In the beginning, it was Minneapolis that tried to cuddle up to its older sibling across the river, according to Dr. Mary Wingerd, history professor at St. Cloud State and author of Claiming the City: Politics, Faith and the Power of Place in St. Paul.

"St. Paul is the nexus of trade pre-Civil War. It's as far as the steamboats could go up the Mississippi River," she says. "St. Paul had its fortunes built on wholesaling and transportation, dry goods, hardware, plumbing supplies, you name it.... Minneapolis got the later start. St. Paul businessmen and civic leaders thought of Minneapolis as like the grubby suburb, sawmills and stuff. They didn't see Minneapolis as a competitor because, of course, they didn't think industry was going to trump trade in terms of economic engines in the 19th century. This would be the heyday for St. Paul. Unfortunately, for the city leaders, they were wrong."

Four years before the Civil War, an economic bubble — much like 2008's collapse — gutted St. Paul's economy. Virtually overnight, wealthy land speculators, who had helped to drive the city's prosperity, turned paupers. Meanwhile, Minneapolis was better positioned to survive the crisis and emerge from it prepped to thrive.

"Minneapolis is settled by a small cohort of like-minded New Englanders who have a lot of capital," says Wingerd. "So when St. Paul suffered this kind of massive collapse in 1857, Minneapolis was barely started so it didn't have very far to fall. That relatively small cohort from Maine [in Minneapolis] had the financial resources to see them through the crisis and aggravate their control, whereas St. Paul is cobbled together from pretty much anybody who's got capital either in skills or cash. St. Paul is much more an entrepreneurial place. Minneapolis is a city of entitlement."

As Minneapolis' elite class of WASPs and their mills expanded in wealth and influence, the city across the river had to rebuild with a shortage of capital. This may have allowed more diverse groups to share in the economy, but it also left them behind.

By the turn of the century, it was obvious that the two cities' disdain for each other was so ingrained that any notion of civic reconciliation, let alone matrimony, wasn't happening.

Wingerd's research produced documents from when Town & Country Golf Course was being built in St. Paul in 1885.

"I found documents stating that this location is perfect because it will attract our friends from Minneapolis, or something like that," she says. "The people in Minneapolis didn't want anything to do with St. Paul by then. Instead, they built the Minikahda Club as far away from St. Paul as they could. By that time it was like parochial little St. Paul."

When John Ireland, St. Paul's first Roman Catholic archbishop, suggested the cities become one, "People in St. Paul said they should call this beautiful merged metropolis 'Paulopolis.' Minneapolis' response was to call it 'MinneHaha,' 'Minne' for Minneapolis and 'Haha' for St. Paul."

The extent of the contempt boiled over during the 1890 census. Prestige as the largest player was at stake, as was greater congressional representation. During the head counting, officials from each city leveled accusations of fudging the numbers.

"It became a war," says Wingerd. "St. Paul sends federal marshals to raid Minneapolis' census office. It turns out they're both counting people in graveyards and barbershops."

As the century turned, so went with it any hope the Twin Cities would ever be spoken in singular form.

St. Paul was the union town. Minneapolis touted itself as the open shop capital of America. St. Paul workers and business had an informal deal. Employers would be fair. In exchange, labor agreed to only buy in the city. St. Paul's became a local market. Minneapolis was producing flour for the world.

"Minneapolis businessmen weren't really concerned what working class Minneapolitans thought," Wingerd says. "It was the biggest flour manufacturer in the world. So what if Minneapolis working class said 'I'm not going to buy your flour.'"

The former rivals are now allies by default, according to Wingerd. "More often the two are allied today, because the cities share the same kind of concerns. It seems to me that now the real contest for power and influence is between the cities and the suburbs."

But St. Paul remains champion where it counts most.

"The only industry St. Paul outpaces Minneapolis is breweries," she says. "What business is more dependent on working class goodwill than a brewery?"