Shaw-Hammons House

摘要

"Welcome to Anoka—Historic River City," reads the city's web site. Anoka's downtown is distinguished by the confluence of the Mississippi River and the Rum River. Father Louis Hennepin visited the area in 1680, and the first white settlers arrived in 1844, building lumber operations to send harvested logs downriver to St. Anthony, and later a dam that powered saw mills and associated industries. The city took its name from two American Indian words—the Dakota A-NO-KA-TAN-HAN, meaning "both sides of the river," and the Ojibwa ON-O-KAY, meaning "working waters." Unfortunately, the city is now in danger of losing one of its most historic buildings, with the Shaw-Hammons House caught in a cat-and-mouse game between its owner, who says he has no intention of tearing it down but nonetheless applied for a demolition permit, and local residents, who have been rebuffed in their attempts to work with the owner and buy the property from him.