| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — 1 — 1–Main Entrance Minnehaha Lower Glen |
| | The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board welcomes you to Minnehaha Park. The park consists of two levels: The upper level is maintained as an open picnicking area. Many of the city's traditional festivals such as Svenskarnas Dag are held here. The lower level – Minnehaha Glen – is maintained in a natural state to preserve the natural and cultural history of the city. The combination and the contrast of the two provide you, the user, a variety of experience while in the park.
. . . — Map (db m40787) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — 3 — 3 – Master Map |
| |
1 Main Glen Entrance
2 Abandoned Falls Marker
3 Master Map
4 Ecological Marker
5 Spring-fed Wetland
6 Old Godfrey Mill Site
7 Lower Glen Geology
8 Camp Fire Area
9 Springs Marker
10 St. Peter Limestone Marker
11 Mississippi Confluence
12 Stone Quarry
13 Lower Glen Entrance
[map]
At this point you are near the original mouth of Minnehaha Creek where it formerly emptied into the Mississippi River at a level equal to the top of the falls. Close . . . — Map (db m43665) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Beneath the Surface — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | This 1893 map shows the system of tunnels that ran under the West Side Milling District–part of the complex waterworks that brought energy from the 50-foot drop of the falls into the mills. Water from the
river above the falls flowed through gates into a man-made canal. Next, the water streamed through headraces to turn the turbines that drove the machinery, eventually returning to the river through
tailraces to complete the circuit of energy without combustion.
marker . . . — Map (db m28081) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Bridging the Stream — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | People have long crossed the river at about this point. This was a natural fording place, used by Native Americans and also by soldiers from Fort Snelling. The first documented ferry service was provided by a Dakota Indian woman with her canoe in the 1840s. In 1850 John H. Stevens received permission to operate a ferry for the army and later that year built the first frame house on the west side. Danger lurked, however. Row boats and rafts were always at risk of being swept over the falls by . . . — Map (db m50228) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Changing the Shape of the Falls — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | When Europeans first saw the falls, the crest was well below Hennepin Island. Natural erosion caused the line of the falls to move steadily upriver at about four feet a year. By the 1850s, the cataract was approaching the upper limit of the limestone ledge that sustained it. In the course of time, without human intervention, the falls would soon have become a rapids.
The pace of erosion increased after lumbering and milling began. Logs floating downriver crashed against the limestone and . . . — Map (db m28025) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Christ Church Lutheran — National Register of Historic Places — June 20, 2001 |
| | Christ Church Lutheran was founded on 1911. This building, designed by world famous Finnish architect, Eliel Saarinen, was completed in 1949. Immediately the building received international acclaim as one of the earliest examples of modernist design of places of worship. The education wing designed by Saarinen’s son, Eero, was completed in 1962. In 1977 the American Institute of Architects awarded the worship space the Twenty-Five Year Award, an award recognizing buildings of enduring . . . — Map (db m50066) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Col. John H. Stevens |
| | Born June .13. 1820
Died May .28. 1900
First settler in the City of Minneapolis. — Map (db m17234) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Como–Harriet Streetcar Line |
| | For 74 years this transit railway carried passengers to downtown jobs, to University of Minnesota classes, and to picnics and concerts on the shores of Lake Harriet.
Steam passenger trains of the Minneapolis, Lyndale & Minnetonka Railway first reached this station from downtown Minneapolis in 1880. Called the "motor line," the railway was extended to Excelsior in 1882.
The Minneapolis Street Railway Company, organized by Thomas Lowry in 1875, purchased the line in 1887 and converted . . . — Map (db m38850) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Eliza Winston — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | By 1860 St. Anthony had become a favorite summer resort for wealthy southerners who traveled on steamboats up the Mississippi. Often they and their black slaves stayed at the Winslow House. One such slave was Eliza Winston. Slavery was illegal in Minnesota, and a local free black woman named Emily Grey persuaded her to leave her owner. A court sustained Winston's right to freedom, but a proslavery crowd threatened harm. Antislavery people in the town hid her, and she later made her way to Canada. — Map (db m42714) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Father Hennepin Bluffs |
| | This was the site from which Father Louis Hennepin, the Franciscan Priest, first viewed the Falls of St. Anthony in June of 1680. He named the falls after his patron saint St. Anthony of Padua.
The famous waterfall was responsible for the birth of Minneapolis. The cataract is the most abrupt drop in the 2,200 mile course of the Mississippi River.
This immediate ground, which commemorates St. Anthony Falls, was the former Lucy Wilder Morris Park. The original size of the area was . . . — Map (db m21030) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Geology of Minnesota — Lake Harriet Region |
| | The continental glaciers spreading over Minnesota during the great ice ages brought vast quantities of rock material from the north to be dumped indiscriminately during the recession of the ice. Old river valleys were filled and belts of hills were formed as conditions changed. The Lake Harriet landscape has such an origin.
