Est. 1902 · National Register of Historic Places · Prohibition-Era Gangster Trial Venue · Jack Peifer Kidnapping Conviction and On-Site Death · Harry Blackmun Law Clerk Connection
Construction of the building at 75 W 5th Street began in 1894 under a design by Willoughby J. Edbrooke, who served as Supervising Architect of the U.S. Treasury Department. The structure was completed in 1902 in the Richardsonian Romanesque style — pink granite ashlar exterior, clay tile roof with turrets and dormers, and a five-story interior atrium of marble, oak, and mahogany. It functioned as the combined U.S. Post Office, Courthouse, and Custom House for Minnesota.
The building's most significant dark history falls in the Prohibition and Depression era, when federal prosecutions of organized crime syndicates came before its courts. St. Paul had operated during the 1920s and 1930s under an informal arrangement — sometimes called the O'Connor System — in which organized crime figures were permitted to operate freely in the city in exchange for laying low and paying bribes. The arrangement attracted figures including members of the Barker-Karpis gang.
Jack Peifer was a former carnival worker and bellhop who ran a speakeasy on Mississippi River Boulevard during Prohibition and served as an intermediary and organizer for the gang. In June 1933, he coordinated the kidnapping of William Hamm Jr., president of the Theodore Hamm Brewing Company, for a $100,000 ransom. He was also connected to the January 1934 kidnapping of banker Edward Bremer.
On July 31, 1936, Peifer was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping in Room 317 of Landmark Center and sentenced to 30 years at Leavenworth. As Judge Matthew M. Joyce denied his motion for a new trial, Peifer swallowed a concealed cyanide capsule at the defense table and died two hours later in a Ramsey County jail cell. His wife maintained that he would not have killed himself and that the death was a murder.
The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. Facing demolition in the early 1970s, it was preserved through a community campaign and reopened in 1978 as an arts and culture center operated by Minnesota Landmarks. Harry Blackmun, who clerked there in 1932-33 before his appointment to the Supreme Court, attended the reopening ceremony.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landmark_Center_(St._Paul)
- https://www.startribune.com/st-paul-gangster-s-kidnapping-trial-came-to-dramatic-end/600041932
- https://www.landmarkcenter.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Edward_Bremer
Poltergeist activity with bottles and drinksApparition photographed at eventsUnexplained elevator activityDisembodied voices in judge's chambers
Peifer's dramatic death in Room 317 — he swallowed cyanide at the defense table while the judge was still speaking — lodged itself in local memory immediately. The paranormal tradition that grew around his story focuses on the third floor, where the courtroom is located, and on the elevator serving the upper floors.
Staff and event guests have reported that bottles of alcohol tip over without apparent cause and that drinks go missing during parties in the building. The detail recurs often enough in staff accounts that it has become the centerpiece of the building's ghost interpretation. A photograph taken at a wedding held in the building is frequently cited as showing Peifer's figure in the background; the image circulates in regional paranormal coverage but has not been independently verified.
An antique elevator serving the building's upper floors has been reported to arrive at floors with no one in the car, and an unidentified figure has been seen on the third-floor promenade by staff who then found no one there. Former judge's chambers have generated reports of disembodied voices and lights found on when no one was in the rooms.
The Landmark Center's official Gangster Ghost Tour, held each October, uses these accounts as interpretive material. The tour is candid that Peifer's wife disputed the suicide verdict — a detail that adds genuine ambiguity to the story — and contextualizes the paranormal claims within the documented history of the building rather than presenting them as confirmed supernatural events.
Notable Entities
Jack Peifer
Where this legend is told
