The Twin Cities, St Paul Great American Railroad Journeys


The Twin Cities, St Paul

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I have crossed the Atlantic to ride the railroads of North America

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with my reliable Appleton's Guide.

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Published in the late 19th century,

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Appleton's General Guide To North America will direct me to all that's

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novel, beautiful, memorable - and striking -

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in the United States.

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THEY SPEAK OWN LANGUAGE

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As I journey across this vast continent,

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I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West

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and how the railroads tied this nation together,

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helping to create the global superstate of today.

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I'm embarking on a new American rail journey that begins and finishes on

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the Mississippi River.

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It'll take me 1,000 miles from Minnesota's Twin Cities in the north

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to Memphis, Tennessee, in the south.

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-I enjoyed the ride, thank you so much.

-Thank you!

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Along the way, I'll step up to the plate with the Slammers...

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Oh!

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..wade into the cranberry harvest

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and become an easy rider on a Harley.

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I'll herd ducks in Memphis...

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-Don't let them get away!

-Oh. ..serve burgers in Chicago...

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2.58, your train's never late.

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..and watch bald eagles on the mighty Mississippi.

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Divine.

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At the time of my Appleton's Guide,

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that father of the water spurred a rapid Industrial Revolution that

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attracted migrants from back east and from Europe.

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But the paddle steamers were giving way to the locomotives as the

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railroads entered a golden age with their unrivalled hub at Chicago.

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I want to discover who were the winners and losers in that period of

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seismic change and how their struggles gave birth

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to the modern Midwest.

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My journey begins in Minnesota's Twin Cities

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and follows the Mississippi River

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south before crossing into Wisconsin at La Crosse.

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I'll head east towards the shore of Lake Michigan at Milwaukee,

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then turn south to the Windy City.

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I'll travel the length of Illinois, through Centralia, to rejoin the

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Mississippi and end in Memphis, Tennessee.

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Today, I'll explore Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

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I'm making my first visit to the so-called Twin Cities of Minneapolis

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and Saint Paul and, in my ignorance,

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I learnt from Appleton's that they both sit on the Mississippi River

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even though it still has 1,800 miles

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to meander down to the Gulf of Mexico.

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Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes

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and the Mississippi threads between them.

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Flowing south, the river passes through Minneapolis,

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which is the most populous city in Minnesota.

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And 14 miles downstream, it reaches the state capital, Saint Paul.

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I'm taking the Metro to Saint Paul,

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which Appleton's tells me is the capital of Minnesota.

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"A beautiful city, situated on both banks of the Mississippi.

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"It has the State Capitol, an opera house,

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"40 churches of various denominations,

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"four libraries, three free hospitals."

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-TANNOY BEEPS

-Union Depot station.

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Once the main station for the Twin Cities,

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Union Depot closed in 1971 when the newly formed national rail carrier

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Amtrak based its services in Minneapolis.

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But following a restoration project,

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Union Depot has opened its doors once more.

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There's been a Union Depot station since 1881

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but this one is less than a century old.

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Like many American railroad stations,

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it has a somewhat ghostly feel,

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but what ghosts!

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At one time, 280 trains a day left here from 21 tracks,

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and at the height of steam technology,

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monstrous locomotives screeched between here and Chicago

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in seven hours flat.

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The station is built on flat land by the river,

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where Saint Paul ranges over several hills

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and its cathedral stands on top of the highest.

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The city bears the name of Saint Paul,

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named after a log chapel first consecrated in 1851,

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but this is something completely different -

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this is early 20th century,

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modelled supposedly on French cathedrals,

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but with modern technology so that this enormous dome

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floats above us over a great, open space.

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'This cathedral, one of the finest in the United States,

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'provides an idea of Saint Paul's wealth and importance

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'before it was rivalled by Minneapolis.'

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Well, I must say,

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that is one of the most challenging church climbs I've done

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but I'm rewarded with a wonderful view over the city of Saint Paul

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and it strikes me straight away that this wonderful domed building

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is built on a hill high above another wonderful domed building,

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that is the State Capitol.

