Northern Pacific Railway Como Shops

St. Paul’s Como Shops served as a major passenger-car repair facility on the Northern Pacific railroad between 1885 and the 1970s, providing employment to many St. Paul residents. The durability of the shops’ construction guaranteed their longevity, and in 1985 the facility was listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Northern Pacific Railway was once one of the major railroads in the state of Minnesota. One unique problem encountered by the company was the lack of adequate terminal space in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The railroad needed yard and terminal facilities to make up and break up trains in daily operations as well as space for servicing its fleet of railcars and locomotives. The company’s decision to construct shops was guided by financial necessity, and most towns welcomed the arrival of shops facilities for their positive economic impact.

The Northern Pacific acquired thirteen acres for development in 1880, but this proved less than sufficient. It thus purchased 220 additional acres on January 4, 1883. It subsequently purchased 400 acres for facilities in the Trout Brook Valley section near Lake Como in St. Paul at rates ranging from $500 to $4,000 per acre. Two hundred acres near Lake Como were designated for a shops facility—one in which workers would conduct major repairs on Northern Pacific passenger railcars for nearly 100 years.

The June 19, 1883 edition of the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that the local firm of R. E. Patterson would build the Como Shops. Construction started after grading work with the creation of a wood-working shop, machine shop, new-car shop, coach shop, engine house, boiler room, blacksmith shop, freight-car repair building, paint shop, water tower, and a host of accessory buildings to aid in operations. For a time, Como would house the most extensive shops in the system, costing in excess of $500,000.

The shops began operations in 1885. Designed to handle the construction, repair, and refurbishment of the Northern Pacific’s fleet of over 1,100 passenger cars, the facility was extremely large for its time. Construction of buildings continued in 1898, 1901, 1911, and later years as changing needs warranted expansion and redesign.

Buildings were constructed using Minnesota materials—namely, yellow brick from Little Falls. They were designed with efficiency in mind; much like the clerestory roofs used in older passenger cars themselves, the shops’ monitor roofs allowed in as much natural light as possible. This made the dark, cavernous shop buildings much lighter and therefore safer and less dependent upon artificial light sources.

The rear of the facility featured the woodworking shop, where car bodies were created. It was built in 1885 in a cross shape. To the south of this building was the paint shop, and to the east a shop for new cars. Next door was the blacksmith shop, noted for its large number of chimneys.

In addition to at least one water tower, the shops featured a large transfer table, capable of transporting railcars to different working areas in the shop buildings via movable railroad tracks on a flat table structure. The adjacent yard tracks were expanded in 1896. All the buildings mentioned here, including remnants of the transfer table, survived into the twenty-first century.

The Northern Pacific became part of a larger railroad system and discontinued passenger service after a gradual downsizing. Como Shops shrank in importance as this happened but continued to operate until 1982, when the architectural firm of Winsor/Faricy remodeled the facility. The former blacksmith shops came to be known as Bandana Square and served a new purpose for various commercial tenants, including Dino’s Gyros and the Dakota Jazz Club.