The Twin Cities have had a rivalry since their establishment, constantly attempting to one-up each other. Architects in the late 19th and early 20th centuries had allegiances to either Minneapolis or Saint Paul. The competition has cooled these days, but the two cities seem to have haggled over everything at one point in their history.

Their competition was so fierce that all professional sports teams in the area bear the name of the state, Minnesota, instead of either Minneapolis or Saint Paul. The Twin Cities competed for the Major League Baseball team that is now the Minnesota Twins, as well as the National Football League team the Minnesota Vikings.

Situated on the Mississippi River, Minneapolis became known as "the Mill City," due to its close proximity to Saint Anthony Falls. The flour mill in Minneapolis helped bring about large companies that called the city home, including Pillsbury, General Mills and Cargill. Other Twin City creations include 3M Post-It Notes, cellophane tape, Cream of Wheat and Green Giant Vegetables. Rollerblades, Tonka Toys and Totino's Frozen Pizza also originated in the Twin Cities.

In 1819 the Army chose the region to build Fort Snelling at the meeting point of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. This made trade possible with fur traders and Native Americans. The Twin Cities were a region of commercial rail traffic in the 1800s. In 1888, almost 8 million people traveled to and from the Saint Paul Union Depot.

The Grand Excursion was sponsored by the Rock Island Rail Road, and in 1854, it carried more than 1.000 travelers to the area by rail and steamboat. With the advent of the automobile, the Twin Cities' rail dominance died out. In 1841, Father Lucien Galtier named the city of Saint Paul.

In the 1940s, the Twin Cities were home to one of the nation's first centers for computer technology. Early computer builder Engineering Research Associates was founded in Saint Paul in 1946.

Today, while the larger city of Minneapolis is an obviously modern American city, the more spaciously laid-out Saint Paul has preserved something of the character of an old frontier town. Both cities, however, have economic importance as centers of the electronics, printing and publishing industries. Minneapolis is also the commercial center of one of the largest farming areas in the United States and has one of the largest grain exchanges in the world.