existed where Edina would be built included African American families of Civil War veterans and freed slaves "became very involved in community life—especially as farmland owners, civic and cultural leaders." At the November 1898 general election, J. Frank Wheaton, a Republican African American, was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives representing District 42, which included all of Edina. Wheaton beat his white Democratic opponent in every Minneapolis city ward and in every village within the legislative district, including Edina, even though the legislative district had only approximately 100 African American residents out of a total of 40,000 residents.

Early development

In the early 20th century suburban development brought discriminatory policies that led to nearly all of the African Americans who had been living in Edina to move away.

Historian James W. Loewen described the suburb as a sundown town. Researchers point in particular to Samuel Thorpe's development of the Country Club Historic District, which used deed restrictions as means to exclude non-whites, stating explicitly that:

Other developments, like that built by N. P. Dodge Corporation just a mile away, followed suit in attempting to protect land values through racial policies. Though the Supreme Court ruled these kinds of discriminatory housing clauses unenforceable in its Shelley v. Kraemer decision of 1948, reports of discrimination persisted through the 1950s and 1960s.[3] According to the Edina Historical Society's story about the first black family in Morningside (then a separate village) in 1960, attempts to keep them out included tactics like trying "to get [their] lot condemned for drainage."[4] In response, then-mayor Ken Joyce wrote a note dismissing the drainage concern and challenging citizens "to live the Golden Rule". Shortly thereafter the village voted in favor of inclusion.[4]

Jewish residents were also affected by exclusionary deed covenants. In the 1960s, some residents boasted that Edina had "Not one Negro and not one Jew."

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