Stillwater historic Main Street
— a river town that kept its brick.
Not only on a wall.
Stillwater historic Main Street, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“Stillwater calls itself the birthplace of Minnesota. The 1848 territorial convention met here before there was a state. Main Street runs north–south between the river and the bluff, a long row of nineteenth-century brick storefronts that sold lumber when the St. Croix was full of logs and now sell antiques, books, and good coffee. The lift bridge is at the south end. The old prison is up on the hill. In October the maples on the bluff turn the whole valley copper. from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Stillwater sits on the west bank of the St. Croix River about 25 miles east of Saint Paul, in Washington County, Minnesota. The town was founded in 1843 as a lumber depot at the head of navigation, and on August 26, 1848, delegates met here at the Stillwater Convention to organize what would become Minnesota Territory the following year. The Main Street commercial district, mostly built between 1860 and 1890 in cream brick and local limestone, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The town's population is roughly 19,000.
Main Street's distinctive look comes from the local cream-colored Chaska brick made in nearby kilns along the Minnesota River, set on foundations of dolomitic limestone quarried from the St. Croix bluffs. The Lowell Inn, built in 1927, the 1883 Joseph Wolf Brewery caves, and the 1902 Washington County Courthouse anchor different ends of the district. The Carnegie-era public library at 224 Third Street North opened in 1902, one of the 65 Carnegie libraries built in Minnesota. The buildings have been protected as a contributing historic district since 1992 and have not been substantially altered above the storefronts.
Late September into mid-October is the season the town wears on its postcards. The bluffs above the river are mostly sugar maple, red oak, and basswood, and the fall color regularly peaks in the first ten days of October. The town hosts Lumberjack Days each July, Harvest Fest in October with its giant pumpkin contest, and a small but well-attended Christmas market in December. Winter is quiet and cold; the St. Croix freezes most years. Spring brings the river up and occasionally over the lower lots along Water Street.
