John Harrington Stevens House

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 settlement, earning the name "The Birthplace of Minneapolis." It was in this house that both the city of Minneapolis and Hennepin County were organized. , The John H. Stevens House is the earliest example of historic preservation in Minneapolis. In the 1890s, a Minneapolis Journal reporter located the house and started a campaign to preserve it. In 1896 the house was moved to Minnehaha Park, where it sat vacant until the 1980s. Restored to its original appearance by the Junior League of Minneapolis in cooperation with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the Stevens house was opened to the public in 1985 to commemorate the early history of Minneapolis. , This property has been placed on the National Register of Historic places by the United States Department of the Interior.