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Elwell Family

founded what we call the Como neighborhood in 1882, by purchasing a large
tract of land on either side of the Como Road. He filed three residential plats with Minneapolis that year: Elwell’s
Addition (14th Ave to 18th Ave SE, from Como Ave. to Division Street, or East Hennepin Ave.); Elwell’s Second
Addition (from 10th to 14th Aves., from Como Ave. to Division Street and two blocks north of Division St.), and
Elwell’s Third Addition (south of Como Ave. to 8th St. SE, west of 14th Ave. SE). Elwell also bought land along
each side of today’s Stinson Boulevard, from East Hennepin Ave. to Broadway St., which was for many decades
part of the Elwell Dairy Farm Inc., plus almost 53,000 acres of eastern Anoka County where he had two large stock
farms.

James T. Elwell drained the marshland in his Additions to Minneapolis, laid out the streets and built 55 houses.
Newly married in 1882, he built his own home at 903 SE 15th Ave. (now 1003 SE 15th Ave.) and led the
establishment of the Como Avenue Congregational Church on 14th Ave. SE and Tuttle School (1883) at 14th and
Talmadge Aves. SE. He failed to persuade the Minneapolis Park Board to buy land south of the church for the
Second Ward Park, but he brought water, gas, telephone and horse-drawn streetcar lines to the new development.



Elwell was hard-hit by the financial Panic of 1893 and had to move his young family to the farms in Anoka County.
He was elected to the state legislature from Anoka in 1899, and was able to return to Minneapolis in 1901, to a
house at 945 SE 14th Ave. A Progressive-era Republican, Elwell was state senator from “the University District”
from 1907 to 1915. Besides getting a large sum in 1909 for the University of Minnesota to expand beyond The
Knoll area, as a Good Roads advocate, one of his lasting contributions was the 1911 passage of The Elwell Law,
which set up the formula for funding street, road, and parkway construction and improvements and is still the basis
for them today.
He ran for Mayor of Minneapolis in 1925 but lost to George E. Leach.




Sources:

  • History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest, Edwin S. Elwell (and Elwell Family), pp. 496-498 (1923)
    • Minneapolis Furniture Company, Minneapolis Bedding Company
    • Elwell Dairy Farm, Modern Milk Company, Metropolitan Milk Company, Quaker Creamery Company, Northland Milk & Ice Cream Company
    • Senator James T. Elwell career

  • "THE DAGUERREIAN Annual, 1992,
    the 256-page yearbook of the Daguer
    reian Society, contains two articles of
    particular interest to students of early
    Minnesota photography. "The Diary
    of Tallmadge Elwell, Pioneer Da
    guerreotypist, 1852" by James Taylor
    Dunn includes a biography of the
    young photographer who later turned
    to other businesses to support himself
    and his family. The bulk of the article
    reprints parts of Elwell's regular
    journal, his entire "daguerreotyping
    diary," and part of the diary of his
    wife, Margaret Miller Elwell." Mentioned in Minnesota History Magazine, Fall 1992, p. 127.


* James Tallmadge & Lizzie Alden Elwell's home at 945 14th Ave SE
Edwin S. Elwell Jr. collection, circa 1914



  • Alden W. Elwell was married to Agnes
    • lived at 1815 Como Ave SE
    • President and treasurer of Elwell Dairy Farm, Inc.
  • George H. Elwell (b. 1856 - d. 1926)
    • president of the Minneapolis Furniture Company
    • lived at 1013 13th Ave SE
    • elected Minneapolis School Director in 1908.
  • Tallmadge Elwell (b. 1828 - d. 1903)
    • was James T. Elwell's father and a daguerreotyper
    • lived at "1002" 16th Ave SE until he died in 1903



* Edwin S. Elwell Jr. (July 24, 2003)
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