Hiawatha-Minnehaha Corridor

, Early area survey maps from 1839 show a trail roughly corresponding to present-day Minnehaha Avenue running between Fort Snelling and the Falls of St. Anthony. Following the creation of the Minnesota Territory in 1849, the general alignment of this trail, which followed a slight ridge that had been used by American Indians for many years before the arrival of the Fort, was improved as a territorial road, also called the Fort Snelling Road., This path's future as an important transportation corridor was further secured in 1865 when the Minneapolis and Cedar Valley Railroad Company, a forerunner to the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, (CM&StT) chose this alignment to lay its railroad track between St. Anthony Falls and Mendota., As the city grew, it built Fort Avenue alongside the rail line to serve the growing industrial corridor, starting at East 22nd Street and Cedar Avenue and extending Fort Avenue as growth took place. By 1914, maps labeled this diagonal street "Hiawatha Avenue.", By 1933, Hiawatha Avenue was designated as a segment of State Highway 55, which extended from Hastings to Tenney, Minnesota, and the crossing at East Lake Street remained at grade. In 1947, the decision to expand Wold-Chamberlain Field into the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airport added importance to the Hiawatha artery, because it was the most direct, if not complete, connection between downtown and the airport., The growing movement to build roads that could move increasing numbers of automobiles also drew attention to Hiawatha. By the early 1960s, city and state transportation planners began to plan for Hiawatha Avenue's future as an eight-lane, limited access, high-speed section of the Interstate Highway System. To make way for the new freeway, hundreds of homes were demolished, along with businesses at the intersection of Hiawatha and East Lake Street., In the 1970s, intense neighborhood opposition to the freeway plan arose, and after years of stalemate and competing proposals, a plan for a four-lane roadway with a light rail transit (LRT) system was approved in the mid-1980s. Final designs for the roadway included a bridge that separated the Hiawatha traffic from Lake Street traffic (opened in 1999), and final designs for the LRT line also included a bridge to separate the line from auto traffic on Lake Street (opened in 2004)., Once the plan for the roadway began moving forward, the City opened the vacant land to redevelopment, building new homes and businesses along the avenue.,