Shepard Road

Shepard Road
Warner Road

Warner Road east of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, runs between the Mississippi River and train tracks
West end	MN 5
East end	US 61 / US 10

Shepard Road and Warner Road are the names given to a four-lane road running along the banks of the Mississippi River in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Shepard Road (County Road 37) runs from the southwestern boundary of the county to downtown Saint Paul. From downtown east the road is known as Warner Road (County Road 36; it runs to a junction with US Highways 61 and 10.

The road is a four-lane highway which closely follows the Mississippi River and connects some of the most historic parts of the Twin Cities which grew up along the river. As its southern boundary over almost its entire length is the Mississippi River, there is cross traffic at only a handful of intersections, and few signal lights. It is a principal arterial route into downtown Saint Paul.

Much of the road is atop or alongside wooded riverside bluffs, and it adjoins several parks and nature areas. In downtown Saint Paul it is on the riverbottoms.

Shepard Road was named for George M. Shepard, chief engineer of St. Paul Department of Public Works from the 1920s to 1950s. Warner Road is named after Richmond Warner, a former chairman of the St. Paul Port Authority.

From the west, Shepard Road starts at Minnesota State Highway 5 on the east bank of the Mississippi River at the east end of the Fort Road Bridge, directly across the river from Fort Snelling. This fort, now in Fort Snelling State Park, was the first permanent Euro-American settlement in Minnesota at the Mississippi's confluence with the Minnesota River. The road curves from east-southeast to east by northeast on the river bluffs above Pike Island in the Mississippi, where Lieutenant Zebulon Pike purchased from the Mdewakanton tribe land on which Fort Snelling later was built. The island was the site of a prison camp for Indians captured in the Dakota War of 1862 and now part of Fort Snelling State Park. Adjacent to the park to the east and adjoining the road is Crosby Regional Park, a Saint Paul city park on the river bottom maintained as a nature area.