I lived at 3040 Longfellow Avenue South until I was nine years old, and I have fond memories of Minneapolis parks and lakes. We were a walking, rail-riding family, often hurrying to Cedar Avenue to catch the streetcar. Do you remember the overhead sparks?

My dad and his younger brother Bobby, who often stayed with us, would pull me on the toboggan all the way to Powderhorn Park to slide down the “big” hill. Family legend has it that I didn’t trudge up the hill hand-in-hand like most kids: I had to be carried. My mom took me by streetcar for ice skating lessons at the Minneapolis Arena, and Dad and I would carry our skates to Powderhorn Park to practice on the lake. Do you remember when it was so cold you could hear the ice all the way across the lake?

Of course, Minnehaha Falls was a fascination for the young me. Remember the pony rides? I’m sure I thought I was Dale Evans as those Shetlands made endless circles. A family outing at the Falls always included a long walk down (and up) the stairs built by the federal work-relief crews. I have pictures of me and Dad posed at those beautiful stonework rest stops.

Other bits and pieces of my Minneapolis park and lake memories include the swans of Loring Park, the Aqua Follies at Theodore Wirth, and canoeing in a borrowed canoe on Lake of the Isles, with my fellow paddlers trying to hit a muskrat with their paddles.

Pam Schultz

Mary MacDonald recently wrote to ask for info on the large stone fireplace near the long path to the Mississippi River in the Minnehaha Dog Park off 54th and Hiawatha. She said she’s been unable to find any info on who built it and how old it is. Does anyone know? I don’t know anything about it. Leave a comment or e-mail me at the address below.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Maybe it’s time for Puck to have a sniff.

Puck

You have a great opportunity to support Minneapolis parks this week by voting on Facebook in a Partners in Preservation contest. American Express has put up $1 million to restore sites of historic importance in the Twin Cities area. Twenty-five sites were nominated for funds including two Minneapolis parks: Minnehaha Park and Mill Ruins Park. The winner of the voting on Facebook will receive up to $125,000 of the money with the remainder to be  divided among the nominees by a committee of historical experts.

At Minnehaha the funds would be used to repair and restore the stone bridges over Minnehaha Creek. The Mill Ruins project would pay for educational archeological excavations of the site and continue efforts to reveal more of the historic mills. Two excellent projects.

You can vote once a day until October 12 here. The only caveat is that to vote you have to agree to share your Facebook profile information with American Express. Seems a small price to pay. Read the small print.

Tell your friends!

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

The continuing Partners in Preservation voting on Facebook prompted me to look up information on the bridges over Minnehaha Creek below the falls that need restoration. Minnehaha Park is one of 25 contestants for a $125,000 grant from American Express to preserve local historical sites, another is Mill Ruins Park. The funds would be used at Minnehaha to tuck point and repair the WPA era bridges over Minnehaha Creek and retaining walls.

The first bridge to appear in photos of the falls on the Minnesota Historical Society Visual Database is this one that is catalogued as “ca. 1860.”

This is the earliest dated photo -- ca. 1860 -- of the bridge below Minnehaha Falls in the Minnesota Historical Society's Visual Resources Database.

Of course that was long before the land surrounding the falls was acquired as a park. The Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners purchased the site as a state park in 1889 when the Minnesota legislature couldn’t come up with the $92,000 to buy the land. A group of private citizens, led by George Brackett, raised the money to purchase the land and was later repaid by the city. I have seen no evidence of who built or owned this bridge.

In 1893, four years after the park board purchased Minnehaha Park, it approved an expenditure of $250 to build two “rustic” bridges, one near the falls and another further downstream (Proceedings, June 19, 1893).

The park board built this "rustic" bridge in 1893. This photo was taken in 1896. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This is the bridge that resulted. In the MHS database, photos of this bridge are dated as early as ca. 1888, but all photos of this bridge had to be taken after 1893.

The 1910 stone arch bridge was actually made of reinforced concrete and given a facade of boulders found in the vicinity. (Minnesota Historical Society)

The next bridge was built by the park board in 1910 as noted in the park board’s 1910 annual report. The bridge was built of reinforced concrete and faced with boulders found in the park and surrounding area. A photo of the new bridge appeared in the 1910 annual report. In many photographs and postcards it was referred to as the “stone arch bridge.” This bridge was replaced in 1940 as part of a Works Progress Administration (WPA) project in the park.

The bridge was completed in 1940 as a WPA project. (Minneapolis Collection, Hennepin County Library)

The new bridge was made of concrete and faced with cut stone. (This photo is from the Minneapolis Collection at the Hennepin County Library, another priceless resource.) This is one of the five bridges that will be repaired and restored under the Partners in Preservation project.

To vote for Mill Ruins Park (educational archeological excavations of the mills that once stood beside the river) or Minnehaha Park go to Partners in Preservation on Facebook, “like” the page, then vote. (Voting continues only until October 12; you can vote once a day.) It’s a great opportunity to help Minneapolis parks get some funding that they might not get otherwise.

If you’re willing to share your photos of the bridge, send them to me at the address below.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

A few months ago Mary MacDonald and Doug Rosenquist asked about fireplaces near 54th and Hiawatha in Minnehaha Park. Mary asked about the stone fireplace a few hundred yards down the path into the dog park and Doug asked about the brick fireplace nearer the road and north of 54th Street.

View of the fireplace from the path in the dog park.

Unfortunately I haven’t found any information on the massive stone fireplace. Not even MaryLynn Pulscher of the park board knows why it’s there or who built it — and if MaryLynn doesn’t know it’s a decent bet that no one does. Still, I’ll keep asking around. I hope one of our readers knows somebody who remembers something and can pass it along to the rest of us.

I have better news about the two-story incinerator. It was built in 1939 by a WPA crew. This is how it was described in the park board’s 1939 annual report:

“Along this roadway a concrete, limestone-faced incinerator was constructed at the old stone quarry site. This incinerator, the first of its kind in our park system, will burn the waste accumulated from the various picnic grounds in this section of the city. A continuation of improvements similar to these is contemplated for next year.”

Two photos of the incinerator are included in the 1939 annual report, but those photos would be hard to reproduce due to the low quality printing of the annual report that year. The 1931-1939 annual reports were not typeset and production values were low.

A stairway goes down behind the incinerator to a lower level where the fire could be stoked and ashes removed..

Despite a reputation for producing elegant and well-illustrated annual reports dating back to the earliest days of the park board (see praise for the park board’s annual reports from noted landscape architect Warren Manning here), the park board’s finances during the Great Depression would not allow anything above the barest minimum of expenditures on annual reports. I am still grateful, however, that photos were included in the reports during those lean depression years.

Until you can get to a library to find a copy of the report and see the original photos, I will provide this quick shot I took last week.

