The region of St. Paul was first inhabited by Hopewell Native Americans, about 2000 years ago. At Indian Mounds Park, some ancient burial mounds are visible, where the inhabitants buried ashes of the deceased together with artifacts. Around the 1600s, the Dakota and Sioux tribes buried their dead in the mounds that were built by the Hopewell Native Americans after escaping from the Ojibwe tribe. In this spot, there is a large cave at the base of the bluff, Wakan Tepee, which was the sacred lodge of the Dakota. This cave was named after the British explorer, Jonathan Carver, as Carver’s Cave. Here, people can still see hieroglyphics of rattlesnakes and bears, which were cut into its walls. In 1841, the French priest Lucien Galtier renamed the settlement St. Paul after his favorite saint, Paul the Apostle. A few years later, Minnesota was named a territory and St. Paul was designated its capital, which spurred the town's growth. St. Paul officially became a city in 1854, a few years after it was named capital of the Minnesota Territory. As the head of transportation on the Mississippi River, it was a key commercial hub where fur trade met the commercial centers of the east. St. Paul’s first electric streetcars began their runs in 1890, a few years after the city began fielding a professional baseball team. By the beginning of the 20th century, St. Paul had become a leader in social services that would see the population through World War I, Prohibition, the Depression, World War II, and all of the changes in civil, cultural, and social life that would mark the decades of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

With numerous, beautiful city squares and parks as well as Eastern architecture, you’ll hear people refer to St. Paul as the last city of the East, despite its location in the Midwest.
Despite its cold winters, St. Paul is a very walking-friendly city, also known for its skyways, which were invented in Minneapolis, and are enclosed pedestrian walkways that connect practically all of downtown St. Paul, sheltering workers and visitors from inclement weather.One thing that draws people to the area is its big-city attractions with a small-town feel. With the Mall of America being a short drive away from just about everything, St. Paul is known as a shopping mecca. In addition to this, St. Paul is a little under a six-hour drive to its nearest major neighboring city, Chicago. Flights from nearby Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport can take you to all major destinations, many of them direct.

The center of a large, ethnically diverse population, Summit Avenue features one of the longest stretches of virtually uninterrupted Victorian architecture in the country. St. Paul's other historic, cultural, and educational points of interest include: Minnesota Transportation Museum, which preserves local railroad, bus and streetcar history; Minnesota Museum of Modern Art, which holds more than 5,000 artworks that showcase American artists from the 19th century, onward; Historic Fort Snelling, overlooking the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers; Minnesota History Center, serving as the headquarters of the Minnesota Historical Society; Alexander Ramsey House, where the first governor of Minnesota Territory lived; and the nearby Minnesota Zoo. Home to penguins, a lush tropical forest and aviary, marine center, boreal forest, tundra and a family farm, the zoo has more than 4,300 animals.