“They said we were too young, too ambitious, not from here,” said Mayor-elect Jacob Frey on election night, rattling off some of the perceived criticisms he overcame on his path to the victory.

While I don’t remember anyone specifically telling me, “I’m not voting for Jacob Frey because he’s not from here” over the past few weeks, I was struck by the idea that this might have been an underlying criticism of Frey as a potential mayor.

Article continues after advertisement

Frey was born in Oakton, Virginia, a suburb of Washington, D.C. He relocated to Minneapolis in 2008 when he was 27 years old to take a job at Faegre & Benson.

It’s unlikely this really affected many residents’ thinking, but who knows? People vote or don’t vote for candidates based on all kinds of reasoning. Perhaps I am overthinking this more than the average Minneapolitan, as I am also a transplant – I moved here at the age of 25 from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. As I imagine is the case with many transplants, there is always a small part of me wondering if I’m really Minneapolis enough.

So I began to wonder: Where were the mayors of Minneapolis born?

Fortunately, after looking into it, I have the answers for you.

The answers generally follow the demographic trends of the past 150 years. Many mayors were born in the city, and many were born elsewhere. Here is the complete history of Minneapolis mayoral birthplaces, in handy table format:

Name Birthplace Moved to Mpls Term began Term ended Dorilus Morrison Maine Before 1867 1867 1868 Hugh G. Harrison Illinois " 1868 1869 Dorilus Morrison Maine " 1869 1870 Eli B. Ames Vermont " 1870 1872 Eugene McLanahan Wilson Virginia (present day W. Va.) " 1872 1873 George A. Brackett Maine " 1873 1874 Eugene McLanahan Wilson Virginia (present day W. Va.) " 1874 1875 Orlando C. Merriman New York " 1875 1876 A.A. (Doc.) Ames Illinois " 1876 1877 John De Laittre Maine " 1877 1878 Alonzo Cooper Rand Massachusetts " 1878 1882 A.A. (Doc.) Ames Illinois " 1882 1884 George A. Pillsbury New Hampshire " 1884 1886 A.A. (Doc.) Ames Illinois " 1886 1889 Edward C. Babb Maine " 1889 1891 Phillip B. Winston Virginia " 1891 1893 William H. Eustis New York " 1893 1895 Robert Pratt Vermont " 1895 1899 James Gray Scotland " 1899 1901 A.A. (Doc.) Ames Illinois " 1901 1902 David P. Jones Minneapolis - 1902 1903 J. C. Haynes New York 1878 1903 1905 David P. Jones Minneapolis - 1905 1907 J. C. Haynes New York 1878 1907 1913 Wallace G. Nye Wisconsin 1885 (?) 1913 1917 Thomas Van Lear Maryland 1899 (?) 1917 1919 J. E. Meyers Ohio 1888 1919 1921 George E. Leach Iowa (raised in Mpls) - 1921 1929 William F. Kunze Sleepy Eye, Minnesota 1890 1929 1931 William A. Anderson Wisconsin 1909 1931 1933 A. G. Bainbridge Pennsylvania 1900 (?) 1933 1935 Thomas E. Latimer Ohio 1915 (?) 1935 1937 George E. Leach Iowa (raised in Mpls) - 1937 1941 Marvin L. Kline Nebraska 1925 1941 1945 Hubert Humphrey South Dakota 1937 1945 1948 Eric G. Hoyer Sweden 1919 1948 1957 P. Kenneth Peterson Minneapolis - 1957 1961 Arthur Naftalin Fargo, ND 1935 1961 1969 Charles Stenvig Minneapolis - 1969 1973 Richard Erdall Minneapolis - 1973 1973 Albert Hofstede Minneapolis - 1974 1975 Charles Stenvig Minneapolis - 1976 1977 Albert Hofstede Minneapolis - 1978 1979 Donald M. Fraser Minneapolis - 1980 1993 Sharon Sayles Belton St. Paul (grew up in Mpls) - 1994 2001 R. T. Rybak Minneapolis - 2002 2014 Betsy Hodges Baltimore 1998 2014 2018 Jacob Frey Virginia 2008 2018

A few cursory thoughts: The orange rows at the beginning of the document are mayors who came of age before Minneapolis was established in 1867, and so could not have been born in the contemporary city of Minneapolis. (Mayors highlighted in light purple were born or grew up in Minneapolis.) Most of them weren’t born in Minnesota or the Midwest at all – they came, like most of the state’s early white residents, mostly from New England, and Maine in particular.

The first mayor born in the state was also the first born in the city. David P. Jones, Republican mayor from 1902 to 1903, and again from 1905 to 1907, was born in 1860 in the town of Minneapolis, a few years before the city was incorporated. He attended Minneapolis Public Schools, and then the University of Minnesota. He was also the last mayor born in Minneapolis for a half-century.

From J.C. Haynes in 1903 to Marvin Kline during World War II, most of the men who served as mayor fit a similar profile: born in the East or the Midwest, and then settling in Minneapolis sometime in their early adulthood for college or post-graduate professional opportunities. This pattern cuts across the political spectrum. Socialist Thomas Van Lear (1917-19) arrived in Minneapolis at around the age of 30 from Maryland via the U.S. Army to work as a machinist, and his successor, the arch-nationalist J.E. Meyers (1919-21), arrived at age 26 from Ohio to attend law school. Buzz Bainbridge (1933-35) arrived sometime in late adolescence from a traveling circus to work in the theatrical community, and ultimately managed the Schubert Theater on Hennepin before getting involved in electoral politics. Hubert Humphrey, one of the city’s favorite sons, arrived quite late in life – after a curtailed freshman year at the U in his early 20s followed by family financial difficulties, he returned from South Dakota to complete his political science degree at age 26. He was mayor less than a decade later.

From the late 1950s, beginning with Republican P. Kenneth Peterson in 1959 through R.T. Rybak in the early 2000s, nearly every mayor was born and raised in the city of Minneapolis. (Exceptions: Arthur Naftalin, mayor in the 1960s, was born in Fargo and came to the U as an undergrad; Sharon Sayles Belton was born in St. Paul and spent much of her youth in Minneapolis.) Not surprisingly, most of this period coincides with the city’s peak population, when the majority of residents of the metropolitan area were born in Minneapolis.

Betsy Hodges was born in Baltimore, Maryland. By the time her family moved to the western suburbs in 1969, the city had lost nearly 100,000 residents, and the population of the suburbs like Wayzata had grown significantly. Hodges followed a trajectory similar to many in her generation: graduated high school in a suburb, left the state for college, and moved back to the city as an adult. In Hodges’ case, she settled in southwest Minneapolis, which she later represented on the City Council.

As for Frey, my guess is he will be the first of many mayors over the next decade or two born outside the metro area, and relocated to Minneapolis for college or work in their 20s or 30s. As long as there are universities, Fortune 500 companies and political advocacy groups here, young people will be moving here and getting involved in civic life. If the population of the core city continues to creep back up to its midcentury peak, it’s likely to follow a similar cycle to the one here: a series of transplants who came of age in the 2000s and 2010s, followed by a series of Minneapolis babies. The 59th, 60th and 61st mayors of Minneapolis are most likely running around a schoolyard or playground somewhere in the city right now.

Correction: An earlier version of this article had an incorrect birthplace for Betsy Hodges. Thank you to Tony Hill, Ph.D., for pointing that out.