In materials and construction — concrete faced with limestone — the incinerator is similar to the other WPA construction projects in Minnehaha Park in 1939 and 1940, including bridges across Minnehaha Creek in the lower glen and retaining walls built along the creek. (You still have two days to vote for Minnehaha Park and Mill Ruins Park in the Partners in Preservation contest on facebook.)

The Old Stone Quarry Site

The most interesting part of the incinerator description, for me, is its location at the “old stone quarry site.” I remember seeing the photo below in the 1907 annual report and assumed that the quarry was in operation for several years. It appears that it was not.

The stone quarry and rock crusher built in 1907 to provide rock for parkway paving. 1907 Annual Report of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners

The park board approved the request from park superintendent Theodore Wirth on October 21, 1907 to operate the quarry and stone crusher that winter to provide crushed stone for parkway building projects in the coming year, mostly on Minnehaha Avenue in Minnehaha Park.  The cost of the stone crusher was to be billed against parkway projects.

In the 1908 annual report, published in January 1909, Wirth recommended moving the stone crusher to near the Soo Line railroad bridge on the East River Road for macadamizing that parkway. A year later Wirth reported that the park board was crushing its own stone for use on the river road. Other than a reference in 1910 to selling the city some quarry stone for use in street-paving projects, the quarry and stone crusher aren’t mentioned again for a decade.

In the 1919 annual report Wirth noted that the Minnehaha quarry hadn’t operated since the winter of 1907-1908 but that there remained at the site considerable excellent limestone which was needed for parkway construction.

The park board was embarking on its most ambitious period of parkway building in history. Victory Memorial Drive was under construction, the first work on St. Anthony Boulevard had begun with the clearing of trees from the road bed east of Central Avenue; a new parkway on the west side of Lake Calhoun was in the works; Kenwood Parkway, Linden Hills Boulevard and King’s Highway were scheduled for paving; parkways on both sides of the river were being repaved; and even Minnehaha Avenue through the park needed repaving only ten years after it was paved. One reason for the quick deterioration of that stretch of park road? For two years during World War I, traffic to Fort Snelling had increased dramatically. And the most expensive parkway building project undertaken by the park board in its first 70 years would be the reconstruction of Minnehaha Parkway from Lake Harriet to Minnehaha Park.

Wirth wanted the quarry and rock crusher running in Minnehaha Park especially because he had to delay the repaving of Minnehaha Avenue and King’s Highway in 1919 due to a shortage of stone. If he could quarry his own, that wouldn’t happen again.

Another development in preparation for parkway building was the acquisition of Park Siding, near Dean Parkway,  in 1919. The land wasn’t purchased to serve as a park but to serve as a storage and work yard for park crews building roads. The park board already had an asphalt plant on the site, which it had leased for three years. The three-acre “park” also had its own railroad spur for the easy unloading of machinery and supplies.

Wirth defended his plan to extend the stone quarry dramatically in Minnehaha Park by noting in the 1919 annual report:

The enlargement of the quarry will not mar the beauty of the river bank. The quarry site, after operations come to an end, can be leveled and the plateau so created can be made an attractive, well-protected observation point, from which a splendid view over the Mississippi River, the dam and the mouth of Minnehaha Creek will be obtained.

The proposed extension of the Minnehaha stone quarry. (1919 Annual Report of the Minneapolsi Board of Park Commissioners)n

Wirth provided a drawing of the enlarged quarry and proposed road realignment in that annual report. The next year, Wirth reported again that the board had approved the operation of the quarry and stone crusher, but that it hadn’t been put to work yet. To my knowledge it never was. I can find no further reference to the stone quarry or to rock crushers in any subsequent reports, until the 1939 report that places the incinerator at the “old stone quarry site.”

It is a peculiar twist of history that the only quarry that was operated near the Mississippi River into the 1900s was owned and operated by the park board. One reason Horace Cleveland pleaded, successfully, with city leaders to acquire the banks of the Mississippi River was to protect them from industry and quarries that would scar them, he believed, forever.

(See update on stone quarry December 8, 2011.)

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

I heard again recently the old complaint that north Minneapolis would be a different place if Bassett’s Creek had gotten the same treatment as Minnehaha Creek. Another story of neglect. Another myth.

You can find extensive information on the history of Bassett’s Creek online: a thorough account of the archeology of the area surrounding Bassett’s Creek near the Mississippi River by Scott Anfinson at From Site to Story — must reading for anyone who has even a passing interest in Mississippi River history; a more recent account of the region in a very good article by Meleah Maynard in City Pages in 2000; and, the creek’s greatest advocate, Dave Stack, provides info on the creek at the Friends of Bassett Creek , as well as updates on a Yahoo group site. Follow the links from the “Friends” site for more detailed information from the city and other sources.

What none of those provided to my satisfaction, however, was perspective on Bassett’s Creek itself after European settlement. A search of Minneapolis Tribune articles and Minneapolis City Council Proceedings, added to other sources, provides a clearer picture of the degree of degradation of Bassett’s Creek – mostly in the context of discussions of the city’s water supply. This was several years before the creation of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners in 1883 — a time when Minnehaha Creek was still two miles outside of Minneapolis city limits. The region around the mouth of Bassett’s Creek was an economic powerhouse and an environmental disaster at a very early date — a mix that has never worked well for park acquisition and development.

Idyllic Minnehaha Creek, still in rural surroundings around 1900, quite a different setting than Bassett’s Creek, which had already been partly covered over by then. (Minnesota Historical Society)

“A Lady Precipitated from Bassett’s Creek Bridge”

Anfinson provides many details of the industrial development of the area around the mouth of Bassett’s Creek from shortly after Joel Bean Bassett built his first farm at the junction of the river and the creek in 1852. By the time the Minneapolis Tribune came into existence in 1867, industry was already well established near the banks of the creek. A June 1867 article relates how the three-story North Star Shingle Mill had been erected earlier that year near the creek. The next March an article related the decision to build a new steam-powered linseed oil plant near the creek on Washington Avenue.

Even more informative is a June 27, 1868 story about an elderly woman who fell from a wagon off the First Street bridge over the creek. “A Lady Precipitated from Bassett’s Creek Bridge, a Distance of Thirty Feet,” was the actual headline. (I’m a little embarrassed that I laughed at the odd headline, which evoked an image of old ladies raining down on the city; sadly, her injuries were feared to be fatal.) But a bridge height of thirty feet? That’s no piddling creek — even if a headline writer may have exaggerated a bit. The article was written from the perspective that the bridge was worn out and dangerous and should have been replaced when the city council had considered the matter a year earlier.

By 1871 the Washington Avenue bridge over the creek had been replaced by the only large stone arch bridge in Minnesota, according to the Tribune. ”It was built to last a century, and will stand that long unless torn away to give place to a superior structure,” a Minneapolis Tribune writer speculated on September 21, 1871, unable to foresee that the creek itself would disappear from the landscape in about two decades. The point of this citation is that the area was so developed that bridges over the creek were already being replaced, they were worn out, decaying, a dozen years before Minneapolis had a park board. But it gets worse.

