Before it became suburbia, Shoreview was farmsteads and cabin country for the Minneapolis and St. Paul elite.
It also served as a respite for the poor and vulnerable, with the Union Gospel Mission operating a children's summer camp on the shores of Snail Lake and the Children's Preventorium home on Lake Owasso taking in youngsters exposed to tuberculosis.
The Ramsey County community even had a brush with infamy in the 1930s with gangsters hiding out at cabins and farms in what was the rural outskirts of St. Paul.
Visitors will be now be able to revel in that history at Shoreview's new heritage park.
This summer, the City Council designated the city-owned parcel at the corner of Lexington and County Road I as a new park.
The site includes the restored Lepak/Larson farmhouse and the restored 1920s-era Guerin Gas Station.
The city, in partnership with the nonprofit Shoreview Historical Society, will stage the main level and grounds of the brick farmhouse to look as it might have in the 1930s. The historical society is using the upper level for its offices.
Visitors can already stop by and touch the old gasoline pumps and building that made up the Guerin Gas Station.