The St. Paul, Minnesota, Home of James J. Hill

The James J. Hill House is one of the impressive homes on St. Paul's Summit Avenue, a street filled with impressive homes, including the official residence of the Minnesota governor. When the Hill House is looked at from one particular angle, the dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul appears in the background. As you will see later, that is a significant fact in the history of the Hill family. The James J. Hill House is a fitting monument to an impressive man. To better appreciate the house, it helps to know the man.

James J. Hill (1838-1916) was a Midwest mixture of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story and the high-finance, hard-driving Rockefellers and Carnagies. Born in Canada, Hill quit formal schooling at the age of 14 when his father died in 1852, and began working in order to support the family. Four years later, Hill moved to the United States for good, and eventually ended up in St. Paul, Minnesota. After working a number of jobs, primarily related to shipping on the Mississippi and Red Rivers, Hill and a number of partners bought the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. Background information on Hill can be found at a variety of places, including the Minnesota Historical Society's basic website about the James J. Hill House, and their website with more information about Hill and his career.

The railroad, renamed Great Northern Railway, became the foundation for Hill's reputation as "The Empire Builder." An article on a railroad website helped me to understand in what sense Hill was an empire builder. In order to make his railroad useful, he sold land to immigrants, distributed free cattle to encourage the cattle industry, developed businesses in the towns along the tracks. Through his efforts, 6,000,000 acres of Montana land were settled in two years. He later extended the railroad up to the Canadian border and through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Not content with being just a railroad man, Hill invested in mining, shipping, banking, and milling, and farming. According to some of the literature regarding Hill, he had a fortune of $50-60,000,000 when he died. In today's money, that would be over a billion dollars.

Having become rich, Hill wanted a home that would reflect his wealth. The result was the James J. Hill House. Designed by an east coast firm, the house took three years to build and was completed in 1891. With 36,000 square feet, it is the largest residence in Minnesota,and was the most expensive at the time it was built. The cost was approximately $3,000,000. As with everything he did, Hill was personally and, intensely, involved in the planning and building of his home, overriding recommendations from the architects and builders when he felt he was right.

Hill wanted the best and could afford the best for his home. The lighting system, for example, incorporated gas and electricity, a fail-safe system in case of an interruption in the supply of one or the other. There is a large pipe organ in the house-an organ which was once powered by a servant-operated bellows, but was later converted to an electric-operated bellows. Fine stained-glass windows decorate parts of the house. In its 36,000 square feet, the house contains 13 bathrooms, 22 fireplaces, 16 crystal chandeliers, bedrooms for Mr. and Mrs. Hill, their ten children (one died at a very young age), and ten servants.

Mr. Hill died in 1916. His wife died five years later. In 1925, the home was given to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul, where it was used for offices, a school, and a residence. The tour guide told us that Hill money was given to the Archdiocese to help in the construction of the Cathedral. A brief article in the book, Minnesota 150, confirms what the tour guide said (page 75). The book gives a concise overview of James J. Hill and his influence on the United States. When Mrs. Hill died in 1921, her funeral was held in the Cathedral. In 1978, the Minnesota Historical Society acquired the James J. Hill House.

Some of the public rooms in the house have an atmosphere of darkness and gloom, but that is not true of the art gallery. The sky-lit two story gallery is a pleasure to enter and has sufficient light to view comfortably the paintings on display. Hill collected works that appealed to him, and I, for one, appreciated his selections.

My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed our tour of the house. Adults will probably get more out of the tour than children, but our tour included several youngsters who had good questions and comments. Our tour guide did an excellent job of involving the young people.

One good thing to know: Photography is permitted in the house as long as you don't use flash.

Sources:

www.mnhs.org/places/sites/jjhh/
www.mnhs.org/places/sites/jjhh/history/hill.htm
www.railserve.com/JJHill.htm
Kate Roberts, Minnesota 150 (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2007), pages 74 & 75)
There are many other websites available if you Google "James J. Hill House" or "James J. Hill"