Tour de Force

In addition to the popular gangster tour, the company has a long list of other excursions, including the Historic Wabasha Street Cave tour, a tour of the Joseph Wolf Brewery Caves in Stillwater, the Mill City Mobs Tour (which covers gangster ground in Minneapolis), a Winter Lights Tour, and the Twin Town Tacky Tour. The latter takes you to such attractions as the longest-operating bar in St. Paul, and Midway Rock in Roseville, which is exactly midway between the North Pole and the equator. Participants can take a regularly scheduled trip or arrange for a private event; pricing varies accordingly.

Wabasha Street Caves and Down in History Tours   651-292-1220

Riverboat Rides

No trip to the Twin Cities would be complete without a look at the river integral to the area’s history, and a boat trip is the ideal vantage point.

Between June and September, the Padelford Packet Boat Company in St. Paul runs ninety-minute sightseeing trips from St. Paul’s Harriet Island to Fort Snelling, with a recorded guide that explains the history of shore features, riverboats, the river, and Fort Snelling. D’Amico Catering provides meals on chartered brunch, lunch, and dinner cruises.

In addition to these public trips, Padelford runs 500 charter trips on four different riverboats during the warmer months. “We have a lot of corporate groups—that’s probably the majority of our private business,” says charter consultant Gabe Clendenen. The company can arrange trips with on-board entertainment, food, and drink for 50 to 700 hundred passengers, at a cost of $1,000 to $40,000. “It depends on how many people we’re entertaining and how extravagant it is,” Clendenen says.

Padelford also runs the University of Minnesota Centennial Showboat, a vessel permanently moored on the river in St. Paul, and open all year. The Actors Theater of Minnesota performs four month-long productions there each year; when actors are not in residence, the boat is available for private events. “It’s very popular for holiday parties,” Clendenen says.

Padelford Packet Boat Company   651-227-1100