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Eagan 150th Celebration: From farmland to the future
Posted on June 16. 2010 by admin
In 150 years, Eagan has grown from slow-paced farming
community to 8th largest city in Minnesota
by Erin Johnson
Thisweek Newspapers
While many people associate the suburbs with strip malls and new development, it's a misconception that
communities such as Eagan are devoid of history.
In fact, Eagan has a rich history that spans back to the Native American tribes who built villages along the
Minnesota River, followed by its earliest settlers from France, Germany and Ireland.
This year the city is honoring that history by celebrating its 15oth anniversary as a township. (For events and more
information, see the Special Section included in this week's paper.)
"Eagan, like every other town or city, has very old roots," said Deborah Morse -Kahn, Upper Midwest regional
studies specialist with Regional Research Associates. "Just because the boomers discovered Eagan and built it up
doesn't mean the old community went away. But because Eagan is so developed, you have to know where to look."
Resident Don Chapdelaine, whose family settled here in 1853, remembers his grandfather telling stories of Sioux
tribes camping on his Eagan farmland. when he was 5 years old, he watched his father earn $8 a day — which he
shared with a crew — to help build Highway 55 using horses for labor.
"There is an awful lot of history here," said Chapdelaine, who used to ride his own horse down the dirt road that is
now Yankee Doodle. "Life was very challenging, but it was at a very slow pace. You worked long hours just to
subsist and do the things you had to do."
When Eagan was declared a township in 1860, it had a population of 567, and an oak tree was used as the official
bulletin board of the community.
Predominantly a farming community, Eagan was then known as the Onion Capital of the United States.
"My grandma used to talk about the `onion trains' that would stop and pick up onions because Eagan was well
known for its onion production," said Fire Chief Mike Scott, whose family has been in Eagan since the 1800s.
Scott's great-grandfather owned two farms, and his great-uncle owned Scott's General Store, built in igoo and
located near the modern-day railroad tracks off of Highway 13 and Cedar Avenue.
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"The general store was a gathering place where they had dances and that kind of thing," he said.
Scott, who was named the city's first full-time fire chief in 2oo6, is himself a little bit of Eagan history, as is his
sister Lynda Myhre, who was Eagan's first female firefighter.
Scott said the city was still primarily made up of farmland even when he was growing up in the 'los, and his first
job was working on a farm that used to be where Thomson Reuters now stands.
"Even in the 'hos and 'los it was totally different," he said. "In the winter we would go snowmobiling all around
Eagan. It just changed so quickly in the '8os."
So how did Eagan go from a sleepy farming community to the eighth largest city in the state?
Eagan's boom years began in the 198os and spilled into the 199os, spurred by the construction of three area
highways: I -35E, 149, and 77.
"That opened the gate," Chapdelaine said. "It was just a rapid acceleration of converting farmland to homes and
retail."
City Administrator Tom Hedges arrived shortly before the boom in 1976 and is widely credited with successfully
helping usher Eagan into the modern age.
Hiring Hedges was arguably the best decision ever made by any Eagan elected official, said Mayor Mike Maguire.
"Unless you see it first hand, like I have as mayor, it's hard to fathom just how much Tom Hedges and his staff
have shaped the city of Eagan," he said. "For more than 30 years he and his senior management team have set a
high bar of professionalism and built a culture of success that is, I think, unmatched in any city anywhere."
A city administrator in St. Peter when he first heard about an opening in Eagan, Hedges said, "I didn't even know
where Eagan was."
A lot of people at the time didn't, he said. Still largely undeveloped, it was mostly considered a pass-through
community for those headed down south.
Driving on the yet -unnamed Diffley Road toward Pilot Knob, he said, "My first impression was I thought I was
heading back out to the country. My wife and I thought, wow, this is really rural. We wondered where downtown
was."
While it was still a community of mostly farmland and open space, Hedges said he knew its proximity to St. Paul,
Minneapolis and the airport would make it a desirable spot for future development.
"I learned that Eagan was really planned for growth, that the whole city was in the Metropolitan Council's urban
growth area," he said. "I knew at some point Eagan was really going to take off."
The city at the time had only about 35 employees, and no department heads.
Hedges said he knew early on that establishing the city's organizational infrastructure would be crucial to meeting
its future growth demands.
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He started by hiring Public Works Director Tom Colbert, Director of Finance Gene VanOverbeke, and Parks and
Recreation Director Ken Vraa.
The four men worked together to create a road map for the future of Eagan.
They spent much of the late 1970s writing city policy, job descriptions, and working on master plans for parks,
roads, schools and utilities.
"Getting that organizational piece in place for the development rush that was going to happen in Eagan was so
important," Hedges said. "If we hadn't done that, the growth would have come anyway, and we always would have
been behind the curve."
As soon as the three highways were built in the early 198os, Eagan's development boom began, he said.
"I remember we had ii,000 lots approved in one council meeting," he said. "The developers were just licking their
chops to get going. At that point we were leading the Twin Cities in residential construction."
Smart moves — like setting aside land for the municipal campus and zoning the northern part of the city
commercial/industrial — have helped keep the city ahead of the curve, he said.
"The people need to come first, then shopping and retail next, along with good commercial development," he said.
"We've enjoyed very healthy and diverse commercial/industrial growth in our city."
What was once farmland as far as the eye could see quickly became built up, and Eagan soon started experiencing
growing pains as existing infrastructure stretched to meet new demand.
The '9os brought new fire stations and an expansion and remodeling of the current City Hall and police
department. That was followed quickly by a push from the community for ice rinks and swimming pools which
resulted in the Civic Arena and Cascade Bay, Hedges said.
Chapdelaine said he knew Eagan wouldn't remain a farming community forever, and while he wasn't resistant to
growth, he wanted to make sure it was done well. He believes it was, and agrees that much of the credit belongs to
Hedges.
"He is a gifted person to be able to steer the various city councils through that maze," he said. "If any one person
can be credited with contributing to what we have, it's Tom Hedges."
Of the city's original four administrators, Vraa is the only one who has since left the city — he retired in 2004. The
inevitable changing of the guard will present a challenge in the city's near future, Hedges said.
"There's a lot of institutional knowledge that's in a number of people here because we have grown up with the
organization," he said. "And that needs to be handed off to a new generation of leadership."
Regardless of who is chosen to replace Eagan's version of the founding fathers, the city is widely considered a
suburban success story in terms of planning, Morse -Kahn said.
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Eagan 150th Celebration: From farmland to the future I News Archive
From its beginnings as a Native American settlement area to today's modern c
she said.
"It's got such a great community feeling," she said. "It has so many amenities,
thoughtful, and the result is fantastic."
Erin Johnson is at eagan.thisweek@ecm-inc.com.
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