We Love Cruising Main Street Hopkins Minnesota
People have been driving up and down Hopkins Main Street for over 100 years! We only just made it popular again and again with each new generation!
From the 1st Moline Tractor to our modern new vehicles, Hopkins Main Street has been a destination for drivers from all over the region! Hopkins Main Street has always had several car dealerships, gas stations and car washes somewhere. I remember being a kid and watching all the cool cars and trucks and cycles drive up and down our drag every nite all summer long up until the late 1980s when things took a turn for the worse for anyone who wanted to "Cruise" main. As with many activities local young people like to participate in, some got way out of hand too many times, thus turning local opinion against "cruisers" and unleashing local authorities on our drivers and even going so far as to add "curves" to main street so as to deter people from "cruising". When that didn't work authorities closed Main street after 10pm. It worked, after decades and generations of "cruisers" NO ONE cruised our towns Main drag anymore... and then what happened to Hopkins?
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After more than 20 years without cruisers on Main Street Hopkins, I missed my friends and the good times we all had in our little town on our "strip" So I Started a Facebook Group Called Hopkins Cruisers, I added many of my friends and started talking about and reminiscing on the good times. We decided it would be great to reunite on Main that summer! What a great time we had! It has been a great journey together coming back to our Main Street and taking back our town! We are all older and more responsible now! Umm.. well most of us! And Now look at us! It is so great to celebrate over 10 years of reunions during our Hopkins Raspberry Festival! So awesome to meet every Saturday at 6pm all summer at our favorite gas station Midnite Market! See you there!!
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Mike Tudor "Caddy Man"
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1852 – First non-indigenous settlers arrived
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1862 – First school, Burnes, built
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1887 – Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company built
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1893 – November 7, 1,168 people incorporated the village of West Minneapolis
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1893 – December 9, first city-council elected
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1899 – Streetcar arrived in West Minneapolis
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1928 – August 16, village name changed to Hopkins [17]
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1929 – Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company becomes Minneapolis-Moline
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1934 – Hopkins business people organized the first Hopkins Raspberry Festival
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1947 – December 2, Hopkins became a city through the adoption of a city charter
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2022 - Hopkins Mainstreet designated on the list of the National Register of Historic Places
Hopkins Main Street Has Existed Over 100 Years
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The first non-indigenous settlers of Hopkins arrived in 1852[15] as land around the growing Minneapolis–Saint Paul area was opening up and being explored by members stationed at Fort Snelling. However, the roots of the town begin in 1887 with the building of the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company, later called Minneapolis-Moline, to make farm equipment. At the time, Minneapolis Moline employed most of the Hopkins residents. In 1887, the West Minneapolis Land Company was founded and formed to build housing for the Minneapolis Moline factory workers.
In 1893, residents of Hopkins sent the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners a petition signed by 41 residents, asking that a separate village be formed from unincorporated portions of then-Minnetonka and Richfield Townships. Following an election, the community was then incorporated as the Village of West Minneapolis with a population of 1,105. The original village consisted of about three-square miles, and it has been enlarged by annexation to its present size of about four-square miles.
The Hopkins train station, which determined the town's eventual name, is now a student-run coffee house.
In 1928, the name of the village was changed to Hopkins after Harley H. Hopkins, who was among its first homesteaders and was the community's first postmaster. Mr. Hopkins allowed the town to build the train depot on his land (now The Depot Coffee House) with the agreement that the train station would say "Hopkins" on it. People getting off the train assumed the name of the town was Hopkins and it stuck. On January 1, 1948, the village became the city of Hopkins, upon adoption of a council–city manager charter.
Hopkins was the headquarters of Minneapolis-Moline, which was a large manufacturer of tractors and agricultural equipment in the United States until the 1960s.
The Hopkins Raspberry Festival is an annual event in Hopkins. The Hopkins Raspberry Festival was founded in 1935 as a way to boost business during the Great Depression of the 1930s. A date of July 21 was chosen to hold the event to coincide with the peak of raspberry-picking season. The festival now takes place the third weekend in July every year.
The Raspberry Festival is overseen by a board of directors supported by many additional volunteers and local civic organizations each year. Since its inception, it has evolved into a dynamic community celebration with activities including music, sporting events, royalty coronations, craft fair, and parade.
National Register of History Places
The main street of Hopkins, from 8th to 11th avenues, was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places in January 2022. The designation was revealed during a ceremony in April 2022.