“The mammoth sewer called Bassett’s Creek”

By 1876 Bassett’s Creek was a nuisance to many. In April, the City Council was petitioned to straighten Bassett’s Creek and sink it in a canal. The next month Mayor Ames wrote to the council urging the improvement of the city water works, which at that time took in city water from the Mississippi River below the mouth Bassett’s Creek.

“The water supplied by the Water Works is unfit for domestic purposes. All the drains in the upper portion of the West Division of the city—and especially that mammoth sewer called Bassett’s Creek—empty into the river above the Water Works and the disease generating poison, somewhat diluted, is distributed to those of our citizens living along the water mains.”
– Mayor Albert Ames, in a letter dated May 24, 1876 cited in Proceedings of the City Council, March 21, 1877

City engineer Thomas Rosser used similar language later in 1876 referring to the “sewer known as Bassett’s Creek.” Professor S. F. Peckham, a chemistry professor hired to analyze city water samples, agreed in March 1877 that “Bassett’s Creek in its present condition is practically an open sewer.” The city council’s select committee on water supply went a step further, noting on March 17, 1877, that “local contamination [of the water supply] from city sewerage, especially from Bassett’s Creek, is such as to cause grave apprehensions of disease.”

In an editorial on October 18, 1882 the Minneapolis Tribune called the creek a “prolific source of filth and poison,” and surmised that “the suggestion that a solution of the difficulty might be found in turning the creek into a sewer, the outlet of which should be below the falls, is certainly worthy of consideration…the old bed of the stream could then be filled up.” About the same time the paper reported that developer Louis Menage proposed to straighten the creek across 20 acres of property he owned west of Washington Avenue so that he could build houses there.

By this time, of course, the prominent residents of the Bassett’s Creek area nearer the river had departed. Anfinson writes, “As the sawmills began to take over the nearby river front in the late 1860s, the noise and air pollution began to bother the homeowners south of Bassett’s Creek. Bassett moved to Nicollet Island in 1870.”

Bassett’s Creek was of no interest to anyone who wanted to create beautiful and healthful places of relaxation and revitalization by the time the park board was created in 1883. Even Horace Cleveland, one of the most effective proponents of preserving land for public use, and the most ardent supporter of securing the Mississippi River banks below St. Anthony Falls for a park before they could be spoiled by industry, saw little potential in Bassett’s Creek in the populated neighborhoods of north Minneapolis. In the important “suggestions” he made to the new park board in June, 1883, which created a blueprint for parks in Minneapolis that was followed for decades, Cleveland saw only possibilities to minimize the deleterious impact of a polluted Bassett’s Creek.

“The region traversed by Bassett’s creek is one which threatens danger to the health of the future city, and its proper treatment is a problem that demands early attention. No one has said anything to me in regard to it, and it was only as I have crossed it at one or two different points that I have had an opportunity to observe it. I venture to make only one suggestion in regard to it, which is that the risk of malaria from it will be greatly increased by the construction of causeways across it at the points where it is crossed by streets, as the valley between every two streets would thus be converted into a deep pit, impervious to the air, whereas if bridges are used, the winds would still have free passage up and down the valley.”
– Horace W. S. Cleveland, Suggestions for a System of Parks and Parkways for the City of Minneapolis, June 2, 1883

A year later, the Tribune noted in an article on a real estate boom in North Minneapolis that the “work of filling up Bassett’s Creek goes steadily on.”

A straightened Bassett’s Creek as seen in 1892 plat map. Western Avenue, now Glenwood Avenue, crosses the center of the map, 6th Avenue North, Olson Memorial Highway,  is at the top. (John R. Borchert Map Library.)

The creek has been straightened and buried under railroad yards in 1892 plat map. (John R.Borchert Map Library.)

Plans for straightening, channeling, or burying the creek continued. On December 30, 1888 the Tribune reported that a survey of Bassett’s Creek had been made by the city engineer from its mouth to the second crossing of Western Avenue (now Glenwood Avenue at about Dupont Avenue North). “It is proposed to straighten the creek and build a wall on each side seven feet high,” the paper reported

The result of those efforts is seen in these two segments of the 1892 Minneapolis plat map.

Park Planners Preferred Cheap, Pretty and Unused

As I’ve said and written on many occasions: the park board in Minneapolis — like park organizations nearly everywhere else — has always been opportunistic; it acquired land and developed parks and playgrounds when it could do so at little or no cost and when few people complained of economic injury due to parks. That’s why nearly all parks, in Minneapolis and elsewhere, are on land that had little or no economic worth or potential. In other words, parks are on land that was given away or could be purchased cheaply. It was land that had little value, because it had few other uses.

Theodore Wirth makes my point with his description in the park board’s 1906 annual report of land he recommended adding to Glenwood Park. He wanted to expand the park to include land that was “irresistably attractive with its wooded hills and dells and small woodland meadows of irregular outlines. For all other purposes this land is almost useless, for park purposes it is made to order.”

Park land had to be cheap; it also had to be scenic. Especially in the early days of park building. (In the 1900s, when creating playgrounds became an accepted role for park boards, more parkland was sought in developed areas.) That’s why the first national and state parks were established in the midst of breathtaking scenery like Yellowstone, Yosemite, Niagara Falls and Minnehaha Falls, instead of the cotton fields of Georgia or the  corn fields of Illinois.

The rural setting of Minnehaha Creek, possibly at Penn Avenue, ca. 1890. (Minnesota Historical Society.)

The third thing to keep in mind about park acquisition a century and more ago was the laudable and visionary goal of preserving attractive features of the landscape. When there was still so much that was undeveloped to be preserved, park founders gave little thought to what needed to be reclaimed. By all three tests — cost, appeal and use – Minnehaha Creek topped Bassett’s Creek as worthy of park board attention. The land around Minnehaha was mostly donated and very charming. And it ended in a beautiful waterfall and a lovely secluded glen to the river, where a single mill had been abandoned years before. To suggest that the two creek valleys were treated differently for other reasons is a stretch.

Where Bassett’s Creek was cleaner and more attractive west of industrial north Minneapolis, it was protected, preserved and made part of the park system (when the land around it was donated to the park board or sold cheaply!) at Bryn Mawr, Glenwood (Wirth) Park and Bassett’s Creek Park. That a parkway was never built beside it is the topic for another post.

