Mainstreet History: West Publishing Company

EAGAN, MN — The career of John West, who moved to St. Paul at the age of 17, was a gift to lawyers everywhere.

In 1870, West began selling law books for a downtown distributor. But the young man soon set out on his own, and his career would change the nation's legal system forever.

While working as a book salesman, West noticed that lawyers had no way to quickly access the past opinions handed down by the Minnesota courts. So he came up with one.

In 1876, West debuted the "Syllabi," a collection of opinions from the state's courts. According to the Minnesota Historical Society, the Syllabi was so popular, West quickly expanded it to include opinions from the Wisconsin Supreme Court. By 1887, the West Publishing Company provided summaries and texts of rulings from across the United States.

West Publishing stayed solely in downtown St. Paul until 1974 when it began buying up land in nearby Eagan. By 1992, the company had moved its entire operations to a 276-acre campus in Eagan.

In February of 1996, Canadian-based Thomson Corporation bought West for more than $3 billion and became Thomson Reuters.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the company into yet another new era. The Thomson Reuters building off Dodd Road was much too big in an era where work-form-home is becoming the norm.

As a result, the company plans to sell off 179 acres — or over 68 percent of its 263-acre Eagan campus, KARE 11 reports. However, the site's print manufacturing facility will continue to operate at the campus.

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