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You don't need to be a genius to work out the code -

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the church lords it above the state.

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The Roman Catholic cathedral was paid for by donations from the great

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and the good of Saint Paul, who located it on their doorstep.

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Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, is remarkable for the scale

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and quantity of its 19th-century mansions.

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The fragrant street trees and gardens

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cannot mask the smell of money,

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which, in the United States,

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was often borne on clouds of smoke and steam from the railroads.

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One of the most imposing residences belonged to James J Hill,

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the child of Irish immigrants, who became one of the mightiest railroad

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tycoons in America - the man they called the Empire Builder.

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Hello, Craig. I'm Michael.

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Welcome to the Hill House.

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Thank you very much indeed - what an amazing mansion it is.

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Craig Johnson is an expert on JJ Hill.

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Was there already railroad development in this area before Hill

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-stepped in?

-Yes, there certainly was.

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In fact, Hill purchased a bankrupt railway in 1878 with a number of

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other investors, so he had seen rail lines come and go and rise

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and fall in this area.

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I think one of his great geniuses was his expansive vision that

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he had and his great ambition to understand every minute detail

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of the operation of the railway.

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As Hill's empire grew so did his reputation for ruthlessness.

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He earned his moniker the Empire Builder through hard work and the

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highest standards.

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Talking of metaphors, Hill's house is built on a mount.

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Yes, it is. It's one of the many bluffs surrounding downtown

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Saint Paul and it was chosen specifically by Hill - that way,

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everyone who was in the downtown area could look up

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and see who was living on top of the hill.

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May we continue the tour?

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-Certainly.

-Thank you.

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'Hill renamed his company the Great Northern Railway

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'and embarked on what he regarded as the great adventure of his life -

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'a rail line that would reach across the continent and serve as the

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artery for American settlement in the West.

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The railway empire started here in St Paul and Minneapolis,

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then went across Minnesota, northward up to Canada...

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and then westward, across the United States

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and eventually connecting with Seattle,

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which opened up the possibility of trade with Asia across the Pacific

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-Ocean.

-Now, most railroads were financed with the aid of the federal

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government, who allowed a strip of land to be sold off for the benefit

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of the railway. Is that how Hill progressed?

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The first stretch did have land grants,

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but Hill was someone who liked control,

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so he didn't want to do that any longer -

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he wanted to purchase that land outright and then he could make full

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decisions on that whole area and that's exactly what he did.

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Hill's agents advertised in northern Europe for settler families to buy

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and develop land along his route.

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He offered farming opportunities in the Midwest,

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copper mining in the Rockies and logging in the Pacific states.

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There were many railway tycoons - what's special about Hill?

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Well, I think it's his ability to take a look not only at the area,

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to build something that would work for that particular region

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and then to get people to populate that area right alongside it.

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As he said at the end of his life,

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"I've made my mark on the surface of the earth

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"and they can't wipe it out."

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The streets of Saint Paul retain their genteel Victorian character,

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but in the early 20th century,

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the age of the Empire Builder gave way to something

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altogether more louche.

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One of the United States' most popular novelists gave a name

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to that era in the 1920s

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of prohibition, gangsters, flappers and tycoons -

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the Jazz Age.

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Some of his works are narrated by an outsider looking in to a coveted

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world and that feeling of being from the wrong side of the tracks

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may have begun when F Scott Fitzgerald

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was born here in Saint Paul.

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The son of an unsuccessful aristocrat

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and an Irish Catholic mother,

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Fitzgerald wrote about a generation of rich,

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disenchanted youth and its pursuit of an American dream.

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The decadence and disappointed ideals of the Roaring Twenties

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inhabit his novel The Great Gatsby.

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Hello, Joel.

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Hi, Michael. Welcome!

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'I'm meeting Dr Joel Pace, English professor and Jazz Age aficionado.'

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-Good to see you.

-Good to see you, too.

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And I'm very thrilled to be at the birthplace of F Scott Fitzgerald.

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Looks like an enormous house.

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Yes, and in fact Fitzgerald was in only one sixth of this house.

