Dear Friends, Lots of interesting conversation about 222 Eagle St., so I thought I would add some first hand information. Eagle Street, one of our city's oldest, was platted in 1849, and opened for traffic during the first year of Minnesota's territorial period. The street is just a few short blocks, running south from West Seventh St. (at Seven Corners) to the Mississippi River. A few years ago, the city rerouted Eagle street to intersect Chestnut St., near Ryan St., and renamed the street Eagle Parkway, mainly because it connects with the new park land along the Mississippi River front. The corner where No. 222 Eagle St. once stood no longer exists after the recent rerouting. No. 222 Eagle St. was a very interesting building, with a long and somewhat tainted reputation. The one-story brick structure (for many years painted white) stood at the northeast corner of Eagle and Washington St. The building was built in the 1870s as a saloon. It's strategically planned location couldn't have been more intentional - - for it was located in the heart of St. Paul's red-light district, known as "Below the Hill". Immediately behind the saloon on Eagle, stood a row of brick and stone brothels, lining Washington Street. By the 1880's, across from the brothels on Washington, stood the city's electric power plant, and the County Morgue. The most famous, of the more than two dozen brothels in the area, was that of Nina Clifford, which stood at 147 S. Washington, and which she operated continuously from 1889 to her death in 1929. Her notorious, and well patronized "house" was just a half block from the little saloon at 222 Eagle St. (The ornate crystal chandelier, which once graced the foyer of Nina's establishment, has been a constant conversation piece, since it was installed in our St. Paul mayor's office in 1938, when the brothel was demolished.) The demolition of Nina's brothel in 1938, spelled the end of the city's oldest red-light district, and soon there was no need for a saloon in the area. In it's last years, the saloon building at 222 Eagle was used as a shop and residence for a painter and interior decorator. I believe he was of Norwegian origin. Demolished sometime in the late 1960s, or early 1970s, the old saloon building at 222 Eagle St., resurfaced in the news, when construction crews excavating for the new Minnesota Science Museum, unearthed the basement level of Nina Clifford's brothel. They also found the area around the brothel laden with hundreds of artifacts - - some dating from the 1850s and 1860s. Construction was halted for a month, while dozens of state and local archaeologists descended on the site. With only 30 days to recover what they could, less than 10% of the entire city block-sized site was surveyed and searched. Included in the archaeological dig was the former "refrigerator" for the saloon which stood at 222 Eagle St. The term refrigerator here describes a deep, stone-lined pit, which was located behind the little brick saloon. Originally it would have been lined with sawdust, and then filled with ice. This is where they kept things cool during hot Minnesota summers back in the 1870s and 1880s. In later years, after the refrigerator pit was no longer needed, it was used as a trash pit for the saloon. Literally hundreds of bottles -- some quite valuable, were recovered from the site. In all, several thousand artifacts were recovered from the brothel and saloon digs. The Minnesota Historical Society called the dig - "One of the most successful domestic archaeological recovery sites, in the entire history of Minnesota archaeology." The finds included jewelry, bottles, coins, clothing, and almost anything you can imagine used in or around a house or saloon. Some of the items were quite exquisite in design and detail. The old saloon at 222 Eagle St. took on a new label and reputation when some of the archaeologists misidentified the building as the former "Bucket of Blood Saloon" on their maps and literature produced to publicize the dig and the finds. Although the "Bucket of Blood" was a real saloon, and did exist at one time in the neighborhood - - it actually stood more than a block away for the location of 222 Eagle St., and had been demolished several decades before the building on Eagle St. By the way - "Bucket of Blood" refers to the folklore of the nearby saloon, where it is said, there were so many fights between patrons each night, that the owner mopped up a "bucket of blood" every night at closing. For those of you familiar with St. Paul, the area described here is now the site of the Minnesota Science Museum on Kellogg Blvd, and some of the property immediately behind the museum - in between the museum and the Irvine Park neighborhood. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.