In this article we shall be talking about various landmarks in the city of Bloomington, Minnesota, which is located within the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
It’s unfortunate really, Bloomington only has two landmarks that are known quite well, and in this article, we shall be describing them in as much detail as possible. The name of these two landmarks are Gideon H. Pond House and Cedar Avenue Bridge (Minnesota River), and without further ado, I shall begin describing to you this house/landmark as well as the bridge with much attention to detail.
The Gideon H. Pond House is a historic house in Bloomington, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the Pond-Dakota Mission Park, which also includes the Oak Grove Mission site (1843–1852), a cemetery, and the remains of the Pond family farm and orchards. The site is significant within the history of the Minnesota River valley, the Dakota tribe, and Bloomington. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Gideon Hollister Pond (1810–1878) and his brother Samuel came to Minnesota with a mission to teach Christianity to the Indians and to teach them agriculture. The Ponds received permission in 1834 from Major Lawrence Taliaferro, the Indian agent at Fort Snelling, to establish a mission school near Bde Maka Ska (also known in English as Lake Calhoun), where a band of Dakota spent their summers. Pond started work on writing a Dakota language dictionary. After a war broke out between the Dakota and the Ojibwa in 1839, the band of Dakota moved to a village near the Minnesota River, and Gideon Pond moved with them. He established a mission along the river bluffs. The area served as a mission between 1843 and 1852, when the Dakota were sent to a reservation further up the Minnesota River as a result of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. At that point, Pond bought this land and became a farmer. He also served as a member of Minnesota territorial House of Representatives 7th District, 1849–1850. Later, Pond started the Oak Grove Presbyterian Church, which was originally located on land which is now the Bloomington Cemetery. The church later moved its building to the corner of Penn Avenue and Old Shakopee Road.
The home, located at 401 East 104th Street in Bloomington, is constructed of red brick and features chimneys serving each room. The home was occupied by Gideon and his wife Sarah, and is now open to the public on a limited basis.
The original Old Cedar Avenue Bridge, also known as the Long Meadow Bridge, was built in 1890. The bridge that stands now was built in 1920 and carried automobile traffic into the 1990s. Back when the old structure was the main crossing, heavy traffic delays would occur because of the bridge’s small size and the need to operate the swing segment to let boat traffic pass.
The narrow span continued operation as a bicycle trail until 2002 when it was deemed too unsafe. In 2008, $2 million in state funding was approved to reopen the bridge to bicyclists and pedestrians. In 2013, the bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and the restored bridge opened to the public on October 14, 2016.