Would a clean, meandering Bassett’s Creek from Bryn Mawr through the post-industrial wasteland of near-near-north to the Mississippi be a wonderful amenity today? Would it enhance the appeal and value of more property in the core city? It would be amazing — and I applaud the efforts of people like Dave Stack to keep the issue alive. Reclaiming any of this buried creek will require many more years of extraordinary effort, creative thinking and gutsy investment. Perhaps it’s impossible. In any event, it’s likely to happen only after further investment and development along the Mississippi River itself — opportunists, remember? — and the effort will not be advanced by uninformed claims of past neglect.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

I was technically correct when I wrote in October that the park board only operated a limestone quarry and stone crushing plant in Minnehaha Park for one year: 1907. But I’ve now learned that the Minnehaha Park quarry was operated for nearly five years by someone else – the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

From early 1938 until 1942 the WPA, a federal program that provided jobs during the Depression, operated the quarry after “tests revealed a large layer of limestone of hard blue quality near the surface” in the park near the Fort Snelling property line at about 54th, according to the park board’s 1937 Annual Report. The WPA technically operated the plant, but it was clearly for the benefit of the Minneapolis park system.

“Although this plant is operated by the WPA, our Board supplied the bed of limestone, the city water, lighting, gasoline and oil, and also some small equipment, since it was set up primarily for our River Road West project, which included the paving of the boulevard from Lake Street to Godfrey Road, and also to supply sand and gravel to the River Road West Extension project (north from Franklin Avenue) where there was a large amount of concrete retaining wall construction.”
– 1938 Annual Report, Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners

In 1938 the park board estimated that 85% of the product of the stone crushing plant was used on park projects, the remainder on other WPA projects in the city.

The quarry was established in an area that “was not used by the public and when the operations are completed, the area can be converted into picnic grounds and other suitable recreational facilities,” the park board reported. (I bet no one thought then that a “suitable” facility would include a place where people could allow their dogs to run off leash!)

"The Stone-crushing Plant at Minnehaha Park" (1938 Annual Report, Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners) Doesn't look much like one of our favorite wild places, does it?

The plant consisted of “two large jaw crushers” and a conveyor that lifted the crushed rock to shaker screens over four large bins. It was operated by gasoline engines and was lit by electric lights so it could operate day and night. (The fellow with the wheelbarrow in the photo might have liked more conveyor.)

The crushed stone was used in paving River Road West and East, Godfrey Road and many roads, walks and tennis courts throughout the park system. The rock was also used as a paving base at the nearby “Municipal Airport,” also known as Wold-Chamberlain Field, which the park board owned and developed until it ceded authority over the airport to the newly created Metropolitan Airports Commission in 1944. According to the 1942 Annual Report of the park board, in four-and-a-half years the quarry produced 76,000 cubic yards of crushed limestone, 50,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel and 36,000 cubic feet of cut limestone.

The cut limestone was used to face bridges over Minnehaha Creek, shore retaining walls at Lake Harriet, Lake Nokomis and Lake Calhoun and other walls throughout the park system.

The plant was used to crush gravel only in 1938. The gravel was taken from the banks of the Mississippi River, “it having been excavated by the United States Government to deepen the channel of the Mississippi River just below the dam and locks.” After that, the WPA acquired the sand and gravel it needed from a more convenient source in St. Paul.

The project was terminated in 1942 near the end of the WPA. In his 1942 report, park superintendent Christian Bossen wrote in subdued tones that, “For a number of years, practically the only improvement work carried on was through WPA projects. In 1942, WPA confined its work almost exclusively to war projects: and under these conditions considerable work was done at the airport and a very little work was done on park projects.” The WPA was terminated the following year.

The next time you take your dog for a run at the off-leash recreation area at Minnehaha, have a look to see if there are any signs of the quarry and let us know what you find.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Charles Loring’s view on preserving natural landscapes was so well-known that this anonymous poem appeared in the St. Paul Daily Globe on September 8, 1889 in a humor column, “All of Everything: A Symposium of Gossip About Minneapolis Men and Matters.”

A grasping feature butcher,
With adamantine gall,
Wants to build a gallery
At Minnehaha’s fall.

He wants to catch the people
Who come to see the falls,
And sell them Injun moccasins
And beaded overalls.

He wants to take their “phizes,”
A dozen at a crack,
With the foliage around them
And the water at the back.

But the shade of Hiawatha
No such sacrilege would brook:
And he’d shake the stone foundations
Ere a “picter had been took.”

C. M. Loring doesn’t like it,
For he says he’d like to see
The lovely falls, the creek, the woods,
Just as they used to be.

Loring had chaired a commission appointed by the governor to acquire Minnehaha Falls as a state park in 1885. The land was finally acquired, after a long court fight over valuations, in the winter of 1889. (The total paid for the 180-plus acres was about $95,000.) See City of Parks for the story of how George Brackett and Henry Brown took extraordinary action to ensure the falls would be preserved as a park.

The poem in the Daily Globe appeared because the park board was considering permitting construction of a small building beside the falls for the express purpose of taking people’s photos with “the water at the back.” And of course charging them for the privilege.

That proposal elicited a sharp response from landscape architect H. W. S. Cleveland who also opposed having any structure marring the natural beauty of the falls. Cleveland used language much harsher than the reserved Loring likely would have used. In a letter to his friend William W. Folwell, Cleveland wrote on September 5, 1889,

I cannot be silent in view of this proposed vandalism which I am sure you cannot sanction, and which I am equally sure will forever be a stigma upon Minneapolis, and elicit the anathema of every man of sense and taste who visits the place.

If erected it will simply be pandering to the tastes of the army of boobies who think to boost themselves into notoriety by connecting their own stupid features with the representation of one of the most beautiful of God’s works.

The preservation passion of Loring and Cleveland is evident today in the public lakeshores and river banks throughout Minneapolis. The next time you take a stroll around a lake or beside the river, or fight to acquire as parks the sections of the Mississippi River banks that remain in private hands, say a little “thank you” to people like Loring and Cleveland who saw the need to acquire lakes and rivers as parks more than 125 years ago — and nearly got them all.

And the photography shack was never built.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

The park board is turning back the clock at Minnehaha Park, Sunday, July 22 to have some fun with the way things used to be. As a part of the yesteryear theme, I’ll be at the Longfellow House 1-4 p.m to talk about the history of the park and sign copies of City of Parks. I believe the book will be for sale, too.

At 2:30 pm I’ll give a short presentation about the history of Minnehaha Park. I’ll tell you why Minneapolis asked the state legislature in 1885 for 1,000 acres in the vicinity of the park — and why the legislature only approved 200  — and didn’t pay for it anyway.

Please come by and introduce yourself.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

This bear cage was built in Minnehaha Park in 1899 to house four black bears and one “cinnamon” bear. The 1899 report of the Minneapolis park board describes this bear “pit” built for the bears acquired by the park board over the previous few years. The cost of the construction was about $1200. It was built years before the private Longfellow Zoo was operated by Robert “Fish” Jones upstream from Minnehaha Falls. Many people believe, mistakenly, that the zoo in Minnehaha Park was Jones’s zoo. The park board began exhibiting animals in Minnehaha Park in 1894. Jones didn’t open his Longfellow Zoo until 1907, after the park board decided to get rid of most of the animals in its zoo. Jones spotted a lucrative opportunity to expand and profit from his own menagerie in the vacuum created by the park board’s decision.

