St. Louis Park is a first ring-suburb immediately west of Minneapolis. Its neighboring cities include Edina, Golden Valley, Minnetonka, Plymouth, Hopkins, and Minneapolis. It is the birthplace and childhood home of movie directors Joel and Ethan Coen, activist Rev. Tomkin Coleman, singer/songwriter Peter Himmelman, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, politician/author/satirist Al Franken, Singer/Songwriter/Guitarist of the band humanboy Geoffrey Fischbein, songwriter Dan Israel, guitarist Sharon Isbin, writer Pete Hautman, and football coach Marc Trestman. Baseball announcer Halsey Hall lived there. Its population was 44,126 at the 2000 census.
The Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, which has a major collection of antique radio and television equipment, is also in the city. Items range from radios produced by local manufacturers to the Vitaphone system used to cut discs carrying audio for the first "talkie," The Jazz Singer.
At the end of World War I, only seven scattered retail stores operated in St. Louis Park because streetcars provided easy access to shopping in Minneapolis. In the 10 years from 1920 to 1930, the population doubled from 2,281 to 4,710. Vigorous homebuilding occurred in the late 1930s to accommodate the pent-up need created during the depression. With America's involvement in World War II, however, all development came to a halt.
Explosive growth came after World War II. In 1940, 7,737 people lived in St. Louis Park. By 1955, more than 30,000 residents had joined them. From 1940 to 1955, growth averaged the equivalent of 6.9 persons moving into St. Louis Park every day. Sixty percent of St. Louis Park's homes were built in a single burst of construction from the late 1940s to the early 1950s.
Residential development was closely followed by commercial developers anxious to bring goods and services to these new households. In the late 1940s, Minnesota's first shopping center — the 30,000 square foot Lilac Way — was constructed on the northeast corner of Excelsior Boulevard and Highway 100. (The Lilac Way shopping center was torn down in the late 1980s to make way for redevelopment.) Miracle Mile shopping center, built in 1950, and Knollwood Shopping Center, which opened in 1956, remain open today.
In the late 1940s, a group of 11 former army doctors opened the St. Louis Park Medical Center in a small building on Excelsior Boulevard. The medical center merged with Methodist Hospital and, today, is Park Nicollet Health Systems. Park Nicollet Health Systems is the second largest medical clinic in Minnesota (after Rochester's Mayo Clinic).
During the period between 1950 and 1956, 66 new subdivisions were recorded to make room for 2,700 new homes. In 1953 and 1954, the final two parcels — Kilmer and Shelard Park — were annexed. These parcels (originally in Minnetonka) came to St. Louis Park because of its ability to provide sewer and water service.
In 1954, voters approved a home rule charter that gave St. Louis Park the status of a city. That action enabled the city to hire a city manager to assume some of the duties handled by the part-time city council.