265 Exchange St S
St Paul, MN 55102, USA

Ramsey House, St. Paul.

265 S Exchange Street, Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States

Ramsey House, St. Paul.

265 S Exchange Street, Saint Paul, Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States

Architecture Rendering and Floor Plans

The picture shows the original architectural plans and renderings of the house.

Historic Photos of the Alexander Ramsey House

Significance: The Alexander Ramsey "Mansion House" is an excellent example of the large private residence being built in St. Paul during the latter half of the 19th century, and is a symbol of the rapid economic and cultural development of the northwest after 1850. The house is of particular interest because it has been altered only slightly from its original condition, and has retained almost all of the original furnishings.

Architecture Place

Color slide of Ramsey House. Date stamped on slide mount indicates 1978.

Architecture Place

Color slide of west side of the Ramsey House. Date stamped on slide mount indicates 1976.

Architecture Place

Color slide of Ramsey House dining room. Date stamped on slide mount indicates 1974.

Architecture Place

Color slide of Ramsey House parlor room. Date stamped on slide mount indicates 1974.

National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:
Alexander Ramsey held a greater number of important local and federal offices than any other Minnesotan. From the time he arrived, in 1849, until his death in 1903, he devoted himself to the public and private welfare of Minnesota and its citizens. He established the administrative machinery of the territory and guided the territory and state through difficult early years. He represented the State in the United States Senate for twelve years. Before he returned to his adopted home, he served in the administrative branch of the federal government for seven years. This Victorian mansion reflects the life of a man of public affairs and as such provides a contrast to the log cabin and frame house of the homesteader and the immigrant.

Alexander Ramsey, ex-Congressman from Pennsylvania, was appointed governor of Minnesota Territory because of his successful campaign for Zachary Taylor in the election of 1848. When he arrived in the spring of 1849 with his wife and small son, the governor’s house was not yet ready. They stayed with Henry H. Sibley at Mendota, beginning a friendship that lasted nearly half a century. Ramsey’s first message to the Legislature showed his broad interest in the settlement and development of the territory. He organized the government, ordered a census, and set a date for the elections. His greatest accomplishment was his negotiation of the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in the summer of 1851, by which the Sioux tribes ceded twenty-four million acres to the United States. When a Democratic governor was appointed in 1852, Ramsey stayed in St. Paul; he was elected mayor in 1855. In the first election for the State of Minnesota, 1857, Ramsey was the new Republican party’s nominee for Governor. He was defeated by his friend and political rival, Henry H. Sibley, but won office in the election of 1859. He was the first governor to offer the War Department troops after the firing on Fort Sumpter in April, 186I. In August 1863, while many Minnesota men were fighting in the South, the Sioux rose in a desperate effort to reclaim their lost domain from the swelling numbers of small farms and villages. As they swept down the Minnesota valley, burning out farmers and villagers. Governor Ramsey raised a force of militia and paroled soldiers and commissioned Sibley as their commander. By late fall, the uprising was defeated, and the tribes were driven from the State or penned in prison camps. Later that year. Governor Ramsey was elected United States Senator by the state legislature.

He was serving in that office while he built this mansion. After retiring from the Senate, he entertained President Rutherford B. Hayes in his new home in 1878. The next year, President Hayes asked Ramsey to be his Secretary of War; he accepted and returned to Washington until 1886, serving as Minnesota’s first cabinet member and later active on two special commissions. When he returned, he devoted his last years to his friends, family, and public welfare activities. Each year, Sibley called on May 27 to observe with his old friend, the anniversary of Ramsey’s arrival in Minnesota. At the age of eighty-eight. Alexander Ramsey died on April 23, 1903. This house remained the family home, essentially the same as when he lived there for another sixty-one years.

Ramsey House Project, 1972

Photo 1: Color photograph of people working in the side yard of Alexander Ramsey House. Rugs and pillows hang from a clothesline in the back. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972."

Photo 2: Black and white photograph of two women working in the front yard of the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972. Betty Slade, D. Fobes."

Photo 3: Black and white photograph of Betty Slade and an unidentified woman laying hose and garden stakes. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972."

Photo 4: Black and white photograph of Betty Slade and an unidentified woman trimming shrubs at the front steps of the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972."

Photo 5: Color photograph of women digging dirt and laying paving stones at the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul, as a group of children look on. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972."

Photo 6: Color photograph of a woman digging dirt and laying paving stones at the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972. Anita Morgan."

Photo 7: Color photograph of a woman digging dirt and laying paving stones at the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972. Alice Need."

Photo 8: Color photograph of two women digging dirt and laying paving stones at the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972. Betty Slade (L), Mary Hammer (R)."

Photo 9: Color photograph of two women digging in the yard at the Alexander Ramsey House in Saint Paul. Caption on reverse: "Ramsey House Project, 1972. Miriam Messing (L), B. Biorn (R)."

Alexander Ramsey House - 1880

Historic American Buildings Survey Photocopy of c. 1880 View, Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society VIEW LOOKING NORTH - Alexander Ramsey House, 265 South Exchange Street, Saint Paul, Ramsey County, MN Photos from Survey HABS MN-48