“Psyche.” That was the brief caption under this photo in the 1899 annual report of the Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners. I assume it was the bear’s name. Later, the cages held bears named “Mutt,” “Dewey,” and “Chet,” a cub that was a crowd favorite in 1915. Dewey was badly hurt in a fall while trying to catch peanuts thrown from the crowd that year and had to be put down. (Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board)

The park board’s 1894 annual report contains the first inkling of what would become a sizable zoo. Superintendent William Berry reported,

“A deer paddock was enclosed, 50 feet square, and shelters built for deer. Two deer were added making a herd of three. Five eagles were presented to the park for which were made a cage covered with heavy wire netting.”

The financial portion of the report noted among maintenance expenditures at Minnehaha Park: Meat for eagles, $15. The next year the park board purchased three elk and accepted gifts of three more deer and three red foxes. For the deer and elk, “a portion of the glen was enclosed with a strong woven wire fence eight feet high, the length of the circuit being 2,950 feet.”

The gifts of animals kept coming and several animals were purchased, too, requiring new accommodations in Minnehaha Park. The 1897 annual report included this information from Berry, “A tank was made and enclosed for the retention of an alligator presented to the Board by the Grand Lodge B. P. O. E.” The alligator had been brought to a national convention of Elks in Minneapolis by the New Orleans delegation and left behind as a gift.

The unusual gift, matched by another free alligator the next year, lead to one of the oddest entries in the financial records of the board over the next few years. Each year the Mendenhall Greenhouse submitted its bill, increasing from $10.50 in 1898 to $14 in 1903, for “Keeping alligators in winter.” A tank in a greenhouse was the only place a warm weather creature could be housed for a Minneapolis winter. Native animals were left outside at Minnehaha, while non-native animals and exotic birds spent the winter in the park board barns at Lyndale Farmstead. Berry noted in 1899 that, “the collection of animals at the barns have proved quite an attraction and a large number of people visit them.”

By then the “collection” had become sizable and the costs had become significant, too. In the 1898 annual report William Folwell wrote,

“A list of animals now owned and kept in the parks is appended. They have been acquired by gift or at slight cost and form an attraction of no small account in the Minnehaha park. The expense of feeding and care has become considerable. A zoological garden is a great ornament to a city and is a most admirable adjunct to school education. The child who can see and study a moose, an eagle, an alligator, or any other strange beast of the field gets what no book can ever teach. It may be proper to continue the present policy, silently developed, of occasional additions to the collections as can be made at slight expense, but the matter ought not to go much further without a definite plan and counting of the cost.”

The list of animals Folwell mentioned shows that it was more than the “petting zoo” that some people think it was:
1 Moose
9 Elk
27 Deer
1 Antelope
4 Black Bears
1 Cinnamon Bear
38 Rabbits
1 Alligator
1 Ape
1 Dwarf Monkey
1 Gray Squirrel
1 Black Squirrel
10 Swans
16 Wild Geese
45 Ducks
1 Mountain Lion
2 Sea Lions
2 Timber Wolves
3 Red Foxes
1 Silver Gray Fox
4 Raccoons
2 Badgers
1 Wild Cat
5 Guinea Pigs
1 Eagle
4 Owls
5 Peacocks
6 Guinea Hens
1 Blue Macaw
1 Red Macaw
2 Cockatoos

It should be noted that not all of the birds lived at Minnehaha park. The swans and some other birds spent their summers at Loring Park. The sea lions and alligator were given new outdoor digs, which included a concrete swimming pool four feet deep, at Minnehaha in the summer of 1899. By then the park board was spending more than $2,000 a year on the care and feeding of its menagerie.

This was all a little too much for landscape architect Warren Manning who was asked to review the entire park system and make his recommendations in 1899. His sensible advice was to get rid of the exotic animals and keep only animals that could live outdoors in “accommodations that will be as nearly like those they find in their native habitat as it is practicable to secure.” Manning was ahead of his time in more than landscape architecture.

It was difficult, however, for the park board to divest a popular attraction. The park board did begin selling excess animals – including several deer to New York’s zoo – but Folwell wrote in the 1901 annual report,

“It is possible that as many people go to Minnehaha park to see the interesting animal collection as to view the historic falls.”

It took the coming of a new park superintendent in 1906 to resolve the issue. Theodore Wirth did not like the animals at Minnehaha, or in his warehouse all winter, and he felt the cramped conditions of some animals was cruel. As was his custom, he minced no words on the subject when he addressed the issue with the park board for the first time on February 5, 1906, barely a month after he took the job as park superintendent. The Minneapolis Tribune quoted Wirth in its February 6, edition:

“The present status of the menagerie is a discredit to the department and the city of Minneapolis…(it is) not only out of place and inharmonious with the surroundings, but to my mind even offensive to the highest degree. I am confident that H. W. S. Cleveland, who through his true artistic love, knowledge and appreciation of nature’s charms and teachings gave such valuable advice and suggestions for the acquirement and preservation of those grounds, would second my opinion in this matter and advise the removal of the menagerie from this spot.”

I’m sure Wirth was right about Cleveland; he would have detested the zoo. Wirth got his wish a little more than a year later when the park board reached agreement with R. F. Jones on his use of land above Minnehaha Falls for his private zoo. Ultimately the park board nearly followed the advice of Warren Manning: it kept the deer and elk in an outdoor enclosure similar to their natural habitat, but it also kept the bears in their pit and cages that didn’t resemble anything natural.

Evicting many of the animals from the zoo did not mean, however, that the park board quit acquiring animals altogether. The next year, 1908, the park board acquired a buffalo, on Wirth’s recommendation, and also acquired more bears. Of course, both animals could survive Minnesota winters outdoors. The hoofed animals remained in the park until 1923. I don’t know when the bear cages were closed or removed. The last information I have on bears in the park comes from the newspaper article in 1915 that reported Dewey’s demise. Theodore Wirth’s plan for the improvement of Minnehaha Glen, published in the park board’s 1918 annual report, still shows the bear pit beside the road to the Falls overlook.

Although the park board sent its exotic animals to R. F. Jones’s zoo in 1907, that was not the last time exotic animals were tenants on park board property. For the winter of 1911 Jones decided not to ship his “oriental and ornamental” animals and birds south for the winter. Instead he kept them in Minneapolis, where he could continue charging admission to see them, I’m sure. He found the perfect spot for such a winter display in the very heart of the city.

Jones rented the Center block at 202 Nicollet on Bridge Square from the park board. The park board had acquired the property for the new Gateway park in 1909-1910, but couldn’t develop the property until  tenants leases expired in the buildings it had purchased. As those leases expired, the park board certainly had ample empty space for which a temporary tenant would have been welcome. Jones needed short-term space in a heavily travelled location, and likely got it cheap. The Minneapolis Tribune reported October 22, 1911 that “Mr. Jones thinks that trouble and money can be saved by keeping (the animals) here throughout the entire year.”