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His family was in dire straits. His father's wicker furniture

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business was soon to go out of business, forcing them to move.

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What sort of a neighbourhood is this, that he was born in to?

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This neighbourhood is really occupying the space in between

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the beauty and the grand mansions of Summit Avenue and also Rondo,

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the historical African-American neighbourhoods.

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Fitzgerald is poised right between Summit and Selby Avenue.

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And what do you think was the effect on him of being in such a position,

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-geographically?

-A lot of his friends were of the set who had their own

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family mansions on Summit Avenue

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but Fitzgerald was never quite accepted as one of them.

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He maintained the smouldering contempt of the peasant for the rich

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throughout his life.

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And what was the influence of the African-American

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-neighbourhood?

-The influence of jazz.

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The jazz that characterised the age flourished in the Rondo,

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a few blocks from the favourite haunt of Saint Paul's social elite.

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What kind of a place then was the Commodore Hotel?

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The Commodore Hotel, when it opened in 1920, was the talk of the town.

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Underneath the Commodore was a speakeasy. With the right knock on

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the door, you would be ushered into the basement

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where there was live jazz,

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bathtub gin and, perhaps, if you were just lucky enough,

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a little bit of moonshine.

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Now, speakeasies, they were the sort of places that attracted gangsters -

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-were there gangsters here?

-Absolutely right.

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The gangsters were on the second floor.

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Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived in the luxurious Commodore.

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The ill-gotten gains of the gangsters who feature

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in Fitzgerald's novel

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almost certainly funded the glamorous lifestyle

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of the stylish hero Jay Gatsby.

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-Hello, ladies - may we join you?

-Hi, guys.

-My name's Michael.

-Hello.

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Great band.

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The bar of the Commodore has been

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renovated and is once again the place to be and to be seen

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in Saint Paul. APPLAUSE

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Well, ladies - what a pleasure. Cheers.

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-Cheers!

-The pleasure is ours.

-Cheers.

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May I compliment you on your dress? That is wonderful.

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-Tell me about that.

-Thank you.

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This was my grandmother's dress.

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Do you think she was what we would call a flapper?

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Was she one of these, you know, It-girls in the 1920s?

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I would have guessed so, yes.

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She was definitely someone who liked a good time!

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She liked to have fun.

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-Hello, guys.

-Hi.

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Do you mind if I pop between you for a moment with my martini?

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-Not at all.

-Tell me, are you...

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You're very young, but are you Fitzgerald fans?

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-Big-time Fitzgerald fans.

-No!

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-Yeah.

-What's that? What is that?

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-A tattoo.

-What is it?

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The state of Minnesota with The Great Gatsby cover inside of it.

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-That is a pretty extreme way to show your appreciation...

-Yeah.

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..of Scott Fitzgerald.

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-Hello, sir.

-Hi, how are you?

-May I join you a second?

-Please, yes.

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Can I ask you, are you a Gatsby fan?

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Or a Fitzgerald fan?

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Well, yeah...I don't know if fan's the word.

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We live in the neighbourhood and so he's a local boy, right?

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I mean, he...he's one of us.

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Do you think Fitzgerald gets the American relationship

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-with money?

-I absolutely do.

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The thing about Fitzgerald is that he understands that we'll never...

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We're so puritan, we'll never

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quite be comfortable with the extent to which we are motivated by money.

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I feel like in a lot of ways he's the quintessential American writer,

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we will never be quite comfortable in our skin.

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Alcohol and depression took their toll on Fitzgerald

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and in 1940, at the age of 44, he died in Hollywood of a heart attack.

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He believed himself a failure, yet today,

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his work features on school reading lists the world over.

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I think it's time for a little bit of ragtime.

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-What are you going to do?

-I think I'm going to go play with the band.

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-Wow!

-May as well.

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The Jazz Age came to an abrupt end

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with the great depression of the 1930s.

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But here in the Commodore,

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something of the spirit of Scott Fitzgerald lives on.

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Wow, that was great!

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Another day, another cultural experience.

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-Hello.

-Hello.

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-What's your name?

