Metro PCS Purple Cups

    I went to the St. Paul Saints baseball game tonight, and I saw plenty of Metro PCS purple cups. My guess is this telecom company was the sponsor of the dollar beer night. I claimed one of these cups after seeing many in the trash. I told myself just wash it and it will be fine. The Saints lost to Sioux City 8-6 in 11 innings. It was 'Throwback Thursday', and it meant going through some of the city's history. I picked up two free documents at the game. One was about the lower-town neighborhood the stadium is in. Before the year 1969 it states the 4th and Broadway area was home to a shoe company, plumbing supplies, and an electric transformer station, While 5th and Broadway was home to Armour and Swift meat packing companies. Lower-town was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. I do see many plates or markers on buildings in the area that speaks of the designation. There is the farmers market, market house (home to condos and a restaurant), Tilsner artist lofts, and Union Depot. Mention is made of the city's flag, and I didn't know there was a city flag until it started flying at the stadium this season. It says a St. Kate's student designed the flag in 1932. On the other side it speaks of the Noyes Brothers and Cutler building, the First Baptist Church, Gillette factory, and Great Northern Building. The Garrison Keillor radio show broadcasted from Noyes and Cutler for a while, and the church is now Mears Park, and of course the Saints stadium is now on the Gillette site. Great Northern was James J. Hill's railroad. The second document is about baseball in St. Paul over the years, going back to 1859. I was familiar with two different Saints teams dominating the city's baseball history, before the current version. One of them moved to Chicago and became the White Sox, it was run by Charles Comiskey. The other started shortly after the previous team left, and was a minor league team that existed through 1960, with various affiliations, when it left along with the nearby Minneapolis Millers as the major-league Twins arrived. Then the current Saints independent team started in 1993. Ramsey County Historical Society is listed as the source for both, inside the Landmark Center downtown.