A final thought. Minneapolis Tribune columnist Ralph W. Wheelock was more than a little suspicious of R. F. Jones famous story about a sea lion escaping from his zoo down Minnehaha Creek, over the Falls and out to the Mississippi River. This is what he wrote on July 10, 1907, shortly after Jones established his zoo:

“Prof. R. F. Jones, of the New Longfellow Zoo at Minnehaha Falls, announces through the press in a loud tone of voice that he has lost a sea lion. While we would not doubt the word of so eminent a scientific authority, when we recall the clever devices of the up-to-date press agent we think we sea lion elsewhere than in the river.”

This is probably the first story written about Jones in 100 years that did not mention that he wore a top hat and went everywhere with two wolfhounds. He was a colorful character, eccentric entrepreneur and shrewd showman, but he was not the first or only one to run a zoo near Minnehaha Park. The park board beat him to it by 13 years.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Karen Cooper tells me she has photos of more 19th- and early 20th-Century bridges over Minnehaha Creek at Minnehaha Falls than the ones I’ve already posted. You can see those photos and more next Sunday, Feb. 10, at 2 pm at Hennepin History Museum. (Get more info here.)

I’m told that Karen has the most amazing Minnehaha Falls collection. I’m looking forward to seeing part of it myself for the first time. Hope to see you there.

The 1910 stone arch bridge was actually made of reinforced concrete and given a facade of boulders found in the vicinity. (Minnesota Historical Society)

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

Ok, it wasn’t really a Minneapolis park project, but it still deserves a laugh: Minnehaha Creek converted into a 30-foot-wide power boat canal from Lake Minnetonka to Lake Harriet!

Lake Harriet could have been more like Lake Minnetonka.

Minneapolis was obsessed in the spring of 1911 with the upcoming Civic Celebration during which the channel between Lake Calhoun and Lake of the Isles would be opened. That was a very good thing. Huzzah, huzzah. But the attention it was drawing to the city also focused a lot of eyes on a very bad thing: Minnehaha Creek was nearly dry – in the spring! – which meant almost no water over Minnehaha Falls. Minneapolis could hardly celebrate the opening of the lake connection at the same time it suffered the ignominy of a dry Minnehaha Falls. The many out-of-town visitors anticipated for the celebration would surely want to see both. And let’s face it, a fifty-foot waterfall written about by a Harvard poet, which attracted visitors from around the world was a bit more impressive to most people than a short canal under a busy road and railroad tracks. The Minneapolis PR machine could call the city the “Venice of North America” all it wanted with its new canal, but visitors’ imaginations were still probably fueled more by the images of the famous poet’s noble heathen, beautiful maiden, and “laughing waters.”

The generally accepted solution to the lack of water over Minnehaha Falls was to divert Minnehaha Creek into Lake Amelia (Nokomis), drain Rice Lake (Hiawatha), dam the outlet of the creek from Amelia to create a reservoir, and release the impounded water as needed — perhaps 8 hours a day — to keep a pleasing flow over the falls. Unfortunately, with all the last-minute dredging and bridge-building for the Isles-Calhoun channel, that couldn’t be done in 1911 between April and July 4, when the Civic Celebration would launch.

Into this superheated environment of waterways and self-promotion stepped Albert Graber, according to the Saturday Evening Tribune, May 28, 1911. With the backing of “members of the board of county commissioners, capitalists, attorneys and real estate dealers”, Graber proposed to dredge Minnehaha Creek into a canal 30-feet wide from Lake Minnetonka to Lake Harriet. This would provide not only a water superhighway from Minnetonka to Minneapolis, and boost real estate prices along the creek, but it would also create a much larger water flow in Minnehaha Creek, solving the embarrassment of no laughing water.

“The plan, say the promoters, would enable residents of summer houses on the big lake to have their launches waiting at the town lake.”
Saturday Evening Tribune, May 28, 1911

Sure, there were problems. Not every plan could be perfect. The plan would require dismantling the dam at Gray’s Bay at the head of Minnehaha Creek, which might lower the level of Lake Minnetonka. But Graber and his backers had thought of that. The Minnesota River watershed in the area of St. Bonifacius and Waconia would be diverted into Lake Minnetonka — no problem! – which also solved another bother: it would reduce flooding on the Minnesota River.

The dam at Gray’s Bay had been operated by Hennepin Country since 1897. Many people then and now consider the dam the cause of low water flow in Minnehaha Creek, but the earliest reference I can find to low water in the creek was in 1820, when the soldiers of Fort Snelling wanted to open a mill on Minnehaha Creek, but were forced to move to St. Anthony Falls due to low water. That was even before two intrepid teenagers from the fort discovered that the creek flowed out of a pretty big lake to the west.

Graber estimated that dredging Minnehaha Creek would cost about $4,000 a mile for the nine miles between the two lakes. He and his backers, which included an officer of the Savings Bank of Minneapolis (who presumably had a summer house on the big lake and could put a launch on the town lake), provided assurances that the money to finance the project could be “readily found.”

The Evening Tribune article concluded with an announcement that meetings of those interested in the project would be held in the near future with an eye to beginning work before the end of the summer. Graber noted that his inspection of the project had been, no surprise, “superficial”, but that he would make a thorough report soon to his backers. I can find no evidence that the idea progressed any further.

The Board of Park Commissioners would have had no role in the plan, except, perhaps, allowing power boats to enter and be anchored on Lake Harriet. (I think they would have said no.) Park board ownership of Minnehaha Creek west of Lake Harriet to Edina wasn’t proposed until 1919 and the deal wasn’t done until 1930.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

Minneapolis parks are home to few statues, but two of the people or characters memorialized by statues in parks were related in real life. Well, sort of. Maybe “connected” is a better word. Can you guess which two? And, no, it’s not Hiawatha and Minnehaha.

Here’s the complete list of park statues as they come to mind: Abraham Lincoln on Victory Memorial Drive, Ole Bull in Loring Park, Thomas Lowry in Smith Triangle, George Washington in Washburn Fair Oaks, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in Longfellow Glen, and John Stevens, Hiawatha and Minnehaha, Gustav Wennerburg, and Taoyateduta at Minnehaha Park. We could add the Pioneers at the B. F. Nelson site, but they are anonymous figures.

The answer: Ole Bull’s brother-in-law, Joseph G. Thorp, the younger brother of Bull’s American wife, Sara Chapman Thorp, married Anne Allegra Longfellow, the youngest daughter of Henry in 1882. The marriage took place after Ole Bull’s death, so I’m not sure that such a bond actually makes Bull and Longfellow related, but Longfellow’s biographer Thomas Wentworth Higginson said the marriage “allied” the two families. Bull and Longfellow certainly would have known each other in the social/intellectual circles of Cambridge, Mass. Higginson suggests that Ole Bull was the model for the troubadour in Longfellow’s Tales of a Wayside Inn, which was published in 1863. Very few people recognize the book title, but many more are familiar with the most famous poem from the book, “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

The title of the volume of poetry mentioned above was recommended to Longfellow, according to Higginson, by another man who has a Minneapolis park named for him: Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator who was Longfellow’s best friend.

