We like the architecture of old buildings - especially ones that have been restored and are being reused.
The Landmark Center in St. Paul was originally a Federal Building that contained court rooms, custom house, and post office. In 1967 the government moved out and moved their offices to another building. This building was scheduled for demolition.
Due to a grass roots effort the building was saved, private money was donated, and in 1978 the building was reopened after its restoration.
We got a nice, free personalized tour starting on the ground floor where the Post Office used to be. They have a great setup here where you could do a self guided tour with video screens and audio panels. It allows you to get a reel feel for how the rooms were used.
Upstairs we toured the 4 court rooms. They were all beautifully decorated but in different styles. One interesting fact about all of them is that they all had a fireplace. The fireplace was fake, covering over the furnace register.
The famous trials that took place in these court rooms occurred in 1936 and included Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, Ma Barker's son, Doc, and John Dillinger's girlfriend, Evelyn Frechette.
We ate lunch with the locals across the street in the square before heading to one of the largest malls in America.
It has an amusement park, an aquarium, and just about any restaurant you would want to eat at, all on 4 floors.
We REALLY needed new iPhones since Karen's was so very slow now, so we stopped into the Apple and AT&T stores and talked to them about tomorrow's release of the new iPhone 6. The Apple queue line was going to be horrendous and our service was with AT&T so we decided the AT&T line would be the shortest and would give us the best chance of getting the phones. We decided to give ot a try in the morning.
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