Leaving the present channel of the Mississippi River at the Plymouth Avenue Bridge, a preglacial valley runs almost directly south beneath Lake of the Isles, Lake . . . — Map (db m37863) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Geology of Minnesota — Minnehaha Falls |
| | Near Fort Snelling, 10,000 years ago, melt water from the Wisconsin glacier was discharged through the Mississippi River and plunged over a ledge of Platteville limestone into a gorge cut chiefly in the white St. Peter sandstone. The undercutting action in the soft sandstone caused the limestone ledge to break off with a vertical face, thus maintaining the falls, while causing them to retreat upstream. When the falls in the main channel passed the upper end of the island–where the . . . — Map (db m40765) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — George Washington Bi-Centennial Tree |
| | Planted April 27 1932
This tablet placed
Americanization Day
April 27 1934
By Halvarson-Bowers Aux' 187
Veterans of Foreign Wars — Map (db m17227) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Gunnar Wennerberg — Swedish Poet, Composer, Educator and Statesman — 1817 – 1901 |
| | [In Swedish and English, English version follows]:
Oh God, who rulest fate of nations,
Almighty thou in every land;
Who holdest life and death’s privations.
Within the hollow of thy hand,
Whatever punishment thou wieldest
For Svea’s sin of yore ‘gainst thee,
Endure she will, if thou but shieldest
Her immemorial liberty.
Statue presented to the City of Minneapolis
June 24, 1915 by
Wennerberg Memorial Association. — Map (db m17235) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Historic Milling District |
| | This aerial view shows the gatehouse, water power canal and adjacent mills as they appeared in 1945. They, together with similar structures on the east bank, made Minneapolis the milling capital of the nation from 1880-1930. Changes in marketing and technology led to its decline.
In the near future, the parkway and related park facilities will be developed in this area. The gatehouse will be uncovered, the canal reopened, and the mill ruins developed as an historic interpretive park. Plans . . . — Map (db m27169) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Indians at the Falls — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | For Native American people, the Falls of St. Anthony was a landmark and sacred place. The river was a major highway for trade and travel. Although no Indian villages have been recorded here, oral traditions suggest frequent visits for fishing and maple sugaring. When white settlers started arriving from the east in the 1840s, Dakota Indians still lived across the prairies to the west and along the Mississippi to the south. The Ojibway Indians lived by the rivers and lakes in the vast white pine forests to the north. — Map (db m43661) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — John Harrington Stevens House |
| | Built in 1850, this was the first house on the west bank of the Mississippi, located at Saint Anthony Falls near the present-day Minneapolis Post Office.
John H. Stevens received permission to occupy the site, a part of the Fort Snelling military reservation in exchange for providing ferry service at Saint Anthony Falls. Steven's house and claim were originally known as the "ferry farm."
In the years 1850 – 1855, this house became the civic and social hub of the west bank . . . — Map (db m17264) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Joseph N. Nicollet — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | Nicollet Island bears the name of a French scholar and scientist who explored the headwaters of the Mississippi for the US government in 1836. Accompanied by some Ojibway friends and two hired voyageurs, Joseph Nicollet camped by the falls for several days, then canoed up the river with his barometer, sextant, chronometer, charts, and notebooks. From his measurements he created the first reliable map of the region. — Map (db m38455) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Minnehaha Depot |
| | Milwaukee Road station agents affectionately referred to the quaint little Minnehaha Depot as "the Princess." Its delicate gingerbread architecture is reminiscent of the Victorian era when ladies in bustles and gentlemen in high collars traveled largely by train.
The first track connecting Minneapolis with Mendota was laid in 1865 by the Minnesota Central Railway, the predecessor of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway. The Princess was built in the mid-1870s to replace a smaller . . . — Map (db m17233) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — New Uses for Old Mills — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | The square seven-story building with a sloping mansard roof at First Street and Fifth Avenue was built in 1879 as the Crown Roller Mill. It was then one of the largest and most modern flour mills at the falls, although its daily capacity of 2,400 barrels was soon surpassed by others.
