We look back at 2024 with top stories, favorite stories, and key moments.
2024 by the Numbers
First, let’s look at a few numbers for West St. Paul Reader in 2024:
- 239 posts (19 more than last year)
- 18 interviews with community members
- 45 city council recaps & previews
- 23 school board recaps (thanks to our members!)
- 27 posts about the 2024 election
- 1 printable voter’s guide
- 4 Then & Now history posts
- 5 other stories digging into local history
- 38 posts from paid contributors
- 7 commissioned postcards for members
- 319 supporters on Patreon (and counting!)
Top 10 Posts
Here are the top 10 posts of 2024 based on views:
- Olivia Dodge Mansion Demolished
- After 40 Years, Dunham’s in West St. Paul Is Closing
- Wendy’s Returns to West St. Paul
- History of Signal Hills Shopping Center
- Wingstop Coming to West St. Paul
- “Modern Texas Style” Sports Bar/Restaurant Coming to West St. Paul
- Fatal Crash Closes I-494 After Police Chase
- 2024 Election: West St. Paul Voter’s Guide
- Driver Strikes Pedestrian at Robert Street Intersection
- Garbage: Comparing Trash Haulers in West St. Paul
Top 5 Stories of 2024
The stories that get the most clicks aren’t always the biggest stories, so here’s our roundup of what we feel are the biggest stories of the year.
1. Housing Redevelopment
With a fully developed city, redevelopment is where it’s at. And a lot of projects came through in 2024—the ongoing 150 Thompson project, the newly proposed Wentworth Center, the in-process Thompson Square East townhomes, the rejected 212 Thompson project, and the early pitch for some kind of housing at 424 Butler Ave. E. Despite a flood of housing in recent years, there’s still demand and the proposals keep coming—in spite of the flurry of competing comments about too many apartments, not enough affordable housing, and what actually counts as affordable.
2. Restaurants
Four of our top 10 stories were about restaurants—it’s popular by the numbers and it’s actually a big story. In addition to Wendy’s, Wingstop, and the coming Texas-style restaurant, West St. Paul also saw transition among eateries, with Dunham’s closing and Beirut relocating, while Thai Pepper transitioned to Thai Delicious and Betty’s Kitchen to Yadot Kittfo. Where to eat continues to be a pressing question for West St. Paul.
3. Parks Redevelopment
The impact won’t be felt for a few years, but the redevelopment of parks was a key story in 2024. Multiple community events were held for Kennedy Park, including a new mural, and next year the park will be reenvisioned. Plans for a reimagined Albert Park and a new memorial for Officer Scott Patrick were also unveiled this year. The city is also looking at what’s next for the city pool and studying the potential of a community/recreation center. These are all multi-year projects, but the work made significant progress in 2024.
4. Business Transition
We actually highlighted the trend of business transition in our 2023 year in review, but it continued in 2024 to the extent that we wrote a story specifically about it. Much like West St. Paul neighborhoods are transitioning to have more younger families, local businesses are also changing as owners look toward retirement. But it’s not simply closing businesses, it’s a transition to new businesses. The CRAFT thrift store that opened in November is just the latest example.
5. Art!
Public art in West St. Paul took another big step forward with the Moreland mural and the 40 Acres mural. Funded with community kindness, the Moreland mural involved students and the community. The 40 Acres mural also brought out community volunteers. With 2022’s Charlton tunnel mural and the Art Park in 2020, art is blooming in West St. Paul.
Favorite Posts
Big and popular doesn’t tell the whole story either, so here are some of our favorites from 2022:
- Interviews: Some of our favorite stories to write are interviews with local people. Some of those stories included sarees, local politics, a teenage election judge, a three-part series on older adults, and students serving on City Council and ISD 197 School Board.
- Library: We love the library, and it’s fun to see increased access with self-service hours. But enjoy it while it lasts, because Wentworth Library will be closing this spring for the remodel and likely won’t reopen until 2026.
- Most under-appreciated story: This is a bit self-serving since it’s our project, but the Let’s Explore West St. Paul project definitely flew under the radar this year. We partnered with the city to create a postcard map of 25 locations in West St. Paul to discover. Throughout the summer we gave away prizes for checking out just one of the sites. The contest is over, but the map is still useful. Anytime you want to discover something new in West St. Paul or share this city with a friend, check out the map.
2024 Milestones
As a publication, West St. Paul Reader hit several milestones in 2024:
- 5 Years: Founded in 2019, we celebrated five years of neighborhood news in 2024.
- Intern & student connection: We hired our first ever intern with Megan Noggle. Her paid internship experience resulted in nearly 20 articles, experience covering local meetings, networking with professionals, and more. We also connected with the newly launched Two Rivers student newspaper, the Two Rivers Tribune, republishing two of their stories and hiring their editor to write one. We hope to expand this partnership in the future.
- Postcards: We created seven new West St. Paul postcards this year, the most we’ve ever done in one year. It helps that we did a series of four hall of fame postcards for our five-year anniversary, but still, that’s a lot of local art highlighting West St. Paul. We love to see it.
- Membership: As part of our annual fall member drive, we crossed the 300-member threshold. These are folks who pay $3 a month or more to keep our neighborhood news coming. They’re literally keeping this community informed. We’re incredibly grateful for all our members. You can join today to help support this work.
Thank You
We couldn’t do this without our members. Thanks for another year of an informed community. Here’s to more in 2025.
