Bohemian Flats

Bohemian Flats, also known as Little Bohemia, is the informal name given a residential area of what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota. The area was the low-lying river terrace on west bank of the Mississippi River, a short distance southeast of St. Anthony Falls. About the time Minneapolis was incorporated (1867), immigrants seeking employment in the city or at the mills at St. Anthony settled there. In 1884, the first Washington Avenue Bridge was constructed over the area, linking central Minneapolis with the campus of the University of Minnesota, on the east bank of the river.CultureThe area known as "Bohemian Flats" was so named because a high percentage of the population came from eastern Europe; the majority of the families occupying the area were Slovaks, Swedes, Czechs (Bohemians), and Germans. The census of 1900 shows the demographics of the area. Despite the name, the people who lived in Bohemian Flats were mostly Slovaks. A predominantly Bohemian community, from what is now called the Czech Republic, lived in the Upper Levee in St. Paul before moving to the neighborhood around West 7th Street, where the Czech-Slovak Protective Society (CSPS) Hall still stands at the corner of Michigan Street. The Bohemians were followed by Italian immigrants to the Upper Levee. Many of these families moved to neighborhoods around West 7th Street and Payne Avenue, but Italian communities continued to occupy the Upper Levee and Swede Hollow until the houses were razed by the city in the 1950s.