Charlie Brown's Hometown
Minnesota's Twin Cities and Santa Rosa Calif. Claim Charles Schulz
Aug 15, 2009
"Sparky" Schulz was born November 26, 1922 in Minneapolis. His father, Carl, was a barber, and his mother, Dena, was a homemaker. He was nicknamed "Sparky" by an uncle, who was a fan of the Barney Google comic strip. The horse in the comic strip was named Sparkplug. The Schulz family had a black and white dog that became the inspiration for Snoopy.
Charles Schulz Sites in St. Paul
The Schulz family lived above the barbershop at 164 Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, an address now occupied by O'Gara's Bar & Grill.
A favorite stop for many Peanuts fans is the Highland Theater at 760 Cleveland Avenue, South. This is where Charles Schulz took the "little red haired girl" to a movie on their first date. Her real name was Joyce Halverson.
A number of bronze statues of the Peanuts characters pop up in public spaces around the Twin Cities, including Rice Park and Landmark Plaza at Fifth and Market Streets in Saint Paul.
More characters appear in a number of businesses and neighborhoods as a result of five years of public art with Peanuts themes, from 1999 to 2004. One of those sculptures, a four-foot tall Snoopy playing ice hockey, lives at the Charles Schulz Ice Arena in Highland Park, 800 Snelling Ave S., St Paul,
Schulz was an avid hockey player, as well as golfer. The Highland Golf Course, where Schulz played and caddied as a teenager, has a Snoopy shaped bunker on the 15th hole.
Schulz was a student and taught at the Art Instruction Schools in Minneapolis, 3400 Technology Drive. He sold his first cartoon panels to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Walt Disney was a great influence on his work.
Charles M Schulz Museum and Research Center
In 1958, Charles Schulz moved with his family to Sonoma County California, and much of the creative work of the Peanuts family took place here.
The Charles M Schulz Museum and Research Center, which opened in August 2002 in Santa Rosa, is a Mecca for Peanuts fans. More than 100 original strips are on display, along with a recreation of Schulz’s studio and drawing table, and an outdoor gallery that includes a kite-eating tree, a flying dog-house and Lucy’s psychiatric booth. Across the street is “Snoopy’s Home Ice,” the ice arena Schulz built for the children of Sonoma County, and the Warm Puppy Coffee Shop, where Schulz was found most mornings before his death on Feb. 12, 2000.
Visitors may stroll through 50 years of the evolution of “Li’l Folks” into Peanuts, see the office where Sparky created it all and sit down before a drafting table themselves and attempt to do what Sparky did so easily for 50 years.
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