Exciting New Feature on the Lake Links Trail

“If you build it they will come” is something often applied to infrastructure developments like light rail and trails (and baseball parks in cornfields). Mahtomedi residents Dorian and Davis Grilley have added a neat feature to the Lake Links trail at 214 Park Avenue in Mahtomedi for all ages to enjoy. They have created a  Little Free Library modeled after and painted in the colors of the 1897 Northern Pacific Railroad Mahtomedi depot that used to stand across Quail Street from Streetcar Park.

 The depot at Quail Street and Briarwood Avenue was the busy center of town for Mahtomedi when it was established in the 1870s. It was located on the Northern Pacific Railroad from White Bear to Stillwater.

A 1920 Northern Pacific timetable showed that there were four trains a day in each direction. The trains went round the north side of White Bear Lake, where they stopped at an identical depot at White Bear Beach, through Dellwood, along Briarwood Avenue in Mahtomedi, to Duluth Junction, where it crossed the rail corridor that is now the Gateway State Trail, and on to Stillwater via the current Browns Creek State Trail alignment.

There was also a flourishing general store there, and the streetcar line from Saint Paul to Mahtomedi had a terminus near there with a turnaround wye. Trains and streetcars were the primary mode of travel for residents, visitors, and freight in an age when roads were only tracks used by horses and wagons, and rail transport was cheap, faster, and convenient. The depot was used until the 1930s, and the rail line closed for good in early 1980s. The remains of the depot were destroyed by vandals in the 1960s or ’70s, and much of the rail corridor has reverted to private ownership.

This little library has some unique features, including treats for our pawed friends, solar-powered lighting with battery backup, period signs, and a train schedule dated May 1919.

Train schedule May 1919

This Little Free Library is located at 214 Park Avenue Mahtomedi. You are welcome to stop by and take a look, drop off a book to share, and pick up a book. But don’t expect any trains per the published schedule inside, since the last one left about 100 years ago!

There are at least seven little free libraries along the Lake Links trail (five in Birchwood, one in White Bear, and two in Mahtomedi). Lots of folks who support reading! See this map here:

https://littlefreelibrary.org/map/. A Little Free Library will be coming this fall to Streetcar Park.