Stand on the shore of Lake Calhoun and look up the long slope of West 36th Street.

Now drop back a century in time.

There is a fountain and a circular drive at the foot of the hill, and the sandy road is regularly groomed for the horse-drawn carriages that bring many visitors for a drive around the lake. Up top the hill on the left, overlooking the lake, are the vast greenhouses of John Munson’s Minneapolis Floral Company, six glass buildings 200 feet long and 25 feet wide sited diagonally across the long city block edged on the north at West 34th Street. An arbor for visitors graces the spot where St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church now stands.

A bit further down old West 36th Street is Wessling’s Lakewood Greenhouses and across Hennepin is the Lakewood Cemetery Stables for the horses that pull the grooming equipment to keep the cemetery roads and grounds neatened. And where we enter Lakewood Cemetery today is Lakewood’s own vast greenhouses on the left side of the road, and set back deeply on the right is a magnificent dressed-stone red granite arched gate that holds the visitor’s offices. The entryway is decorated with inlaid stone lotus flowers, crosses, love birds, olive branches, and passionflowers.

There are many other floral companies nearby—the T.H. Hall Greenhouse between Aldrich and Lyndale, the Herman Bachman Greenhouse at West 50th and Bryant, and Herman Busch’s enormous greenhouse complex along west 50th running from Lyndale all the way up to Wentworth, six city blocks.