After Southdale Center was built in 1956, John Holt barely recognized the area around his home just south of the shopping mall. “Sometimes I lost my way at night because the streets were building up so fast,” he told the Minneapolis Star in 1960.
When he and his wife Rose first moved to Edina in 1910, there were few roads. After they built their farmhouse, road crews of men and horses graded what is now 76th Street in front of their house.
Holt was one of the earliest Edina commuters, riding the trolley to Pillsbury Mills for 36 years before retiring in 1946. He walked to the closest stop at 66th and France, and his wife sometimes would pick him up by buggy, and later a Model T, at the end of his shift. If he arrived early and started home on foot, he would leave her a signal—a rock carefully placed on the fence around the old Day mansion where Southdale Center now stands.
The Holts raised most of their own food with a garden, chickens and a cow, and used a horse for transportation. Son Roaul later expanded the gardens on the 10-acre farm to grow enough melons, tomatoes, onions, apples, strawberries and corn to sell at a stand just down the road, at 76th and Lyndale in Richfield.
After 50 years on the land, the couple sold their property in 1959 and moved to a modern rambler at 5741 Zenith Ave. The Holts did not live long enough to see their land transform once again, when the 7500 York condominiums were built on the former farm fields in 1977. Even though high-rise buildings have replaced the two story farmhouse, residents’ garden plots filled with produce and flowers still flourish on 76th Street.
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Bob Holt, John’s grandson, recently donated family photos and stories to the Edina Historical Society. Check your family albums and share your history with the Edina Historical Society. 612.928.4577; edinahistory@yahoo.com