-Mary, what's yours?

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Michael is mine. So, Mary - I'm an adventurous kind of guy...

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-OK.

-..and there's something here I've never heard of.

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It's a root-beer float.

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Oh, it sounds good to me.

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-You want it?

-Yeah, all right.

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-OK, we'll get it.

-All right.

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I've no idea what I've ordered.

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-Oh!

-Here you go, Michael.

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Thank you. What have I let myself in for?

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Don't get it on that pretty white shirt!

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In my experience, dining in the United States requires you to summon

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up all your culinary courage - let's see what this is.

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Mmm. This is a root beer. Broadly speaking,

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it tastes like thinned-out cough mixture

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and then it's got some vanilla ice cream with it and the two

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just kind of blend together.

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-Do you ever drink this stuff?

-Not really, no.

-No.

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I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised!

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I think you've made a good life choice!

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I'm leaving Saint Paul, taking the Metro to Minneapolis.

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-TANNOY:

-..from Blue-Line train to downtown Minneapolis is arriving

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on track number one.

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This modern metropolis takes its name

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from the Dakota Sioux word minne,

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meaning water, of which there's a great abundance in lakes,

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lagoons and the mighty Mississippi.

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Minnesota experiences an extreme continental climate, which has led

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the cities' inhabitants to devise an ingenious solution.

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The weather in Minneapolis can be inclement.

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In summer, it can be 40 degrees.

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In winter, -18 is not unusual, but never fear,

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they have invented this system of glass bridges,

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heated and air-conditioned.

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Known as the Skyway, the network extends seven miles around the city,

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so you can go from your office to a restaurant to the shops without ever

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experiencing either heat or cold.

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While Saint Paul developed as a trading and commercial hub,

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Minneapolis grew as an industrial centre,

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due directly to its location.

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Appleton's tells me that, "A large part of the city's business

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"prosperity is owing to the Falls of Saint Anthony.

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"which afford abundant water power for manufacturing.

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"The best view is from the centre of the suspension bridge which spans

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"the river." Actually,

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this one used to carry the railroad and I can see here the immense power

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of the river hemmed in by civil engineering and it's given rise to

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this highly attractive cityscape of semi-derelict factories and mills.

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A young entrepreneur named Franklin Steele dammed the east side of the

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river and built the first sawmill in 1848.

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For the second half of the 19th century,

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Sawdust Town led the world in sawmilling,

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and from 1880 until 1930,

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Minneapolis, the Mill City, also led the nation in flour production.

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John Anfinson is a National Park Service superintendent.

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-Hello, John.

-Hi, Michael. Great to meet you.

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The falls really are in full spate.

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They are spectacular, they've been spectacular all year.

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What does it mean to Minneapolis to have had the Saint Anthony Falls?

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There wouldn't be a Minneapolis without this falls.

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It allowed the industry to build here that

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you couldn't do anywhere else.

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And what was that first industry?

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The first industry was lumber.

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It was this ancient crop,

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just waiting to be harvested by the millers.

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They didn't need to go grow it,

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they didn't need people to come and plant it,

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it was there already for the taking.

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Flour milling gradually supplanted the sawmills,

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but such intensive use coupled with poor engineering

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caused the falls severe damage.

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What was this magnificent river like before Europeans came here?

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It's hard to imagine, looking at it today, what it was really like.

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It was a series of jagged edges of limestone.

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If you look over here, you can see some limestone slabs that have

0:21:220:21:24

fallen off on that island,

0:21:240:21:26

and the falls retreated up the Mississippi because

0:21:260:21:28

this limestone cap kept dropping off,

0:21:280:21:31

as the sandstone under it was undermined by the falls itself.

0:21:310:21:34

How bad did the damage to the river become?

0:21:340:21:37

It became so bad that the falls almost went away.

0:21:380:21:43

They almost eroded away completely in 1869.

0:21:430:21:45

A huge hole formed underneath the limestone riverbed

0:21:450:21:49

and collapsed into the river.

0:21:490:21:51

So Minneapolis has depended on Saint Anthony's Falls

0:21:510:21:54

and it's had to be saved?

