Great Northern Depot
For more than one-hundred years the Great Northern Depot has served as Wayzata’s most iconic landmark. Built to help reconcile relations after a long “feud” between Wayzata and Great Northern chairman James J. Hill, it was designed by Samuel Bartlett in the fashionable English Tudor Revival style. When completed, it was said to be the “handsomest” depot on the entire line and was considered modern with indoor plumbing and a water fountain. Trains serviced the depot with scheduled stops until 1958, when it became a “flag stop” serviced by request only. Great Northern finally closed the depot as an official stop in 1971 and donated it to the City of Wayzata in 1972. The depot has since been added to the National Register of Historic Places and today is home to the Wayzata Area Chamber of Commerce and the Wayzata Historical Society Museum.
Wayzata State Bank
The need for a bank in Wayzata had become apparent to the local business community by 1908. Five businessmen put up $10,000 in capital that summer to start the Wayzata State Bank, which included a construction cost of $2,246.50. The new, classically-inspired bank had three brass teller’s cages, a small walk-in vault, and an office. A buzzer under one of the teller’s cages could be rung next door at Pettitt & Kysor Grocery to alert them in the event of a robbery. When it officially opened for business on January 18, 1909, the bank was manned by just two employees: a cashier and a bookkeeper. Resident boat builder Royal C. Moore served as its first president from 1908 to 1912, and for decades the bank helped Wayzata’s economy grow by providing loans to local businesspeople and homeowners. By 1950, however, it had outgrown the original building and moved to a new location. Several other businesses subsequently occupied the original building, including Five Swans gifts. The original structure stood until 2019.
Pettitt & Kysor Grocery
After fire destroyed Harry Pettitt and George Kysor’s first grocery store, they proclaimed that fire would never again wipe out their business. The new, sturdy building they built opened in 1906. With a bakery located behind the building, Pettitt & Kysor was best-known for homemade baked goods and ice cream. There was also a fresh meat counter where wild game was sold. Pettitt & Kysor was primarily a “delivery-style” grocery store, meaning that a horse and buggy would make rounds in the morning to take orders and deliver them before dinner. After Harry Pettitt died, George Kysor sold the store, and it continued to operate as Waytonka Market until 1974. The building later reopened as Five Swans gifts and was subsequently used for miscellaneous purposes. It was demolished in 2019.
Tibbetts Home
Founded in 1928 by Wayzata’s Doctor Carl J. Martinson and Mound’s Doctor Edward E. Mitchell, the Minnetonka Hospital was one of the community’s most unique businesses for more than thirty years. Named Minnetonka Hospital for serving the entire Lake Minnetonka area, it began by renting space in the back of a local boarding house until it moved into the former home of Doctor James I. Tibbetts in 1929. The Lake Street home worked perfectly as a small town hospital with surgeries and obstetrics performed on the first floor and patients’ rooms located on the second floor (staff had to carry patients up the main staircase on a stretcher after surgery). During its thirty-five years of business the Minnetonka Hospital performed simple surgeries, set bones, stitched up wounds, and delivered 1,545 babies. The hospital was particularly known for its home-cooked meals, rumored to be some of the best around. The last patient was released December 31, 1963, and in May 1964 the building was demolished. Today the site is occupied by Minnetonka Travel.
Village Hall
Wayzata’s Village Hall was built at the corner of Lake Street and Manitoba Avenue in 1904 for a cost of $3,977.75. The Colonial Revival building originally housed the council chambers, library, post office, and equipment for the Volunteer Fire Department (a fire bell tower was added behind the main building in 1905). Village Hall ironically burned down in 1955, but not before local residents rushed into the building to save books from the library. Nevertheless, nearly all municipal records were lost in the blaze.
Wayzata Theater
The Wayzata Theater opened in 1932 under the ownership of Lyle Carisch and Raymond Lee. It was designed to look modern with a flashy marquee, sloping floor, and a green, gold, and black color scheme. The theater was cooled by misting water, which made the lobby floor slippery during the summer months. Tickets were $0.35 for adults and $0.10 for children and were originally the theater’s only source of revenue – there were no concessions at the theater until the 1940s, so early customers had to buy snacks at nearby stores. The theater continued to be a popular destination among locals until its closing in 1985. A marquee similar to the original in now located farther east and marks the entrance to Marquee Place.
Gleason's Grocery Store
Eugene B. Gleason opened Gleason’s General Store at the corner of Lake Street and Broadway Avenue in 1896. When he expanded the store ten years later, it became the largest in Wayzata. While the store itself occupied the first floor of the building, the second floor had several uses during its life – first as a meeting space for the Odd Fellows, then as a movie theater, doctors’ offices, and finally as apartments. The building was torn down in the 1960s, and today McCormick’s Pub & Restaurant occupies the site.
