Banfill Tavern
building in Fridley, Minnesota, United States
The Banfill Tavern, also known as the Locke House, is a historic building in Fridley, Minnesota, United States. It was built in 1847 on the east bank of the Mississippi River and has served variously as an inn, a logging camp office, a private home, a dairy farm, a post office, and a summer home. It is now owned by Anoka County and, until April 2022, housed the non-profit Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts (now the North Suburban Center for the Arts). The building stands within Manomin County Park, and the art center is a partner site of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.
The Banfill Tavern was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 for its local significance in the theme of architecture. It was nominated for being one of the earliest and best preserved frame Greek Revival houses in Anoka County.
Description
The Banfill Tavern is located on a wooded site near the mouth of Rice Creek. Its floor plan follows an "L" shape. It exhibits Greek Revival style through such architectural features as the six-over-six pane double-hung windows, a tripartite formal entry consisting of a central door with sidelights and a transom, broken-pedimented gables, corner pilasters, and slender brick chimneys.
As of 2017, both the interior and exterior of the home remain essentially unaltered.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Banfill Tavern” as building in Fridley, Minnesota, United States. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as building in Fridley, Minnesota, United States. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4854881. Authority coordinates are 45.089, -93.277. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1847, 2022, 1976 and 2017.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Banfill Tavern”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Banfill Tavern primary sources, Banfill Tavern archive and Banfill research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Banfill Tavern”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Banfill Tavern” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.