The Goodrich name is prominent in the history of early St. Louis Park. This is the story of the Calvin Goodrich family. They are apparently not related to George Goodrich, who had a farm in the Lenox area.
CALVIN G. GOODRICH, SR.
Calvin Gibson Goodrich, Sr. was born on May 11, 1820 in Petersburgh, Virginia. His father, lawyer John Baldwin Goodrich, died young, and Calvin’s mother moved the family to Winchester, Indiana in 1826. Calvin became a surveyor, and attended medical school in Cincinnati. He graduated in 1845 and practiced in Richmond, Indiana. He married Mary A. Wall and in 1848 they moved to Oxford, Ohio.
In 1865 Calvin and Mary bought land in St. Louis Park from Thomas A. Harrison. In 1868 he moved to Minneapolis, where his investments in real estate made him rich.
Mary died in November 1872, and Calvin married Harriet Dodman of Worcester, Massachusetts in 1975. Calvin, Sr. died on March 20, 1880.
Calvin, Sr. had five children:
Ervy L. Goodrich
Calvin Goodrich, Jr. (see below)
Nellie W. Goodrich Ireys
Elroy L. Goodrich
Beatrice Goodrich – married Thomas Lowry
CALVIN G. GOODRICH, JR.
Calvin Jr. (wife Cora) served in many capacities in the Minneapolis Street Railway Co., which he took over in 1909 at the death of his brother-in-law, Thomas Lowry.
In 1886 he donated land for the parsonage of Union Church. He was vice president of the Minneapolis Land and Investment Co., and president of the St. Louis Park Land and Investment Co.
On April 30, 1887, Calvin and Cora and William and wife Annie Truesdale filed the plat of St. Louis Park Centre, which would become one of the most historic residential neighborhoods in the Park.
On December 17, 1887, Goodrich presented a plat called St. Louis Park Suburbs, which included the area between Centre and Brookside. That plat was never realised.
In 1889 he bought land in St. Louis Park that included Brookside. In 1892 he vacated the Wildwood plat of that area, and in 1898 the land was sold to Suburban Homes for development.
On June 1, 1891, the Minneapolis Tribune reported that he built a 1/2 mile horse track on his farm.
Calvin Goodrich, Jr. died on December 21, 1915 and is buried at Lakewood Cemetery.