In 2014, Latimer was momentarily speechless when the city named its iconic Beaux-Arts public library after him. “I find it hard to think of a function in the city that I would be more proud of than education and libraries,” he said.

“Everyone respected him, everyone liked him, regardless of politics,” said John Mannillo, a developer who began working with Latimer on downtown development in 1978. “He was willing to talk to anyone. And St. Paul was lucky to have him as mayor.”

Latimer was born on June 23, 1935, in Poughkeepsie, NY, and grew up in Schenectady, NY, where his father, William, operated a grocery store. He graduated from St. Michael’s College near Burlington, Vermont, and married Nancy Moore in 1959.

When Latimer took a job as a law clerk in St. Paul in the summer of 1962, the couple fell in love with the city, he told the Star Tribune. They moved there after he graduated from Columbia Law School in New York in 1963.

Latimer was 34 and working as a labor lawyer when he first ran for office in 1970. As a DFL candidate, he won an at-large seat on the St. Paul School Board. He quickly established himself as one of the board’s most progressive members, at one point supporting the establishment of a classless experimental school.

Latimer was now considered a rising star among Minnesota Democrats and was elected to the University of Minnesota Council by the legislature in 1975. When he was elected mayor the following year, he resigned from his position as regent.