“I love the beehive fireplace now located in restored Lilac Park. My mom and dad and my brother and my auntie and I used it for picnics years ago when it was located in the original Lilac Park on Minnetonka Boulevard in the 1950s before it was moved to this park. We grilled hot dogs in the beehive fireplace. (more…)
“My Maternal Grandmother found our darling little home at 3108 Salem from 1955-68 for my family. It was and still is a lovely neighborhood. I was a “nature girl”, and back then our alley between Salem and Toledo led to a large wooded area. Lilac Way was like our backyard! The area around Highway 7 and Minnetonka Boulevard on Highway 100 was all woods, lilac bushes as far as the eye could see!
Those were very special times. I would sneak out of the house before dawn and wander along Lilac Way through the woods, checking on all the birdie nests. I spent endless hours and days wandering those woods, climbing the pine trees at the end of Salem Avenue and Highway 7. (more…)
“We had a couple end-of-year class picnics at Monkey Island (now Rock Island) when I attended Fern Hill School in St. Louis Park in late ’50s and early ’60s.”
Submitted 7.5.2019
“Good times. Monkey Island (now Rock Island) was a hangout for us kids in the 2600 through 2900 blocks of Raleigh, Salem and Toledo during the late ’70s. That was where we stopped on our way back across Highway 100 to ingest the pure sugar bought at Rogers Gas Station and Park Market amongst the Stonehenge-like runes of Monkey Island.
I had no idea of the actual history of it, and was convinced that it was once inhabited by actual monkeys.”
Submitted 7.5.2019
“We grew up on 29th and Salem. My brother Steve McGregor and my younger brother Jeff hung out in the original Lilac Park, along with Steve and Paul Margraf, Howie Reynolds, Mike and Scott Lundin. GREAT TIMES! But you had to be careful sledding in the winter, because I do remember ending up in the northbound lane of Highway 100 once or twice.”
Submitted 7.4.2019
“I spent my formative years (ages 4-21, 1950-1967) one block away from the original Lilac Park and Rock Island, which we called “Monkey Island”. I lived at 2716 Toledo Avenue. I spent oodles of time at this park. Not only did I and friends play there, but annually our elementary school classes (both the former Fern Hill at 28th/Joppa and the former Ethel Baston (now Groves Academy) would trek there every spring for our annual school picnic outing. (more…)
“I spent my formative years (ages 4-21, 1950-1967) one block away from the original Lilac Park and Rock Island, which we called “Monkey Island”. I lived at 2716 Toledo Avenue. I spent oodles of time at this park. Not only did I and friends play there, but annually our elementary school classes (both the former Fern Hill at 28th/Joppa and the former Ethel Baston (now Groves Academy) would trek there every spring for our annual school picnic outing. In those days, the ‘entrance ramp’ from Minnetonka Boulevard to Highway 100 was not what we think of them as being today. In fact, I don’t think YIELD signs had even been invented, which meant that when one got to the bottom of said ramp, one had to stop for a stop sign before proceeding on to NB 100.
Further, in those days, West 28th Street was actually a cross street of Highway 100! The ramp entrance reference above was to the east of Monkey Island, and it separated Monkey Island from a triangular shaped park area between the entrance ramp and Toledo Avenue, where many great ‘sandlot’ baseball games were played.
I think I even recall a time when Monkey Island’s water features (water streaming down the rock façade??) were functional, and I always thought the actual little island in the middle, accessible by crossing the little footbridge was quite exotic.
Rock Island Park and the south section of the original Lilac Park across Toledo Avenue from St. George’s Episcopal Church (with its ‘beehive’ fireplace for cooking) were key elements in the wonder of growing up in St. Louis Park in the 1950s. Great times and great memories!”
Submitted 5.26.17 and 4.4.20
Paul Linnee with his wife Jane, married since 1969.
“I went to Park Hill Elementary School on Ottawa and Minnetonka Boulevard from 1958-1961. We used to walk to the original original Lilac Park and Rock Island for a picnic at the end of the school year! Great memories of playing hide and seek in all the lilac bushes. I grew up on Xenwood Avenue in St. Louis Park, and amazingly we used to run across Highway 100 in the mid-1960s (at that time I think Highway 100 was called Lilac Way) to play at that park. We also had a few family picnics there.”
Submitted 4.10.2019
“I remember class picnics from Fern Hill School in St. Louis Park, where I attended 4th and 5th grade in 1950-51. The picnics were at Monkey Island (now Rock Island) during the last week of school in late May or early June. Monkey Island was actually a small Island (about the size of a kitchen) surrounded by a circular “moat” a couple yards wide and 2-3 feet deep. There was a little stone footbridge so a person could walk to the island. (more…)
