Anthony Waldman House - Panic of 1857

Panic of 1857

If the Waldman "House" was in fact originally built for use as a saloon, the Panic of 1857 and shifting development patterns soon aborted this enterprise. St. Paul’s early historian J. Fletcher Williams was an eye-witness to Minnesota's first economic crisis, which he described in his History of St. Paul first published in 1876:

Saint Paul was said by travelers, to be the fastest and liveliest town on the Mississippi River. Emigration was pouring in astonishingly, several boats landing daily loaded with passengers. Those intending to go back in the country, usually purchased their supplies here, and the stores were almost overtaxed, so profitable was their trade. The hotels and boarding houses were crowded to overflowing. The principal business streets fairly hummed with the rush of busy life. Building was never so brisk; an army of workman and mechanics labored night and day to keep up with the demand for dwellings and stores. That season they coined money.

On August 24, occurred the failure of the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company, of New York, which gave rise to the memorable panic or financial revulsion of that year. To St. Paul, this pricking of the bubble of speculation was more ruinous and dire in its consequences than perhaps to any other city in the west. Everything had been so inflated and unreal--values purely fictitious, all classes in debt, with but little real wealth, honest industry neglected, and everything speculative and feverish—-that the blow fell with ruinous force. Business was paralyzed, real estate actually valueless and unsaleable at any price, and but little good money in circulation. Ruin stared all classes in the face. The note secured by mortgages must be paid, but all values were destroyed. No device would raise money, for no one had any to lend. Everybody was struggling to save himself. The banking houses closed their doors—-nearly all the mercantile stores suspended or made assignments. All works of improvement ceased, and general gloom and despondency settled down on the community. In a few days, from the top waive of prosperity, it was plunged into the slough of despond.

And now the ‘hard times’ commenced in earnest. No description of this terrible and gloomy period will convey any idea of it. With many, even those who had but shortly before imagined themselves wealthy, there was a terrible struggle between pride and want. But few had saved anything, so generally had the reckless spirit of the times infected all classes. The humble poor, of course, suffered; but the keenest suffering was among those who experienced the fall from affluence to poverty. The papers were crowded for months with foreclosures of mortgages, executions, and other results of the crash. Not one in five of the business houses or firms weathered the storm, despite the most desperate struggles. The population of the City fell off almost 50 percent, and stores would scarcely rent at any price.”