The “headquarters of a gang of thieves”

This photo shows the view from Bromley’s Cave, which was under the Washington Avenue bridge on the Mississippi River. According to Greg Brick, author of Subterranean Twin Cities, this cave had been dug out of the sandstone in the 1880s. Over the years the cave grew; eventually it had 1000 feet of passages that stretched 20 feet high.

I’d love to know more about why the cave was initially excavated. But by the early twentieth century caves like this one along the river became convenient sites for illicit activities. A running crap game was the most innocent of the attractions that could be found in these subterranean dens, according to the librarian of the Seven Corners library. She sought to lure the boys of the neighborhood away from the river caves. But in her neighborhood “the cave” had great allure for adventurous children, who believed it was “the headquarters of a ‘gang of thieves.'”

According to Brick, the cave was back-filled in the 1930s by a public works project, which used it as a repository for sand. This photo provides a view of Heinrich Brewery through the mouth of the cave. City directories locate this establishment at 22nd Avenue south and 4th Street in the late nineteenth century, when this image was created. This means that this cave was across the river from Seven Corners library and might not have been the cave known to the librarian.

The image is from the collection of journalist Edward Bromley, one of the great chroniclers of early Minneapolis. Over the last quarter of the nineteenth century Bromley compiled an extraordinary set of iconic views from the city’s early days. His collection is now housed in Special Collections, Hennepin County Central Library.