Finntown -- Minneapolis -- Minnesota

Finnish Monument in Wirth Park - near Wirth Lake

Looking at the Finnish monument towards the west. Wirth Lake is in the background. - - - - - - - - - This monument is located in Wirth Park a couple hundred yards north of Glenwood Avenue near the fishing pier on the east side of Wirth Lake.

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photo by Dave Stack, june 2016

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Following text credit :: City Pages, August 16, 2007, 'All Shook Down', by Mike Mosedale ::
http://www.citypages.com/news/all-shook-down-6689743 ::
- - - - - - ""Joy Harris-Jones has lived in north Minneapolis her whole life, mostly on the 500 block of Newton Avenue. At 65, she's seen a lot change over that period. These days, her neighborhood--which extends from Penn to Lyndale avenues and Olson Memorial Highway to Cedar Lake Road--is known as Harrison. When she was a kid, everyone called it "Finn-town" in reference to the Finnish immigrants who'd settled here. "I might be the last full-blooded Finn left and I ain't leaving," Harris-Jones cracks in reference to the shifting demographics of her neighborhood.
- - - One thing has remained constant in Harrison: It still draws a lot of working-class immigrants looking for a toehold in a strange land, with most of the recent influx coming from the Hmong and Somali populations. Harris-Jones bought her current home in 1972, a modest one-and-a-half-story stucco built in 1927. Harris-Jones, who gets by on Social Security and a small pension, says she maintains it as best she can. It's her house, after all. "I'm going to live in this house and I'm going to die in this house and I'm going to be buried in the house," she says with a laugh. "And then I'm going to haunt the next person to live here." ""

FinntownFinn TownMinneapolisMinneapolis History