Alexander Ramsey House

Appointed by President Zachary Taylor in 1849, Alexander Ramsey came to Minnesota as the territory's first governor. He remained in Minnesota for his remaining fifty-four years and, during a successful political career as a Whig and then a Republican, served as mayor of St. Paul, state governor, United States Senator, and Secretary of War in the cabinet of Rutherford B. Hayes. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he was the first Union governor to offer troops to President Abraham Lincoln. His fifteen-room native limestone house, typical of the elegant late Victorian period, was designed in a French Renaissance style by St. Paul architect Monroe Sheire. It had been under construction for four years by 1872, when Alexander and Anna Ramsey moved in. For nearly a century, the house was a focus of Minnesota's political, cultural, and social life and was occupied by three generations of Ramseys, who preserved the structure and its furnishings. Behind the main house stands an ornate two-story wooden carriage house, reconstructed by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1970 from the original architectural plans preserved among Ramsey's papers. It once provided quarters for the groom, stalls for horses and a cow, and storage for carriages and harness equipment, and now serves as a Visitors' Center.

St. Paul, Minnesota · United States