long ago two warring indian tribes both built their villages along the beautiful shores of what would become white bear lake according to legend the young dakota gray fell in love with a maiden but marriage between the two tribes was lover in the great white bear were both dead a mist rolling off the lake is said to have engulfed their bodies and carried their outlines through the trees and that's how white bear lake got its name there are many other reminders of the rich indian history around white bear lake motto media is the dakota indian name for white bear lake motto is the dakota word for white bear meat a meaning like manito island is said to be named after the great spirit of the indians according to legend he created the island one moonless night to be his home and nearby willingly is the indian name for wildwood the land around white bear lake was eventually purchased from the dakota and it changed hands many times and it wasn't until eighteen forty that the first settlers would arrive and this is where st paul in the summer in eighteen eighty two a famous visitor happened upon the lake in his book life on the mississippi mark twain described the area he said it is a lovely sheet of water and is being utilized by the wealth and fashion of the state there are a dozen minor summer resorts around st paul in minneapolis but white bear lake is the resort the secret was out by the turn of the century six or seven summer cottages nestled among the white birches that lined the lake shore the home economical but also sensible each car handled forty eight passengers ran hourly and at times reached the unimaginable speeds of sixty miles per hour a trip between same paul and wildwood took just under an hour traveling the same distance by car over the areas only road east county line took about three hours and occasionally one or two flat tire the train also gave the area surrounding white bear lake in economics in eight hundred ninety nine the twin city rapid transit company would build the wildwood amusement park but the park itself was like a valley fair is now it had all these attractions and of course the one of the nicest things was the dance hall because this had class they had good dances the orchestra was set up on a kind of like a balcony so you had lots of dance floor and i was probably ten cents a dance or something like that but one of the most important things is the pick to grow because in that time places like the golden rule import those stores would have their summer picnic for all the employees they close the players or one day they come out and the picnic your ground is at the beginning of bird food and as high it's the highest part of the lake it's very pretty transportation to the park was also possible by taking big excursion boats the boats travel daily between wildwood park and white bear docking midday at birchwood to pick up or drop off passengers but the transportation boom that had created wildwood amusement park would also end up closing it beautiful homes i think i heard that that whole property back on the third floor as well for ten thousand dollars purchased property to build its first city hall it was bought from mayor leave the cost six hundred sixty one dollars and forty cents another necessary expenditure at that time included a platts survey of the village in one nine hundred thirty it cost six hundred dollars and it still hangs in the village hall today the village hall was officially opened in one thousand nine hundred thirty two total cost for the building was thirty nine hundred dollars peace and quiet now reigned in the village until nine hundred thirty we had three cottages we built one and there we build two other sort of as guest cottages and so forth and so on so one time these gangsters came up on me they were very nicely dressed very well groomed very nice speaking people and they came up and they wanted to read a cottage because they'd heard that the fishing was very good and white bear it all as we go on at night but we just thought they were just i don't know  had friends and so forth and they finally left after being there one month well in the fall well november i think it was and one day i think it was the male friend came in and said gee i wonder where all these policemen are do it around here and nobody seemed to know any difference but  they had tipped off the people in the cottage that the police were around so they just dissolved and got away other famous gangsters also sought refuge in the rolling hills around birchwood in the year nine hundred thirty four gunmen john dillinger was rumored to be hiding there some local residents say they were run off the roads by cars with tommy guns pointed at them so they organized vigilante committees to rid the area of these crooks but by july of that year the problem seemed to go away john dillon sure had died far away in chicago illinois rain all summer long there wasn't a blade of grass and a place here and right where lake practically disappeared and there were very few all year round houses here at that time see there been the thing nothing built an yplace for several years because of the pressure and there was as there have been for many years of a little roll of summer cottages along the lake front which then are a long time i think since the late so joined up in just the families we had for school for school schooled in the thirty's year round residents sent their children to school in modern media on the street car but by the forty's the railway company filed a notice to abandon its service and soon school kids not only got a new form of transportation they also came face to face with birch woods law and order house that everybody could use i remember when my mother wanted to talk to my father she'd walk a block and a half to carlie's house to call the st paul to talk to dad and tell him what to bring from the grocery store in august one nine hundred forty seven the popular constable chris carley resigned due to poor health brought him to the justice court now it was probably one of the finest things birchwood ever had he knew everybody in the community knew where the children were supposed to be and if you saw some kid out of line he took them to their parents and if you went out of town l made sure that your house was looked after and i think he would water the flowers if you had to but he was beloved by everybody and one of the things he'd done for many years was also drove the school bus so he knew the children that were in the community and this is something that will never be replaced in the community  as we grow we get away from that type of thing hundred fifty s getting the children to and from school wasn't as big of a problem is figuring out where they would go burch was population had climbed to three hundred twelve residents and with no school in the village some students got shuffled around they went to maybe four different elementary schools in the white area they birchwood children would be bussed and taken to the school that had the most room for them in one nine hundred fifty two birchwood became a part of a newly consolidated school district all the students went to white bear lake with the fifties influx of newcomers came new customs and community pride one man rekindled his fourth of july tradition in birchwood that was started back in fifty two when my husband said don't we do anything on the fourth of july and birchwood people said no not really people have their own picnics well where i was brought up we have always had a parade so the community club was elected to be our head of prayed they had to run it and of course we all had it's like nothing you've ever seen before it's little kids from t probably have heard consists of the best players all they play once a year they are good and they have to stop the parade for them to play because they can't march and play the band to play their horns at the same time it is just comical and everybody loves  fitness wave swept in during the sixty's bringing another longstanding tradition to birchwood that was a response to president eisenhower who felt that physical fitness was slipping in this country and he wanted to encourage people to do something about physical fitness so one of our neighbors was a coach and i had teacher so he got the idea of across the lake sixty's were also a time of great change structurally for birchwood the census count was now five hundred eighty three and forty percent of the village wells were contaminated it probably wasn't too healthy i think it was gr a b and c this is probably beer c we used to boil our water who we dragged so the newly elected officials were charged with some not so glamorous city government duties i became mayor at january first one nine hundred sixty two and we went immediately to work on getting sewer put in our project was delayed but we turned that delay into an advantage for the city and got our park build up and at no cost to the there we saw no need of taking money and then having to pay taxes on that and then having our taxes raised and i think everybody in birchwood took their turn doing it it was very educational and a good way to get acquainted with the problems of the villages to be on the council have to help solve them in the time that dale cain had served as mayor the village had magically transformed from a vacation area to a permanent residential community when they  city and the water and the sewer then it was possible for us to build all your own home over here to give up the title of village so like the small town atmosphere what they like the fact that they knew their local government official was a city where everything was done by the people the youth and birchwood wanted a hockey rink at one point and it was built by the fathers the mothers and the children to birchwood the hockey rink the thirty day i remember going down there and doing wiring on it we had a local architect who designed it we had a local contractor who supervised all of us up ollie washburn was a perfectionist sod most of the wood my wife did a lot of the standing with other wives and dudley merc who doesn't live in the village anymore worked for the railroad he got us a big pot bellied stove out of old caboose and that's how they did that warming house and that's how