2520 Stevens Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55404, USA

Folk Victorian Minneapolis Historic Homes Minnesota Historic Homes

A simple house sitting on a simple street in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis. The home was built in 1893 by Pike and Cook for Peter Dague and his wife. Peter Alexander Dague was born in Pennsylvania in 1829 to a family of eight children. The family moved a few years after his birth to Ohio, where Peter eventually met his wife, Margaret Frees, and had a son in 1853. A carpenter by trade, Dague moved his family to Minneapolis around 1855 most likely with the promise of work for a fledgling city that was still a Territory. In 1871, Dague built a family home at 2418-2420 Fremont Ave S, a Greek Revival styled home that still stands today, but has been slightly modified over time and is currently a tri-plex. It still retains the front gable with broken pediment, oculus window, and narrow windows on the second floor (even thought the original double hung windows have been replaced in the last four years). Unfortunately its current owners have no idea of the history they possess the home is the oldest surviving building west of Hennepin in the Kenwood, East Ilses, and Lowery neighborhoods. After Dagues daughter was married in the home on Fremont in 1880 and both his children moved away to Deadwood in the Dakota Territory, he decided to build a new home. A woodshop was built onsite in 1886, but construction didnt begin on the house until 1893. Sadly, tragedy struck that Spring and his wife died at the age of 60. From stories found in my research, Peters will to live after his wifes death greatly diminished, and he died 9 months later in January 1894. Dague was an avid builder in Minneapolis and is noted for helping build a small town in the Minnesota territory into what we see today; however, only the two historic homes he built are believed to remain. He is credited with building the Free Will Baptist Church in downtown Minneapolis at 7th and Helen (now 2nd Ave S), or 1st Ave S, since demolished.