By Tim Nelson

MPR News/90.1 FM

Forget Spider-Man. St. Paul has Spider-Raccoon.

On Tuesday, a mottled brown raccoon, originally stranded on a downtown office building ledge on 7th Street, proceeded to escape to the roof of the two-story building, then climbed another 20 stories up the side of the nearby UBS tower, as people gathered on the street below.

The animal remained perched on a ledge Tuesday afternoon, more than 200 feet above the ground. The raccoon had been climbing up the rough surface of the concrete pillars that run up and down the sides of the office tower.

The drama began Monday when the animal appeared in a niche in the wall of the Town Square building, on an outside wall of what was once the Donaldson’s department store at 7th and Cedar streets.

Calls to the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota and the city of St. Paul’s animal control pleaded for help.

Instead, a trio of building maintenance personnel rigged up a 20-foot length of lumber, by screwing two-by-fours together, hoping to offer the animal an escape after it had huddled against the side of the building all day and night.

The raccoon had other ideas. It scrambled away and fled along the side of the building, scaled the building at the corner of 7th and Cedar streets and then started scaling the office tower.

MPR News may not have been the first to see the raccoon but made a big enough deal of it online that by Tuesday afternoon #mprraccoon had become a trending hashtag on Twin Cities Twitter.

To see video of St. Pauls high-rise raccoon visit Minnesota Public Radio at www.mprnews.org/newspartners/story/2018/06/12/st-paul-raccoon-scales-skyscraper-social-media-star