In 1890, the town decided that a new opera house was needed and Thomas H. Bjoin stepped up to make it happen. Bjoin was a former alderman who worked in the livery and machinery business. He decided to erect a building the size of a full block on South Main Street.

The hotel itself is a brick structure, three stories and a basement, with all the modern improvements.  It has been built by Crookston business men and every dollar of stock was taken in the city.  The plans were drawn by Orff & Jarolamen, of Minneapolis, and they include the proposition that every one of the sixty sleeping rooms shall be an outside room.  They are all en suite and each provided with bath.  The office is directly behind the entrance and is a model of convenience and elegance.

The Ryan Hotel in St. Paul in was the finest luxury hotel Minnesota had to offer in the late 19th century. Designed by architect James J. Egan, construction of the hotel was funded by a millionaire gold and silver miner named Dennis Ryan. Rising from the Northeast corner of 6th and Robert, this Gothic creation of red St. Louis brick and white sandstone became a St. Paul land mark for 75 years. Terra cotta ornament, granite columns, arched windows, and bracketed balconies decorated the front facade for 150 feet on Robert Street and 225 feet on 6th.

Peoples Church was founded in St. Paul in 1888 by a group of Methodist men and women who wanted to keep their minister, Rev. Dr. Samuel G. Smith, when the Methodist hierarchy wanted him to move to a different church in another city. Defying the strictures of ecclesiastical polity, Smith and the church broke away and became an independent congregation led by a thoughtful and inspiring leader. Under Smith, Peoples Church thrived and grew while espousing a doctrine of primitive simplicity, great truths, and working to ameliorate the problems of the city.

Opened in 1884, the West Hotel was Minneapolis's first grand hotel. It had 407 luxuriously furnished rooms, 140 baths, and featured an immense and opulent lobby which was claimed to be the largest in the nation. These elements combined to make what was considered for a time to be the most luxurious hotel west of Chicago. The West was designed by LeRoy Buffington and built on land that was once owned by the first resident of Minneapolis, John H. Stevens. Buffington created the West in the Queen Anne style that was quite popular in the last decades of the 19th century.

The hospital was built in 1823 and was opened to patients in 1824, under the direction of Eli Todd. At that time, the Institute of Living (IOL) was among only four facilities of its kind in the nation. It was capable of accommodating 40 to 60 patients who were segregated by "sex, nature of disease, habits of life and the wishes of their friends." The hospital's 35 acres (14 ha) campus was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1860s.

Now demolished, the old Horticultural Hall served as an event space for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. In 1864, the Horticultural Society moved to this new Hall on Tremont Street, which had an exterior of decorated columns and Greco-Roman statues.1 Horticultural Hall became a space for the community, as described in King’s Handbook of Boston: