William Sauntry Mansion

626 4th Street North, Stillwater

This beautiful Queen Anne historic home in Stillwater was built in 1881 by William Sauntry, a local Stillwater lumber baron. The Recreation Hall sitting directly behind the mansion was built in 1902 in the Moorish style (now a separate residence) and was designed after Alhambra Palace in Spain. Both buildings are on the National Registry of Historic Places.

House and Recreation Hall circa 1906

Sauntry was christened in Ireland in 1845, the youngest of eight children, to a poor Catholic farm family. When his father died in 1848, the family was most likely suffering greatly due to the Great Potato Famine that lasted from 1845-1849. His mother immigrated the entire family to New Brunswick, Canada, and sometime in the mid 1850’s they immigrated again to America. It was in Stillwater that he learned the lumber business working as a young lumberjack and river driver.

While not a pioneer of the lumber trade in Stillwater, William Sauntry learned his craft from the best, the Timber King Frederick Weyerhaeuser. Weyerhaeuser took Sauntry, who is first cousin to Bing Crosby, under his wing where Sauntry flourished. Sauntry directed the Ann River Logging Company which cut most of the last logs in the St. Croix River Valley. When logging dried up, Sauntry put his money into mining on some lands he owned on the Mesabi range. Not knowing a thing about the mining business, he ended up losing what money he had earned from logging. On November 10, 1914, at the Ryan Hotel in Saint Paul, he committed suicide by shooting himself with a revolver. He was 69 years old.

It is estimated at the time of his greatest wealth, he was worth $2 Million. In today’s dollars that is equivalent to $53 Million!



The home now operates as a successful bed and breakfast and is For Sale

Leave a Reply