If you ever bothered to lay out the convoluted timeline of the above events you’d realize that it only works if Ole Bull was much older than Sara Thorp — which is true. He met the Wisconsin lumberman’s daughter after a performance in Madison, Wisconsin when he was 60 and she was 20. They married two years later.

Longfellow statue in a field near Longfellow Garden upstream from Minnehaha Falls, 2011. (Ursula Murray Husted, flickr.com)

This statue of Norwegian violinist and composer Ole Bull was placed in Loring Park in 1897, shown here in about 1900. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This story was brought to mind by the discovery earlier this week of a cabinet photograph of Ole Bull among the possessions of my mother-in-law, Virginia Carpentier, who died two weeks ago. We will miss Ginny.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2013 David C. Smith

The mystery of the fireplace in the dog park at Minnehaha Park has been solved thanks to reader “Tom.” Many people have followed this issue or expressed an interest in it and I know that many readers don’t check back to see comments on posts, so I wanted to bring this comment to your attention.

The fireplace surrounded by picnic tables in 1935. (Minnesota Historical Society)

This is the photo of the fireplace that Tom found in the collection of the Minnesota Historical Society, which includes more than 230,000 photographs. As I’ve noted many times, that collection is invaluable and immensely enjoyable. The picnic ground belonged to the Minneapolis Veterans Hospital according to the photo description. Tom further notes that the park board acquired this land in 1959. Thanks for your comment, Tom. Does anyone want to tell us when the fireplace and picnic ground were built?

Excellent Comments

I would suggest that you check back on your favorite park subjects occasionally to see recent comments, or subscribe to comments on any post. Especially interesting in recent months have been

Chuck Solomon’s comment in which he named all of the coaches and nearly every player from a McRae Park football photo

Another tribute to Marv Nelson, a youth football coach at Folwell Park in the 1960s and 1970s

Memories of Keewaydin Park, especially kids’ games and hockey.

These are just a few of the comments in recent months. Thanks to everyone who has commented on the articles here or has contacted me personally with more stories. I appreciate them all. Stories: that’s what this web site is all about.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2014 David C. Smith

The recent good news from park commissioner Scott Vreeland and the Minneapolis park board that part of the spectacular Mississippi River Gorge will be named after visionary landscape architect and preservationist Horace William Shaler Cleveland recalled for me a passage in a letter from Cleveland to William Watts Folwell. In that letter, Cleveland pondered names for a yet-to-be-acquired river gorge park. His effort at park naming wasn’t nearly as impressive as his “sermons” on preserving and protecting the river gorge in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

In a letter dated February 11, 1889, Cleveland discussed strategy for getting the Minnesota legislature to approve acquisition of the land around Minnehaha Falls on the Minneapolis side of the river and a mirror park on the St. Paul side of the river. He concluded his letter,

By the way, help me to find a name for that area — “Mississippi Park” or “River Park” are the first that suggest themselves — but are not satisfactory. “Giants Cradle” has occurred to me, the river being the infant giant lying in its bed, but I fear that would need interpretation.
— William Watts Folwell Family Papers, Minnesota Historical Society

The legislature did approve the acquisition of the land on the Minneapolis side of the river, including Minnehaha Falls, for a park, but did not provide money to purchase the land. That’s when several Minneapolis people, led by George Brackett and Henry Brown, loaned the city the money to buy the land. It would be another 13 years before the park board acquired the rest of the west side of the Mississippi River Gorge from Minnehaha Park to Franklin Avenue. By then, Horace Cleveland had died.

As for the name, I think Cleveland’s fears about “Giants Cradle” were well-justified! The entire river gorge park was formally named Mississippi Park for a long time. The name of Horace Cleveland strikes me as much more “satisfactory” for that land than anything he suggested.

Clean Up

I recently had a chance to take a very close look at part of the river gorge during the April 26 Earth Day cleanup sponsored by Friends of the Mississippi River (FMR). I scoured a small part of the river bank picking up an astonishing variety of trash. The most abundant type of trash surprised me: bits of styrofoam.

I was pleased to see such a large turnout of volunteers that the organizers ran out of garbage bags at the 36th St. site. If you can spare an hour sometime, volunteer at one of the cleanup sites organized by FMR (check fmr.org for a calendar) or at your local park. If you’re like me, it will heighten your appreciation for our parks. I think the beauty and delicacy of the landscape tends to elicit a very protective response. It certainly did from Horace Cleveland, which I believe is the primary reason we still have that wild river gorge. As marvelous as it is, I couldn’t help but wonder what that river gorge might have looked like before it became a reservoir.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2014 David C. Smith

As we await another early evening thunderstorm, I will post a few historic photos of Minnehaha Creek and Minnehaha Falls taken earlier this afternoon. I call them historic because I’ve never seen the creek this high. One man I encountered on my explorations claimed it was a record water level for the creek. I’ll have to look that up.

The entire length of the creek was flooded, of course, even a few hours after the rain had stopped, but these three photos establish landmarks.

The bridge to nowhere. The creek normally flows under the bridge near the top of the photo. Minnehaha Parkway at Humboldt Avenue South, south of the Lynnhurst Recreation Center. (David C. Smith)

Minnehaha Parkway at 16th Avenue South. (David C. Smith)

Looking west on Minnehaha Parkway at Cedar Avenue South. (David C. Smith)

A man I met near Cedar Avenue claimed that the water reached a similar level after a 1988 thunderstorm, but the water subsided very quickly. Today it didn’t. Minnehaha Parkway was barricaded at many points east of Lake Harriet.

More than a water hazard. Hiawatha Golf Course looking south from E. 43rd Street near Standish. That is not Lake Hiawatha in the foreground. (David C. Smith)

A romantic interlude at the famous rapids of Minnehaha Creek! This is only a few yards upstream from the Hiawatha statue. (David C. Smith)

Some early descriptions of the Falls mentioned the heavy mist generated by the falls. That was true today. There was no rain falling while I was taking the pictures below, but I could feel the water in the air. Not quite as dramatic as Victoria Falls, where the cloud of mist over the falls is visible for miles — it’s called Mosi-o-Tunya, the Smoke that Thunders — but still impressive for this normally modest stream in mid-summer.

The falls made famous by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I recently discovered startling early plans for the park at the falls that I am waiting for permission to reveal. Stay tuned. (David C. Smith)

Unfortunately such high water levels, like the strong winds of recent years, require expensive cleanup efforts from the park board, stretching already tight park maintenance budgets. Kudos and thanks to the park board crews that will put our water-logged parks in beautiful condition yet again.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© David C. Smith

Does anyone have any pictures to post of Bassett’s Creek in Theodore Wirth Park or downstream to Bryn Mawr before it dives underground? Is Shingle Creek any better?