Because of the heavy machinery they held, flour mills had thick stone or brick walls and massive foundations, making them good candidates for remodeling and re-use. In 1988, with a combination of public and . . . — Map (db m43004) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Pettingill's Wonderful Water — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | A natural spring flows from the rock at the base of Hennepin Bluff below this spot. According to tradition the iron-red mud at the spring provided pigment for Native Americans. White settlers of the 1850s believed the water had medicinal qualities. In 1875 the enterprising M.P.Pettingill capitalized on the popularity of the falls as a tourist mecca and health resort by building a spa and selling the water. The business was abandoned in the early 1880s when the source of the spring was traced to a dirty swamp some distance away. — Map (db m21033) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Portaging Around the Falls — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | For untold generations of Indian people the Mississippi River was an important canoe route. To pass around the falls, the Dakota (Sioux) and Ojibway (Chippewa) used a well-established portage trail. Starting at a landing below the site now occupied by the steam plant, the trail climbed the bluff to this spot. From here it followed the east bank along what is now Main Street to a point well above the falls. — Map (db m21032) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — President Lyndon B. Johnson |
| | President Lyndon B. Johnson, Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, and Governor Karl Rolvaag enjoy the spray from Minnehaha Falls. On that day in 1964, however, Minneapolis was experiencing a drought. In order to create the beautiful display of the falls pictured here, the city had to open many fire hydrants, upstream and out of sight, to feed water to the creek.
Photo by Minneapolis Tribune — Map (db m41153) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Richard Chute Square |
| | The University of Minnesota's first building, a preparatory school, was located on this site from 1851 until the University moved to its present location in 1855.
When the city of Minneapolis acquired the land for a park in 1903, it was named in honor of businessman Richard Chute, an early University of Minnesota regent and a director of the St. Anthony Waterpower Company.
The Ard Godfrey House, which was owned by the Chute family from 1880 until its purchase by the Hennepin . . . — Map (db m37825) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Stone Arch Bridge |
| | "This viaduct...is the only one of its kind that spans the Father of Waters, and is one of the largest and most noteworthy in the United States.
Firmer than the earth which supports it, it is constructed to stand the test of time."
—Daily Minnesota Tribune, November 23, 1883
St. Anthony Falls Historic District, National Historic Register of Historic Places, 1971
National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, 1975
Construction 1882-1883
The Stone Arch Bridge . . . — Map (db m27042) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Symbols on the Skyline — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | Several structures have dominated the crest of the hill above this spot. The first was a luxury hotel named the Winslow House, built in 1857 by James M. Winslow while St. Anthony was still a favorite resort and health spa. Its style of architecture according to a St. Paul newspaper had "a cupola and mortgage on top." During the Civil War, tourists from the South stopped spending summers at the falls, and the hotel closed.
The Winslow House was torn down in 1886 to make way for the . . . — Map (db m50208) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Ard Godfrey House |
| | Built in 1848, the Ard Godfrey House is the earliest frame house still standing in Minneapolis. An example of Greek Revival architecture, it originally occupied a site in the vicinity of Main and Second Streets Southeast.
Ard Godfrey, a millwright, moved here from Maine in 1847 to build a sawmill at St. Anthony Falls, the only major falls on the Mississippi River waterway. More than 125 years ago this house became a popular meeting place for citizens of the area and for visitors. Godfrey, . . . — Map (db m37774) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Barrel-Makers' Co-ops — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | The red brick building at the corner of Third Avenue and First Street was one of many factories that supplied the barrels used for flour. Called coopers, the skilled workers who made barrels pioneered a new role for labor in Minneapolis. When their wages were cut in 1874 and a strike was broken, some of them formed a co-op. The idea spread, and by 1886 two-thirds of the coopers at the falls belonged to shops owned and managed by the workers. They prospered until flour sacks replaced barrels after 1900. — Map (db m44523) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Church of Our Lady of Lourdes |
| | Near this spot in 1630 Father Louis Hennepin first sighted and named the Falls of Saint Anthony.
This is the oldest standing church in the city of Minneapolis. The front rectangular nave, built of native limestone, was opened by the First Universalist Society in 1857.
In 1877 the French - Canadian Catholic community of Minneapolis purchased the original structure. Adding the transepts, sacristy, and bell tower, this community has worshipped here for 100 years.
The building was . . . — Map (db m51065) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Crash of Flight 307 — March 7, 1950 at 9:02 PM |
| | During its approach through a blinding snowstorm, NWA Flight 307 clipped its left wing on the flagpole at Ft. Snelling Cemetery. Captain Donald Jones struggled to maintain altitude as he circled around for another attempt. The wing detached completely above the Washburn Water Tower, causing the plane to crash into the Doughty family home directly across from this spot. The resulting explosion and fire destroyed the house and severely damaged two adjacent dwellings. Children Janet and Tommy . . . — Map (db m56011) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The House of John H. Stevens — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | The US Post Office stands on the site of the first permanent dwelling in what is now Minneapolis. The land was part of the Fort Snelling Military Reservation in 1849, but the army allowed John H. Stevens to build a house in return for operating a ferry above the falls.
