page_title: Falcon Heights, Minnesota
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Falcon Heights, Minnesota / History
caption_attribution_description: Snelling and Larpenteur Avenues with the Quinn farm and Curtiss Northwest Airport
context_page_description: Falcon Heights is a suburb of Saint Paul and a city in Ramsey County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,321 at the 2010 census. It became a village in 1949 and a city in 1973.
  Falcon Heights is the home of the University of Minnesota's St. Paul Campus and Les Bolstad Golf Course, the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, and the Gibbs Museum of Pioneer and Dakotah Life. Its University Grove neighborhood is known for its modern architecture.
context_section_description: Heman Gibbs settled in the 1850s near the modern intersection of Cleveland and Larpenteur Avenues. His homestead is on the National Register of Historic Places and his home is a county museum.
  On September 2, 1901, then-Vice President Theodore Roosevelt first publicly used the African proverb "Speak softly and carry a big stick" in a speech at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, which was still a part of St. Paul at the time. Roosevelt became president just two weeks later, upon the assassination of William McKinley, and built the phrase into his concept of Big Stick Diplomacy.
  Between the 1910s and 1930s, Curtiss Northwest Airport was located at the intersection of Snelling and Larpenteur Avenues. The airfield was important in Minnesota aviation history, hosting Charles Lindbergh, Speed Holman, and Phoebe Fairgrave. Part of the land is now a city park named Curtiss Field.
  In the 1930s, a real estate agent named Faulkner developed land owned by a 3M executive and named this development—Falcon Heights—after himself. The first house arose in 1937.
  In 1949 residents rejected annexation by Roseville or St. Paul, and voted to incorporate themselves. The expanded Falcon Heights included the University of Minnesota Golf Course and Test Fields as well as the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Two-thirds of Falcon Heights is public land, chiefly the university and state fair.
caption: Snelling and Larpenteur Avenues in 1920
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