Written by Phil Wala
This is the 52nd and last installment (for now) of “This Week in Hennepin History,” which began a year ago with our look at the week of Nov 10-16. Having covered the calendar year, we’ll be archiving these posts to make them more easily accessible online. Watch for more details on that soon. And don’t worry, we’re not going away forever. We’ll have more to share from the archives in the coming year, so stay tuned!
Now, on to the (extended) week of October 29 – November 9.
1876 (October 30)
Having just celebrated our 150th anniversary, it’s natural that this week in history would look back on a number of other church anniversaries. Here, The Minneapolis Tribune assessed the condition of the church on its very first anniversary.
1905 (October 29)
Hennepin Church celebrated its thirtieth anniversary on Sunday, October 29, 1905, with morning and evening services.
The next day’s Minneapolis Journal described the day’s events.
To read a transcript of the reminiscences shared by Levi Longfellow on that day in 1905, click the picture of Longfellow below. (photo credit Hennepin County Library)
1914 (October 30)
After the Hennepin Avenue and Fowler churches merged in 1911, Harry Pence purchased Hennepin’s old building (the “red brick church”) with thoughts of expanding his automobile dealership there. After about five years of operating the building as an auditorium, Pence finally had the old Hennepin Church torn down in 1917. (Minneapolis Journal)
1925 (November 1)
Hennepin Church celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, and the Sunday Tribune gives the occasion front page coverage.
The church commemoration included the distribution of a 32-page Golden Jubilee booklet containing a program for that week’s celebration events, a history of the church, and the first misattribution of Pastor Simeon Hutsinpiller’s first name. To see the full booklet, click the image below.
1925 (November 5)
Following Sunday’s 50th Anniversary services, the church continued its Golden Jubilee celebration with a Thursday evening dinner. During the Thursday event, young Charles Bintliff presented the church with a mite box carved from the wood of a tree that grew in front of Charles Wesley’s church. The photo shows Pastor Lucius Bugbee in his office receiving the gift. This mite box is still on display at the church in the archives display cabinet in Carlson Hall.
Click on the photo (credit MN Historical Society) to read an article about the event that appeared in the next day’s Minneapolis Tribune. (And note the adjacent article about a recent archeological find.)
1941 (November 5)
Bette Davis, regarded as one of the greatest actresses in Hollywood history, is married to Arthur Farnsworth, a consulting engineer working for Minneapolis-Honeywell. When he developed pneumonia, Davis boarded an airplane for the first time ever so she could be with him at Abbott Hospital. Now that Farnsworth is getting better, Davis obliges the Minneapolis press with an interview. But she steps away from the interview for a few minutes to make an impromptu phone call.
