The Herman Schroeder House and Livery in Shakopee was added to the National Register of Historic Places last month.

The National Register is the official list of places worthy of preservation by the National Park Service.

“This nomination puts forth that Herman Schroeder was a successful and influential significant person within the history of Shakopee and that his brick manufacturing company was a significant industry within the city of Shakopee,” said Ginny Way, National Register Architectural Historian for the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office.

The two-story brick house, originally built in 1880, belonged to Schroeder, a Shakopee resident. He owned the Schroeder Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company, which was founded in 1876 and ran until 1941.

The company was known for producing its iconic reddish-colored “Shakopee bricks,” seen on the exterior of Schroeder’s home and on older buildings throughout Shakopee.

This brickyard was the most successful in town, according to the National Register listing application, as Schroeder’s bricks were used widely throughout the region. Annual production grew from 500,000 bricks in 1881 to 3 million bricks in 1906.

The application stated that the livery was an outbuilding with the house, with Schroeder likely using it for personal and professional purposes.

The process of adding the historic property took around a year and a half with multiple review rounds before officially being listed on Jan. 19.

Shakopee, having owned the property since 2020, decided to put the Schroeder House and Livery up for nomination. The city did this through working with nomination preparer 106 Group, a firm specializing in cultural resource management and heritage planning.

“I think everyone agreed it was an important historic resource in history back to the whole Shakopee brick, and the house was largely intact. It’s not something you typically find,” Shakopee Director of Planning and Development Michael Kerski said.

The group put forward a draft nomination application that went through a number of reviews.

Way said this nomination stood out to her due to it falling under the criteria of the property being “associated with the lives of persons significant in our past,” a more rare and unusual qualification.

“It is not the criterion that we most often see come to the office. In this case, because the Schroeder Brick and Lime Manufacturing Company facility itself is lost and was demolished … this property as a resource is the one most closely associated with the productive life of Herman Schroeder,” she said.

“Both we and the National Park Service agree because of the level of intricacy on the house and the livery, the building is able to convey the level of excellence in the work that the brick manufacturer ultimately traded in during the period of significance,” she added.

Once the office determined the property was adequately documented and qualified, the application was sent to the state review board.

The board then recommended the nomination for listing the property and sent it to the National Park Service, which has the final say on approving listings.

Way said with the property being owned by the city, the listing will now be eligible for state historical and cultural legacy grants. “They could see grant funding to rehabilitate the property or do further study on it,” she said.

Kerski said city staff have plans to turn the house into a destination within the community. The exterior will be restored, and the inside could be used as a location for weddings, meetings and special events. The livery will be open to the public, include historical displays and be part of the trail system.

He added that staff will take a contract to the Shakopee City Council in March regarding the architects doing their restoration plans.

“I’m really excited about this property. I know that it is one of the few within a specific area in Shakopee that are being examined as a cultural corridor,” Way said. “It’s really exciting to see a community embrace their historic and cultural resources in the way Shakopee’s doing right now, so I’m excited to be a part of it.”