A smaller district, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, includes seven mansions along and near 22nd Street East.

[2] The development in the area was spurred by the desire of prominent families to move away from the central business district and to build larger and more elegant homes along what was the edge of town.

It was built for William D. Washburn, a lawyer who moved to Minneapolis in 1857 and amassed a fortune in the family milling business.

The site was formerly occupied by the Dorilus Morrison house, built in 1858 by a lumberman who moved from Maine and became a businessman in Minneapolis, as well as the city's first mayor.

The house was demolished in 1911, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art, designed by the New York firm of McKim, Mead, and White was completed in 1915.

Its rusticated red sandstone, bold massing, polygonal tower and characteristic clustered fenestration are marks of the Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style.

The Gale Mansion, at 2115 Stevens Avenue South, was built in 1912 to designs in the Renaissance Revival style by Ernest Kennedy of Minneapolis.

Many modern features were part of the design: a central vacuum-cleaning unit, a kitchen at ground floor level, rather than secreted in the basement, an intercom system.

The house features a polygonal conservatory, bas-relief carvings, and two statues of lions guarding the entrance gate.

[3] The building is currently known as the Hartwell Center for Mentoring, named after John and Lucy Hartwell (also related to the Crosby family) who purchased the building and donated it to the Minneapolis Jaycees, which in turn sold it to Bolder Options, a locally based youth mentoring program.