0:21:540:21:55

It did, and so the Corps of Engineers looked at the falls,

0:21:550:21:59

they found out where the edge ended,

0:21:590:22:01

and so they said the only way to save it

0:22:010:22:03

is to build a wall under the river, about 36-feet high,

0:22:030:22:06

four-feet wide, the entire width of the river.

0:22:060:22:09

A dam under the Mississippi was what was needed.

0:22:090:22:11

And does that survive to this day?

0:22:110:22:13

It does. It holds back the last tick of the geologic clock

0:22:130:22:16

for Saint Anthony Falls.

0:22:160:22:18

In the heyday of flour milling,

0:22:200:22:22

20 mills stood along a covered canal

0:22:220:22:25

through which flowed water drawn from the river above the falls.

0:22:250:22:30

Enough flour was ground in one mill

0:22:300:22:32

to bake 12 million loaves of bread a day.

0:22:320:22:36

Industrial success came at a price, however.

0:22:370:22:41

The number of accidents grew rapidly

0:22:410:22:43

and that provided Minneapolis with another title -

0:22:430:22:47

the artificial limb capital of the world.

0:22:470:22:50

I've come to a suburb of the city to visit

0:22:500:22:53

a family-owned prosthetics company to hear how that began.

0:22:530:22:58

-Hello.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome to Winkley.

0:22:590:23:01

'Greg S Gruman is president of the company

0:23:010:23:05

'founded by AA Winkley in 1888.'

0:23:050:23:09

Who was Mr Winkley?

0:23:090:23:11

Mr Winkley was a farmer from about 50 miles south of the Twin Cities

0:23:110:23:17

and was injured in an accident on his farm,

0:23:170:23:22

we believe by getting kicked by a horse,

0:23:220:23:24

broke a bone in his leg that never healed

0:23:240:23:27

and suffered an amputation as a result of that.

0:23:270:23:29

He received a prosthesis from a company where the representative

0:23:290:23:32

would travel up from Chicago, and he was never happy with that.

0:23:320:23:36

And there were no full-time prosthetists here in Minneapolis,

0:23:360:23:39

so he ended up tinkering and modifying

0:23:390:23:43

the prosthesis that he got,

0:23:430:23:45

made it more comfortable for himself

0:23:450:23:46

and basically got the idea,

0:23:460:23:48

"If it works for me, it'll work for other amputees as well."

0:23:480:23:51

In the mills and rail yards of Minneapolis,

0:23:510:23:54

due to poor working conditions and the rapid introduction of new machinery,

0:23:540:23:59

it wasn't uncommon for workers to lose limbs in industrial accidents.

0:23:590:24:04

We have some shots of amputees

0:24:040:24:08

in an old catalogue.

0:24:080:24:12

This photo shows a railroad conductor doing his job

0:24:120:24:15

with his pants leg rolled up, showing his prosthesis.

0:24:150:24:19

A foreman on a line crew, he was an engineer,

0:24:190:24:22

and they're all posing on-the-job,

0:24:220:24:26

and every one of them has a comment underneath.

0:24:260:24:30

He says, "I am now able to make my regular run just the same as before I lost my leg".

0:24:300:24:35

The priority for this man and for all these in the book

0:24:350:24:39

was keeping his job, performing his job,

0:24:390:24:41

being able to support himself and his family.

0:24:410:24:44

It's a remarkable publication.

0:24:440:24:46

And maybe just as remarkable, this thing here.

0:24:460:24:48

What kind of vintage is that?

0:24:480:24:50

This particular one is from the 1930s,

0:24:500:24:53

but it was the same as the original patent that Mr Winkley patented.

0:24:530:24:59

This one is for an amputation below the knee.

0:24:590:25:02

This was loaded with a spring mechanism

0:25:020:25:04

through these elastics so that the inner socket

0:25:040:25:07

would function independently and go up and down and absorb the shock

0:25:070:25:12

of you hitting the floor or the ground,

0:25:120:25:14

especially walking over furrowed fields

0:25:140:25:17

or an unpaved factory floor or a rail yard

0:25:170:25:22

where you're stepping on gravel.

