Now that the County plans to raze the buildings that housed the former West Publishing Company, it is time to look back at this local chapter in the history of legal research. It’s easy to forget that many of the tools used by lawyers and librarians were developed right here in downtown St. Paul.
The instigator of all this was John Briggs West, a relatively uneducated man. John came to Minnesota from Massachusetts in 1870 when his father, a bookkeeper, was transferred per his employment with the railroad. Eighteen-year-old John soon found work for himself with a book company, which had him peddling books and office supplies to local lawyers. These frontier lawyers (hoping to practice something better than frontier justice) complained to John about the difficulty in getting current legal information and other practical tools. Seeing an opportunity, John quit his job and opened his own downtown St. Paul business in 1872, dedicated to serving the needs of the local bar. His creations included a line of legal forms, reprints of hard-to-find treatises, and an index to the Minnesota statutes. With his brother Horatio as his business partner, he soon began publishing a weekly report of the opinions handed down by the Minnesota Supreme Court. This report was a huge hit, soon to be named the North Western Reporter. Ten years later, John came up with a bold and original index scheme to catalog cases by subject matter that would later become the well-known key number system. John left his company in 1899 and was largely forgotten thereafter. Librarians will be interested to know that John spoke at the 1908 annual meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL). He died in 1922 in Pasadena, CA. The details of John Briggs West and his life are detailed in this article (whose author graciously allowed it to be referenced and linked for this blog).
See this other excellent article which illuminates little known facts of the past West Publishing Company itself. Many don’t realize, for instance, that the company was responsible for Black’s Law Dictionary. Also see the included appendix/brochure Law Books by the Million (West 1901) that detailed the day-to-day inner workings of the company at the turn of the previous century. Consider the fact that 5000-6000 sheep skins became the covers for the West Reporting System every month. Take a minute to see the historic photos, for they speak volumes. (Proofreading at West was probably the epitome of employment opportunities for sharp young women back then.) The best photos are of the buildings in their heyday, which locals can easily recognize.
One of the buildings marked for destruction became the site of the Ramsey County Jail after the company’s exodus up until 2003. Another was briefly home to the Ramsey County Law Library. It’s worth taking a walking tour of this part of downtown St. Paul to see these buildings while they still stand. Waiting to see them on Lost Twin Cities 7 is not guaranteed, and won’t be quite the same as seeing them in person.
