By Kathleen Kullberg, historian and owner of If Your Walls Could Talk

In the Washburn Park section of Tangletown, there are a few blocks of streetscape known as Rustic Lodge Avenue.  One often asks: Where is the rustic lodge?  When was it built?  What happened to it?  Some have even heard that the rustic lodge was for hunting overlooking the Minnehaha Creek.

This is the tale of the lost rustic lodge and just one chapter in the life of an intriguing woman named Nellie Bingham Mead.

Just to the north of Washburn High School and the former Washburn Home orphanage, located between West 48th and West 49th streets, part of the residential Washburn Park development was laid out and platted in 1886 by several of the local land owners and investors. Most notably were William D. Washburn, owner and miller of the Washburn flour mills, Frederik H. Busch, owner of the first glass greenhouse business in Minnesota, and the woman venture capitalist, Nellie Bingham Mead.

A home for Mead, designed by Harry Wild Jones, was to be built on Rustic Lodge Avenue. Mead’s Rustic Lodge was to be literally the center of attention on the avenue.

A very short north/south street named Bingham, now Wentworth Avenue, was most likely named by Mead on the original map in honor of her mother, Charlotte Bingham Slingerland. The original plat also shows the location of the orphanage and property just to the south of 49th Street off Nicollet Avenue.          

The very first name on the plat document is that of Mead. Also listed are the names of her future husband, W. H. Lynn, and Jones.

Prior to moving to Minneapolis in about 1884, Nellie had been married to William B. Mead in 1883 in New York City.  William Mead was listed in the Minneapolis city directory as a capitalist.  It might be presumed that being a small investor in New York City did not automatically grant an entry into the desirable upper class social events.  But by moving to the growing city of Minneapolis, a little-known millionaire could certainly make his mark and move him up the ladder of honored invites on most guest lists.  For the next two years, the couple invested in real estate, attended the opera, lived at the elite Plaza Residential Hotel and were involved in many social events of the winter season.  

The Meads decided to build a grand Victorian style home in the soon to be platted Washburn Park, where Nellie and her mother Charlotte owned about 20 lots. At the same time that Nellie was part of the platting process of Washburn Park, she was entering into divorce proceedings from William.  

Nellie filed for a divorce from William in July 1886, alleging that he had had extra-marital affairs, a violent temper, and she feared for bodily harm. The divorce proceedings were the talk of the town.  

It was also in 1886 that Nellie’s mother came to live with her in Minneapolis. Nellie also bought land on Western Avenue, now Glenwood Avenue, just west of the city in 1887 and platted a small development called Slingerland Park. Streets in that plat were named for her family members.  It appears that although lots may have been sold, Slingerland Park must have been vacated and replatted under another name as it no longer exists.  Nellie bought and sold other property throughout Minneapolis, including several apartment buildings. One of those apartments existed at 2025 Fourth Ave. S. until 1965 when construction of Interstate 35W wrecked it.  This building existed to the east and opposite of the present-day Electric Fetus store.

Following her divorce from William, Nellie married local notary and postmaster Lynn in 1890,  also listed as a founder on the Washburn Park plat.  She divorced Lynn in 1897 and then moved out of state to Washington, D.C. and then returned to New York City, ending her chapters in Minneapolis.  

Nellie’s mother died on Christmas Eve, 1887 and was buried at Lakewood Cemetery.  Nellie had moved to Los Angeles by that time and had her mother’s remains moved and reburied in Inglewood Park Cemetery in 1925 where other family members were also laid to rest. Nellie was buried there herself in 1941.

The Rustic Lodge, designed by Jones, was never constructed in Washburn Park.  Had it been built, it would have been a noteworthy historical and commanding structure there.

Per an article written by local historian, Tom Balcom, for the Southwest Journal newspaper in March 1985, the proposed rustic lodge was described as such:

"Logs laid horizontally on top of the other were to be used for the first floor exterior and shingles with vertical peeled logs were to be used on the exterior of the second floor. The interior rooms, octagonal in shape, were to be built around a central, octagonal hall. The rustic lodge was to have been surmounted by a skylight, highlighted with antlers on the exterior of each of its four corners. The foundation of the Rustic Lodge was built on the northwest corner of what is now known as Rustic Lodge and Wentworth Avenues. Unfortunately, the grand plan for the rustic lodge was never completed for unknown reasons.”

Years after Nellie moved to Los Angeles, in the 1920s, she reportedly asked Jones for the blue prints so she could build the house in California.  If she did receive the plans, the house was never built there either.  

The lot in Washburn Park was sold and a new house was built in 1950 on the corner of Wentworth and Rustic Lodge avenues where over a hundred years ago, a grand Victorian lodge would have commanded the attention of the intersection.

There are yet more chapters and tales of Nellie’s life  to be told that circle around this madam of intrigue throughout Washington, D.C., New York City, and Los Angeles.

But for now, Rustic Lodge Avenue remains of her Minnesota legacy.