For a time, John Stevens and his wife, Frances Helen, had no white neighbors, but they recalled often walking to find Indians camping nearby on their way to sell food and buy goods in the shops of St. Anthony across the . . . — Map (db m43036) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Pillsbury A Mill — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | The Pillsbury A Mill, built of Platteville limestone, was the world’s largest flour mill when it was completed in 1881. The design by LeRoy S. Buffington is considered a classic of industrial architecture, and the interior of the mill boasted state-of-art technology. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. The mill originally produced 5,000 barrels of flour per day, a capacity that was later increased to more than 17,000 barrels. Pillsbury’s Best Flour is still sold around the . . . — Map (db m40687) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Stone Arch Bridge — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | In 1879 St. Paul railroad magnate James J. Hill opened his "Manitoba line" to the Canadian border, linking the wheat fields of the Red River Valley with the flour mills of Minneapolis. To improve railroad access at the falls he built this 2,100-foot bridge that stands as a monument to the railroad era and Hill's vision. Completed in 1883 with a sweeping curve at its west end, the bridge is a unique example of skilled masonry construction. In 1974 it was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. — Map (db m21031) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Washburn and Pillsbury Clans — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | Minneapolis flour milling magnate, Cadwallader C. Washburn, was a member of a Maine family that sent four brothers to Congress, all from different states. Cadwallader served Wisconsin as congressman (1854-61, 1867-71) and governor (1872-73). His younger brother, William D. Washburn, also a Minneapolis mill owner, became a Minnesota congressman in 1879 and US senator in 1889.
George A. and John S. Pillsbury, brothers from New Hampshire, became frontier businessmen and millers in . . . — Map (db m44409) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The West Side Milling District — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | Minneapolis on the west bank of the river quickly overtook St. Anthony on the east side. A major reason was more efficient use of water power. In 1857 the Minneapolis Mill Company started to build a canal along South First Street. Enlarged and extended several times, it provided waterpower to a total of 25
assorted factories and mills by 1871.
As flour production boomed in the 1870s, other industries were crowded out. From the 1880s through the 1920s, some two dozen flour mills lined the . . . — Map (db m27746) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — The Whirlpool — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | "The falls are going out!" cried the alarmed citizens of St. Anthony on October 5, 1869. A tunnel being dug under the river bed to bring waterpower to Nicollet Island had collapsed. A giant whirlpool formed
below the island as the river rushed into the hole. Efforts to plug it with log rafts, dams, and mud were all unsuccessful. New breaks opened up and swallowed the lower part of Nicollet Island. The problem was
finally fixed in 1876 when the US Army Corps of Engineers constructed a large dam underneath the entire river bed. — Map (db m42741) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — Westminster Presbyterian Church |
| |
The former site of
Westminster
Presbyterian Church
Dedicated March 11, 1883
Destroyed by fire
September 6, 1895.
— Map (db m3687) HM |
| Minnesota (Hennepin County), Minneapolis — William de la Barre — Saint Anthony Falls Heritage Trail |
| | After the Washburn A Mill explosion in 1878, a young Vienna-born engineer called on owner Cadwallader C. Washburn with a dust-collecting device that he said would prevent such accidents. Washburn hired him to oversee rebuilding the A Mill. William de la Barre stayed as the engineer for the milling companies that controlled the use of the falls. By improving the water distribution system, he increased the over-all output of waterpower nearly six times. His work ushered in the era of . . . — Map (db m43664) HM |
| Minnesota (Ramsey County), Minneapolis — Big Water / Stairway of Water |
| | Big Water
The Mississippi River, paramount among North American rivers, along with its tributaries, forms the world's fifth largest drainage system in area – 1,244,000 square miles. The Indians called this river "Father of Waters", literally Misi 'big' and Sipi 'water'. The river has three distinct personalities. At its source, Lake Itasca, to the head of navigation here in the Twin Cities, the river is a clear running fresh stream. From the Twin Cities to the mouth of the Missouri . . . — Map (db m50080) HM |
| Minnesota (Ramsey County), Minneapolis — The Lock and Dam No. 1 Story |
| | Navigation on this stretch of the river in its natural state upstream from St. Paul to Minneapolis was hazardous. During high flows, the current was swift, and during low flows, huge boulders made navigation almost impossible. It wasn't until after development of the locks and dams here that transport of flour and grain from Minneapolis to the Gulf of Mexico, and coal and bulk products from downriver to Minneapolis, became possible.
Development began when a group of Minneapolis businessmen . . . — Map (db m50877) HM |
| Minnesota (Ramsey County), Minneapolis — Wing Dams |
| | Those piles of stone and brush in the river, known as wing dams, are both cursed and praised by many a recreation boater. Lurking beneath the water near propeller depth, thousands of these jetties are located along the mainstem of the river. They focus the flow of the water to develop a deeper, narrower main channel to aid commercial navigation.
The wing dams comprised the first large scale efforts to improve navigation on the Upper Mississippi River as early as the 1860's, along with . . . — Map (db m50122) HM |
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