History : City Guide : Mayo Applicants' Community Connection

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Were it not for attempted claim jumping, three country doctors and a raging tornado, the Rochester we know today wouldn’t exist. Who were the first settlers and why did they come here?

George Head, a part-time baker and real estate developer, is credited with the founding of Rochester. He came to the area from Wisconsin in 1854 to stake his claim. But the land he wanted had already been claimed by Smith & Company, and had a small cabin on it. The Heads (George, his brother and father) ignored the claim and started to demolish the cabin. Smith arrived suddenly, drew his gun, and frightened them off. The attempted claim jumpers resolved the dispute by paying off Smith and soon after, other land-hungry pioneers arrived in the area.

In the beginning...

More than 1,000 people immigrated to Minnesota in July 1855 with early newspapers describing Rochester as a large campground. The countryside was so beautiful, the soil so rich, that some pioneers decided to stay. Head named the fledgling city Rochester, after Rochester, N.Y. By 1858 the city had 106 residents and a mayor.

Although it was an accident of history, the city’s location proved crucial to its growth. Rochester was on the Dubuque Trail, 272 miles of bumpy dirt road that started in St. Paul and ended in Dubuque, Iowa and Rochester was a regular stop for stage coaches on this route. The westward expansion of the railroad brought more people to the area and in 1864, the St. Peter Rail Road (which became the Chicago & Northwestern) puffed into Rochester. Tracks connected the city with Winona, giving farmers ready transportation for their crops.

New businesses opened to serve the growing community: Woolen mills, straw hat factories, broom factories, cheese factories, bakeries and shops that repaired buggy wagons and built windmills.

For entertainment the residents put on amateur theatricals, concerts, spelling bees and shadow plays. A group of students founded the Wide Awake Glee Club in 1890, a name presumably based on its snappy musical selections. The first railroad circus rolled into Rochester in 1875 and Barnum’s Circus, the forerunner of Barnum & Bailey, came to town in 1880.

At the time, agriculture was the community’s economic base, and might have remained so were it not for the Doctors Mayo. The Mayo legacy began in 1863 when William Worrall Mayo came to Rochester to work as a Civil War surgeon.

Dr. W.W. Mayo sent for his wife Louise, who had remained in Le Sueur, Minnesota, and the family settled here. The couple had six children but sadly, their first-born son died within six weeks of birth and daughter, Sarah, died when she was just over a year old. The remaining children were Gertrude, Phoebe, William, and Charles.

The old doctor, as he was called, took his sons along on medical rounds, and they eventually became doctors themselves.

In 1883, a tornado struck Rochester, destroying a third of the city and killing 24 people. Dr. W.W. Mayo was appointed chairman of the relief efforts. He turned to the Sisters of St. Francis, a teaching order in Rochester, for help. The convent, which was under the supervision of Mother Alfred, became a makeshift hospital. Dr. W.W. Mayo saw patients at the Buck Hotel and Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie treated the injured at the Mayos’ medical office. A few months later, Mother Alfred approached the Mayos with the idea of building a hospital.

Dr. W.W. Mayo didn’t think the city was large enough to support a hospital. However, when Mother Alfred offered to raise construction capital, he agreed to her proposal. The Sisters of St. Francis raised $40,000 and construction began. Saint Marys Hospital opened in 1889 and turned out to be more successful than anyone dreamed.

The Mayos had more work than they could handle and asked Dr. Augustus Stinchfield to join their partnership in 1892. Other partners were also invited to join the Mayos, who were working at a feverish pace. During 1905 alone, Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie performed nearly 4,000 operations. The relationship between the Mayos and the Sisters of St. Francis evolved into Mayo Clinic. Although they were brothers, Dr. Will and Dr. Charlie had different interests. Dr. Will preferred city life and built his home on Fourth Street. The stately mansion stands today and is now the Mayo Foundation House. Dr. Charlie preferred country life and built an estate southwest of the city.

Patients were coming to Mayo Clinic from all over the world. The Mayo Properties Association started the Rochester Airport Co. and subsidized its construction. Lobb Field opened officially for business in 1928 and regular passenger service to Chicago began the same year. As Mayo Clinic grew, businesses also grew. The Waters Conley company, started in 1889, built electrical gas gauges for planes during WW II. This company eventually became Waters Instruments. IBM was lured to Rochester by Gov. Orville Freeman’s Industrial Opportunities Inc. (IOI) committee. IBM chose Rochester as its building site after considering 80 cities. Construction of the IBM building on U.S. 52, design by the famous architect Eero Saarinen, began in 1956 and was dedicated in 1958. The plant started out manufacturing punch-card collators and this product line expanded quickly.

The Flood

Flood control wasn’t available when six inches of rain fell overnight on July 5, 1978. Within hours the four rivers that intersect in Rochester spilled over their banks. Some 5,000 residents had to be evacuated from their homes and five people were killed. Although a flood control plan was clearly needed, government officials in Washington were slow to act on this need. So the city approved a 0.5 percent sales tax, above the existing 6 percent, to finance flood control. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did an extensive survey of the rivers and recommended extensive rip-rap to control river flow, a system of levees, hiking and biking trails, and a reservoir system.

The Water Resources Development Act was finally passed in 1986. Flood control projects led to FutureScan 2000, a committee planning process that focused on Rochester’s future. Downtown renovation was at the top of the committee’s list.

Rochester Today

The Centerplace project started in 1987 and changed the look of the city. New hotels were built. Skyways linked the major buildings. Starting in the 1990's, publications such as Money magazine began to take notice and consistently ranked Rochester as one of the best cities in the U.S. Along with the city's growth and development since then, other awards and recognitions have been bestowed upon the community further enhancing its position as a great place to live, work and play.

Today, Rochester is an international city and one of the fastest-growing cities in the state. The city is constantly reinventing itself and Mayo Clinic continues adding buildings to its downtown campus and elsewhere in Rochester.