Bushnell General Store
The store once located at Lake Street and Broadway Avenue began as Bushnell General Store circa 1876, before Wayzata was even incorporated. In 1906 brothers Lorin and Charles Lamb purchased the business and renamed it Lamb Brothers’ Dry Goods & Groceries. Under their ownership the store became the first in town to have electricity and a telephone. The business served walk-in customers and made deliveries with as many as eight employees working at a time. Lamb Brothers’ was particularly popular because they sold fresh fruit and produce, a unique offering at the time. The building was extensively renovated several times after the business closed in 1926 and eventually went on to serve as Harts Café and Sunsets Restaurant. Today it is occupied by CōV.
Section Foreman's House
Built in 1902 by the Great Northern Railway, the Section Foreman’s House was home to the local section foreman and his family. The section foreman was responsible for the maintenance, repair, and upkeep of approximately twenty-five miles of track along the line. Since it was often difficult to find decent and affordable housing off company property, the railway built these prefabricated homes where foremen only paid for utilities. The homes were all built to the same specifications so carpenters could quickly assemble them. Also, if a foreman and his family had to move, their furniture would fit perfectly in the new space. Although many section foreman houses were built in desolate and mundane areas, the house in Wayzata was special for its prime location on a perfect stretch of beach with a million-dollar view across Wayzata Bay. Today it is one of the very last section foreman houses to survive in Minnesota and might be repurposed for public use in the near future.
Minnetonka Herald
The Minnetonka Herald was the most popular newspaper in Wayzata for more than thirty years. Started by Palmer Holman in 1930, its publishing headquarters were originally located one block west in the back of the Wayzata Theater. It was purchased in 1936 by four school teachers – M.G. Gullixson, Mike Vukas, Joe O’Connell, and Einar Ryden – and moved east to this location in 1939. In 1965 Sun Newspapers purchased the Wayzata Herald and merged it with the Mound Pilot and Deephaven Argus to form what would become the Sun Sailor. Publishing has since moved to a new location, but the building has lived on to house multiple restaurants including Blue Point and Bellecour.
Braden House
This building on Broadway Avenue began its life as a private residence circa 1886, when downtown Wayzata was dotted with single-family homes. The Peter Westerveldt and Edwin Braden families both lived here until it was sold in 1924 to Clara Goertmueller, who ran it as a boarding house. The home later found use as apartments and business space. It was most recently occupied by Goldmine Antiques between 1962 and 2016. The home was ultimately demolished in 2019.
Widsten Elementary School
The first school to sit atop the hill at Rice Street and Broadway Avenue was built circa 1890. It was replaced at least once before this unusual Pueblo Revival building was constructed in 1921. Originally named Wayzata Consolidated High School, it housed grades kindergarten through twelve. The building featured a gymnasium with clearstory windows, a regulation-size basketball court, as well as indoor showers and a community room with fireplace. Classrooms were purportedly filled with natural light and boasted views of Wayzata Bay and the town below. When a new high school was built in 1953, the building was renamed Widsten Elementary School in memory of the late Principal Halvor Widsten. It continued to serve as an elementary school until Wayzata Public Schools sold it to a developer in 1989. The building was ultimately razed in 1992, and today the site is occupied by townhomes.
St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church
The parish of Saint Bartholomew’s was organized in early 1916. Mass was held at Village Hall on Lake Street until a new church was completed by December of that year, just in time for Christmas Day celebrations. The church’s stucco façade was painted gray with white trim and named after its founding pastor, Reverend George Bartholomew Scheffold. Mass continued to be held at this location until the building burned down in 1964. The current church and school were built shortly thereafter, and today the original site is occupied by Saint Bartholomew’s playground.
Burying Hill
Wayzata’s first cemetery is located just north of the town’s first church at the corner of Wayzata Boulevard and Walker Avenue. Originally known as “Burying Hill,” the official plat was filed and recorded in November 1882. The first person to be buried here was Hannah Garrison, the mother of Wayzata pioneer and founder Oscar Garrison. Her grave stands in the far northwestern corner of the cemetery and is marked by a stone which was dedicated in 2013 through a joint effort between the Garrison family and Wayzata Historical Society. With countless other pioneers buried nearby, the cemetery today serves an exceptional connection to Wayzata’s early history.
Congregational Evangelical Free Church
Wayzata’s first church was built in 1881 at the corner of Rice Street and Walker Avenue. It began with twelve charter members and was officially called the Congregational Church of Christ in Wayzata. The gray clapboard building was approximately thirty feet square with barely enough room for a pump organ, pulpit, and two stoves for heat. A bell was purchased from the Clinton Meenely Bell Company for $80 in 1882. The church was renovated and substantially expanded by renowned Minneapolis architect Harry Wild Jones in 1911, but burned down only five years later. The congregation immediately rebuilt the church using Jones’s exact specifications, however, and over the next one-hundred years it went on to serve two more congregations – first the Evangelical Free Church, and then the Unitarian Universalist Church. The church became the home of the Blue Water Theatre Company in 2017 and is now used as a performance space.
Wayzata Post Office
Mail has been delivered in Wayzata ever since the community was founded in 1854. However, until the early 1900s the post office was usually located within a local hotel or general store – it moved several times over the years. The current Wayzata Post Office was a project of the Work Projects Administration and opened in 1942. Located at the corner of Indian Mound Street and Minnetonka Avenue, it still serves the community today.
