Flying Red Horse rides again in Eden Prairie

After nearly 17 years, the Flying Red Horse is back in the saddle over Eden Prairie.

On Monday, Feb. 24, a subcontractor installed the 12.1-foot-tall, 16-foot-wide Flying Red Horse sign – now a de facto monument – at Flying Cloud Drive and Town Center Place, just north of where it once stood atop the Wye Café and Mobil gas station. The sign, mounted on a base inscribed with “Eden Prairie Town Center,” marks its new role as a community landmark.

For decades, the glowing horse wasn’t just an advertisement. It was a landmark. Pilots flying into Flying Cloud Airport used it as a beacon, and travelers from greater Minnesota knew they were approaching the Twin Cities when they spotted it. Drivers on Highway 212 saw it as a familiar marker of Eden Prairie.

And for Katie Schwartz, granddaughter of Jesse Sr. and Irene Schwartz, it was family.

A family’s legacy, a granddaughter’s tears

Schwartz tried to hold it together. She really did.

But the moment she started talking about what the sign meant, the words caught in her throat.

“There’s something about this … you don’t even know how to feel,” she said. “I mean, I’m going to totally start crying. It just means the world to me. Sorry.”

She paused and exhaled, but the tears kept coming.

“The horse represents, you know, stories,” she said. “It represents love. It represents life. It’s more than just a sign.”

For three generations, the Schwartz family was tied to the Mobil station beneath the Flying Red Horse.

Her grandfather, Jesse Schwartz Sr., arrived at the intersection in 1933 and took over managing the station after the death of founder W. Gordon Smith in 1955. He later co-owned the business under The W. Gordon Smith Company with his son, Jesse Jr. – Schwartz’s father – and, for a time, his son-in-law, Jock Grier. Jesse Sr. remained involved in the business until his death in 1997 at age 83.

Jesse Jr. ran the station for decades before the family sold it in 2008. He died in August 2015 at age 68.

At the heart of it all was Irene Schwartz. She and Jesse Sr. built their lives around the station, and she remained devoted to it for decades. A pillar of both the business and the community, she was known by generations of customers. She passed away in February 2018 at age 99, just shy of her 100th year.

“She meant so much to the community,” Schwartz said. “And now, this sign will kind of do the same thing.”

Schwartz grew up at the station – stocking shelves as a child, running the register as a teenager, and eventually managing it in its later years. By the time she was in high school, she knew how to change oil before she even learned to drive.

“That’s why I always say, at least for my generation, it wasn’t just a gas station,” she said. “It was a social gathering spot. And before that, in earlier generations, the Wye Café was the same way. People passing through knew they were halfway to Mankato from the Twin Cities, so it was a familiar landmark.”

For Irene, the station wasn’t just a livelihood. It was where her life with Jesse Sr. began.

“Well, my grandma and grandpa actually met at the Wye Café. That’s why I say love is part of this,” Schwartz said.

A landmark’s uncertain fate

The city declared the Flying Red Horse a landmark in 1977, but that didn’t stop it from disappearing.

When the Mobil station closed in early 2008, the sign was soon removed. Today, the site at 8061 Flying Cloud Drive houses a Davanni’s restaurant, adjacent to a Holiday Stationstore at 8051 Flying Cloud Drive.

The Schwartz family stored the sign in Farmington, where it collected dust.

They had offers. Collectors wanted to buy it. Even the Smithsonian expressed interest, she said.

“I thought about selling it,” Schwartz admitted. “But it just didn’t feel right.”

Some wanted to split it up, take the two sides, and hang them separately.

“No, absolutely not,” she recalled thinking. “That’s not what I’m going to do.”

In 2013, Schwartz and her parents, Jesse Jr. and Kathy, donated the sign to the city with the understanding that it would remain in Eden Prairie.

“I put together a proposal, created a PowerPoint presentation, and brought it to the city,” Schwartz said of her pitch to the Eden Prairie City Council. “They agreed and took it on as a project.”

A homecoming years in the making

For years, the sign had no home.

City leaders debated where to put it – Miller Park? The high school baseball field? Eden Prairie Center?

“They considered putting it near Miller Park because my grandfather was heavily involved in developing the baseball program in Eden Prairie in the 1930s and ‘40s,” Schwartz said. “He had a big influence on it, so that location would have been a tribute to him. But unless people read the story behind it, they wouldn’t have known that connection.”

The answer became clear when the Metropolitan Council returned a small piece of excess land at the northwest corner of Flying Cloud Drive and Town Center Place, near the light rail tracks.

“It just checked all the boxes,” said Mayor Ron Case. “It’s visible, it’s close to where it originally stood, and it serves as a welcoming landmark for the LRT station.”

Restoring a 90-year-old sign wasn’t simple.

Kathie Case, president of the Eden Prairie Historical Society, said the Mobil branding was covered to keep the sign historically intact without turning it into an ad.

According to the city, the horse is lit with neon, while the lettering in the base is illuminated by LEDs.

“It’s the real Flying Red Horse,” Case said. “It had been in storage for a long time and needed a lot of restoration. The look has changed, the center part is filled in, and the lighting was updated. The horse had to be repainted, which was a rough step, but we’re very happy with how it turned out.”

In June 2024, the Eden Prairie City Council approved the project, awarding a $209,409 contract to Construction Results Corporation. Funded through the city’s Capital Improvement Fund, the restoration also received a state grant to cover interpretive signage. The city said the project remained largely on budget, with just a $1,200 change order for additional electrical work.

“It’s just great to see this project come to fruition,” Mayor Case said. “It’s been a long time coming. I hope most Eden Prairie residents appreciate that we have a rich heritage and history worth celebrating. In today’s fast-paced world, it’s grounding to connect with our past – it reminds us where we came from.”

More than a monument

For Schwartz, the sign’s return is about more than history. It’s about the people.

“People would stop in and tell me stories about my grandfather, my dad, or the Wye Café,” she said. “It meant something to so many people.”

Now, the stories live on. Schwartz worked closely with designer Katie Qualey to create three interpretive panels that will stand alongside the monument, preserving its place in the city’s history. Her aunt, Jill Grier, and her mother, Kathy, helped provide details, with Katie and Jill contributing most of the information.

Schwartz, who now lives in New Jersey, plans to return for the city’s ribbon-cutting ceremony this spring, when the panels and landscaping are complete.

“It’s going to be emotional,” she said. “But I just want my grandparents and my dad to be proud.”

Mayor Ron Case believes the restored landmark will connect generations—those who remember the sign and those seeing it for the first time.

“In the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s, people would say you knew you were in Eden Prairie when you saw the Flying Red Horse,” he said. “Now, they can say that again.”

Amy Markle, Eden Prairie’s parks director, echoed that sentiment.

“This project is an exciting, intergenerational piece for Eden Prairie,” she said. “Longtime residents remember seeing the Flying Red Horse when they came into town, and for newer residents, it’ll be a great marker of our community.”

For some, the sign is a memory of old Eden Prairie. For others, it is a marker of history reclaimed.

For Schwartz, it is something simpler.

“The horse is finally home,” she said.