0:25:220:25:24

But the technology, even though we view it as an antique,

0:25:240:25:27

was revolutionary for its time.

0:25:270:25:30

-Hello, Mike.

-Hello.

-Michael.

0:25:340:25:36

'Mike Hodges lost his leg in an electrical accident.

0:25:370:25:41

'He decided to retrain as an engineer specialising in prostheses.'

0:25:410:25:46

What are these items that you have here?

0:25:470:25:49

These look pretty advanced to me.

0:25:490:25:51

These are some of the microprocessor hands.

0:25:510:25:53

Go ahead and stick your hand in there and you can feel the contacts in there.

0:25:530:25:57

-And really just the very lightest touch on that contact.

-Right.

0:25:570:26:01

Quite a minor impulse for the...

0:26:010:26:03

Right, so the movement in your arm from where your fingers move

0:26:030:26:06

is what is making the contact there.

0:26:060:26:09

That is brilliant. And is this leg similar to the one that you wear?

0:26:090:26:12

Mine has a few more bells and whistles.

0:26:120:26:15

The prosthetic I wear now has four microprocessors,

0:26:150:26:18

an accelerometer and a gyroscope,

0:26:180:26:20

so it's adjusting 100 times a second to if I want to

0:26:200:26:22

walk fast, walk slow, go uphill, go downhill -

0:26:220:26:25

it's constantly making adjustments,

0:26:250:26:27

almost before I can actually make the move.

0:26:270:26:31

And living in Minnesota, the big part of it is it's 100% waterproof.

0:26:310:26:35

So with a little over 10,000 lakes, you're around water quite a bit,

0:26:350:26:38

so it's nice to have that.

0:26:380:26:40

25 years ago, you'd have to take your leg off to be able to go in a lake or do something.

0:26:400:26:43

You are an inventive guy who, having lost your leg,

0:26:430:26:47

has come into the prosthetics business.

0:26:470:26:49

Your story is awfully like Mr Winkley's.

0:26:490:26:51

You know, I guess it is, when you think about it.

0:26:530:26:54

I knew I was going to have to have a prosthetic.

0:26:540:26:56

I wasn't going to go in a wheelchair or crutches,

0:26:560:26:59

I wanted to get up, get moving,

0:26:590:27:02

and I was one of those guys who, even in physical therapy, I was,

0:27:020:27:06

"Just give me my stuff, I'll figure it out",

0:27:060:27:08

which isn't always the best thing to do, but we do it anyway.

0:27:080:27:11

JJ Hill in railroads,

0:27:180:27:20

and other tycoons in sawing and milling,

0:27:200:27:23

created thousands of jobs for Americans and immigrants

0:27:230:27:27

moving to the Midwest and the upper Mississippi.

0:27:270:27:31

Some of those employees lost limbs to the massive machinery

0:27:310:27:34

of America's late Industrial Revolution.

0:27:340:27:37

F Scott Fitzgerald summarised the ambivalence of the nation

0:27:370:27:42

towards great wealth.

0:27:420:27:44

Americans were hypnotised by its glamour and its power to create

0:27:440:27:49

great cities like Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

0:27:490:27:53

But they were repelled by its excesses.

0:27:530:27:56

'Next time, I'll use my diplomatic skills

0:27:580:28:01

'at a Swedish-American lunch...'

0:28:010:28:03

What a very interesting texture!

0:28:030:28:05

'..feel the rhythm of a great American epic poem...'

0:28:050:28:09

So you get what sounds to us like a tom-tom beat -

0:28:090:28:11

boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom...

0:28:110:28:13

By the shores of Gitche Gumee...

0:28:130:28:15

'..and experience life as a turn-of-the-century tycoon.'

0:28:150:28:18

Oh, beautiful.

0:28:180:28:20

Let's bounce on the bed.

0:28:200:28:21

MICHAEL LAUGHS

0:28:210:28:23

Ah! These people knew how to live.

0:28:230:28:25

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