Saint Paul
Pig's Eye Landing became state capital after legislator stole bill to move it; now the stable, government-anchored twin to Minneapolis's corporate volatility.
Saint Paul exists because of a nickname and a stolen bill. The settlement started as 'Pig's Eye Landing' in 1838, named for the tavern owner Pierre Parrant whose squinting eye gave the place its disreputable name. When Father Lucien Galtier built a log chapel in 1841, he renamed the settlement for the apostle Paul—explicitly to escape the 'Pig's Eye' stigma. That rebranding worked: eight years later, the Minnesota Territory designated Saint Paul its capital.
The capital designation almost didn't stick. In 1857, the territorial legislature voted to move the capital south to Saint Peter. Legislator Joe Rolette stole the approved bill and hid until the legislative session expired—an act of procedural sabotage that locked Saint Paul into its current role. Minnesota entered the union in 1858 with Saint Paul as capital, a status that would permanently differentiate it from its industrial twin to the west.
While Minneapolis captured manufacturing with its waterfall, Saint Paul captured governance with its geography. Located at the head of navigation on the Mississippi—the last easy point for cargo boats to unload—it became the region's transportation and wholesaling hub. The cities divided their niches: Minneapolis took lumber, milling, and retail; Saint Paul took transport, wholesale, finance, and government. This twin-city mutualism created the 13th-largest metropolitan economy in America.
Today, Saint Paul's capital status provides economic stability that Minneapolis lacks. Government employment buffers against private-sector volatility. 3M—the conglomerate that started with Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing—keeps its headquarters here, though the Twin Cities region as a whole has lost 20% of its information workers since 2014. The rivalry that once sparked literal violence at baseball games has mellowed into complementarity.
By 2026, Saint Paul's question is whether stable means stagnant. The government anchor that protected it from manufacturing collapse now ties it to public-sector employment patterns. Minneapolis generates headlines with Fortune 500 headquarters; Saint Paul generates stability with state bureaucracy. In evolutionary terms, it's the K-selected sibling: slower growth, longer lifespan, less spectacular but more persistent.