Saturday afternoon I spent a bit more time looking at high water around the city. On that gorgeous afternoon, Minneapolis parks were heavily patronized, partly because of the beautiful day and partly because people were curious about the effects of our summer deluge.

The banks of the Mississippi River that I helped clean in April were under water again. Maybe when these flood waters subside, Friends of the Mississippi River should sponsor another trash pick up. Or we could each take a trash bag along when we go out for riverside hikes.

More evidence of high water on the big creek at the Ford Dam.

High water over the Ford Dam, June 21, 2014. Late last summer, there was no water flowing over the dam and below the dam was mostly dry land. (David C. Smith)

Last summer you could walk from the locks to the island where the submerged trees are now. The Ford Dam is just to the left of this photo. (David C. Smith, June 21, 2014)

Both photos were taken from the bluff at Minnehaha Park and the Soldiers Home. Water levels in Minnehaha Creek had subsided little, if at all, from Thursday to Saturday. Water was still thundering over Minnehaha Falls.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

The Minnesota Department of Highways’ first rendering of the elevated freeway proposed for Hiawatha Avenue — Trunk Highway 55 — through Minnehaha Park appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune on February 15, 1968. The view below is looking down Minnehaha Creek toward Minnehaha Falls.  The canoe is a nice touch. An illustration from a similar distance from the proposed freeway looking upstream would place you near the precipice of the Falls. There is only one reason this monstrosity wasn’t built: the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, then still named the Board of Park Commissioners, fought it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

The Minnesota Department of Highways’ first depiction of the elevated freeway it planned for Trunk Highway 55, Hiawatha Avenue, through Minnehaha Park. The illustration is dated 2-14-1968.

I recall seeing a comment a few months ago on another blog that the proposed freeway was not elevated. It wasn’t originally — it was to be built on a steep embankment — but in response to criticism that the freeway would be a barrier between Minnehaha Falls and Longfellow Garden, the highway department proposed putting this 1000-foot section “on stilts”, in the words of the Minneapolis Tribune’s caption.

This was the first of two drawings of the elevated freeway that I know of. The highway department later produced a revised drawing that showed softened lines and curved supports to make the freeway “more graceful and attractive,” according to a description in the Minneapolis Star, August 6, 1969. The new design featured “gracefully curved lines on the road deck and possibly colored concrete,” said the Star. I’m trying to get my hands on the second drawing too. If anyone has a copy, I’d love to see it.

The brief that Minnesota Attorney General Douglas Head submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in opposition to a Writ of Certiorari in October 1969 claimed that in addition to elevating the freeway the state had tried to address park board concerns by also removing a diamond freeway interchange originally planned on park property!

More on this subject very soon. This is just a teaser.

David C. Smith  minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2014 David C. Smith

A frozen Minnehaha Falls has always intrigued people. Many photos exist of the falls in winter, including those published recently in the StarTribune that created a ruckus. Several shots of the ice wall were popular as postcards in the early 1900s, such as the one below.

Minnehaha Falls on a postcard around 1910.

I recently received a photo from Edward Tobin Thompson of Maple Grove that I like as well as any.

Minnehaha Falls in January, 1899. (Photo courtesy Edward Tobin Thompson)

The photo, dated January 15, 1899, comes from an old family photo album. Ed doesn’t know who is standing at the foot of the falls, but it is likely the same man pictured on the park bench below, a photo that carries the same date and inscription on the back.

Resting on a bench in Minnehaha Park, January 1899. Judging from the hat, this may be the same man posing in front of the falls. (Photo courtesy Edward Tobin Thompson)

Ed guesses that the man is one of his Tobin ancestors. The Tobins immigrated from Ireland and settled in Wisconsin about 1846, he says. They later lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan before moving to Montana.

An imitation Minnehaha Falls? Date and place unknown. (Courtesy Edward Tobin Thompson)

Ed also sent this photo of a waterfall without a label from the same album and he wondered if it could be Minnehaha Falls as well. I don’t think so because in hundreds of pictures I’ve never seen the lip of the falls or the pattern of falling water like this, or the pool of water below the falls so large. Any opinions? Are you watching, Karen Cooper? (Karen has to be the world’s leading authority on images of Minnehaha Falls.) If not Minnehaha Falls, what falls? Any other cataracts in Wisconsin or Minnesota like this? Send in your guesses.

Danger Under the Falls

When photos appeared in the StarTribune recently of people behind the frozen falls, it brought to mind a story from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper dated December 25, 1869, which was featured in Minnesota History, the magazine of the Minnesota Historical Society.

An engraving of photographer Charles Zimmerman being knocked unconscious by an icicle, November 28, 1869.

The article described a near tragedy when the falls wasn’t completely frozen. The article was illustrated by the engraving at right. This is how the events involving well-known photographer Charles Zimmerman were originally described in the newspaper:

“Wishing to obtain winter views of a place Longfellow has immortalized in his classic verse, Mr. Zimmerman passed under the falls. An hour later, a Mr. Haines, while exploring the rocks, happened to look behind the curtain of water as it leaped from the edge of the precipice to the abyss beneath and was startled by what he saw. A large icicle weighing between two and three hundred pounds, loosened by the thaw, had severed its connection with the roof above, and had fallen on Mr. Zimmerman, crushing him down, and leaving him insensible beneath it. Mr. Haines quickly relieved the prostrate artist, whom he found nearly frozen. Indeed, had succor been delayed half an hour longer, the unfortunate man would have most certainly died.”

The photographer conked on the head by the giant icicle, Charles Zimmerman, became one of the most prolific shooters of scenes in St. Paul and Minneapolis in the late 1800s. Most of his photographs were sold as stereoviews, the side-by-side photos that took on a 3D appearance when viewed through a stereoscope. If Zimmerman had perished that day under the ice of Minnehaha Falls we would not have nearly so thorough or enjoyable a record of life in Minneapolis in the 19th Century.

Don’t Be Left Insensible

I’d recommend that you not climb up under the falls either. (It is illegal!) Maybe you will do something memorable someday, as Charles Zimmerman did, if you live a little longer.

David C. Smith   minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com

© 2015 David C. Smith

In case you forgot.

Karen Cooper is speaking tonight at 7 at St. John’s Episcopal Church on Sheridan Ave. South and 42nd on Minnehaha Falls. Still plenty of time to grab a bite to eat and get to Linden Hills. Should be informative. Karen has promised some new revelations about the history of Minneapolis’s most famous park and she has a library of great photographs of the park and falls.

I will be speaking Saturday morning at 11 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The title of my presentation is Arts and Parks: Culture and Beauty on the Frontier.  I’ll talk about the indefatigable promoters of both fine arts and parks in the early history of Minneapolis.

Hope to see you at one or both.

David C. Smith    minneapolisparkhistory[at]q.com