Sherman Wick - A History Lovers Guide to Minneapolis (History & Guide)

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2019 by Sherman Wick and Holly Day

All rights reserved

Cover images from the Library of Congress. All other photos by Sherman Wick.

First published 2019

E-book edition 2019

ISBN 978.1.43966.864.1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019913833

Print Edition ISBN 978.1.46714.193.2

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

To our mothers, Rita and Elvy.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Minneapolis is a city of seasons. Regardless of the extremes of the weather, events are paramount and celebrated amid the festive chill and persistent flurries of the annual Holidazzle or the sultriness midsummer of the Aquatennial. The citys landmarks define the topography of Minneapolisthe Chain of Lakes, Spoonbridge and Cherry, the Stone Arch Bridge, the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, the Foshay Tower and the IDS Centerand cast shadows throughout the City of Lakes or the Mill City. For Minneapolis, both municipal mottos reveal the citys history.

The water of the powerful Mississippi River runs throughout the historical genesis of Minneapolis. Surpassing St. Louis in flour production was impossible without the Falls of St. Anthony, a seemingly infinite natural hydrological power source. But the unattainable goal was accomplished in 1880. Minneapolis prevaileda position retained for fifty years. Moreover, Minneapolis, in the 1870s, exceeded St. Paul in manufacturing. Minneapolis became the most populous city in the Upper Midwest.

I arrived in Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota almost thirty years ago. And Minneapolis was the place to be, for me, with the recently defunct Hsker D and the legendary Replacements. Holly came here on a job offer that fell through and stayed because she had family in the area. Together, weve written several books about Minneapolis and nearby St. Paul.

At the end of each chapter, Your Guide to History is arranged alphabetically except in some obvious cases for convenience.

This book would be impossible without the resources available at the Minneapolis Central Library and the Minnesota Historical Society.

MILL CITY TO CITY OF LAKES

Before steam power was fully developed, the Falls of St. Anthony, the sole waterfall on the Mississippi River, provided the chief source of energy in the region. The duality of the Falls, both as a natural attraction and as an energy resource, recalibrated increasingly to the latter.

The Falls attracted explorers and travelers with its astonishing riverine beauty. One noteworthy traveler was Henry David Thoreau (18071862). Afflicted with tuberculosis, commonly known as consumption, he would die the following year. When Thoreau visited, accompanied by botanist Horace Mann Jr., the nineteen-year-old son of the Father of the American education, the Falls of St. Anthonys natural beauty was uncompromised. The year 1861 was pivotal, just before the Civil War and after the Panic of 1857, which had destroyed the local and national economy. The trip was Thoreaus longest journeyover 3,500 miles. Thoreau was an influential leader of the Transcendentalist movement that began in the 1820s and 1830s, and his philosophy was influenced by Platonism, romanticism and Kantian philosophy. The poet, philosopher and essayist never formally wrote about the area. But he did draft journals and letters while traveling with state geologist Dr. Charles Anderson.

In March 1935, John T. Flanagan wrote in Minnesota History Magazine, Together they roamed through the woods and around the shores of Lake Calhoun, botanizing and culling specimens of plant and animal life. Thoreau enjoyed the grandeur of the lakes while also noting the prodigious profusion of mosquitoes and ticks despite his perspective emphasizing common space over commodity and property. It is obvious that Thoreau viewed the settlements along the upper Mississippi not as hamlets struggling to achieve fame and prosperity, but as happy hunting grounds for naturalist and wanderer who had hitherto been limited to a different terrain with other flora and fauna, wrote Flanagan.

Mill City Museum.

Thoreau hoped to chronicle the natural elegance of the Falls of St. Anthony. But he failed to consult the local Native Americansthe Dakota and the Ojibwe. In the aftermath of the Dakota War, the Dakota and Ojibwe were exiled to Nebraska and South Dakota after the public hanging of thirty-eight Dakota in Mankato on December 26, 1862. The forced removal of the Native Americans opened the falls for lumber milling. Over decades, industrialization was an ongoing process. The milling elites, first, turned away from the river to the lakes, and the Mill City ascended as the nations flour milling center. The islands around the falls were modified, reshaped orin the case of Spirit Islandeventually erased from the map.

Spirit Island, or Wanagiyata to the Dakota, was located north of the old Lower Bridge (18571934) immediately downriver from the Stone Arch Bridge. Before settlement, the Army Corps of Engineers viewed Spirit Island as a channel obstruction to the falls. Composed physically of a St. Peter sandstone base with a limestone cap, the island was eroded away by industrial use.

Jonathan Carver described the island in Travels Through America 17661768: At a little distance below the Falls stands a small island of about an acre and a half on which grow a great number of oak trees, every branch of which, able to support the weight, was full of eagles nests. In 1849, Swedish novelist and feminist Fredrika Bremer also discussed the significance of Spirit Island. After she visited St. Anthony, even if she shared some of the racist views of the time, she did appreciate the culture of the American Indians.

First St. Anthony and then Minneapolis were platted on the river. Sawmilling and, later, flour milling built the two cities that merged in 1872. Successive waves of immigrants arrived to fill jobs in the flourishing milling and numerous allied industrial fields. The citys population swelled while reestablished boundaries expanded. From 1880 to 1930, Minneapolis quickly claimed the position of commercial and cultural capital of the Upper Midwest.

Spirit Island continued to be mined away, while Cataract and Upton Islands also vanished with navigation improvement projects by the Army Corps of Engineers at the Upper Mississippi Harbor. Spirit Islands disappearance was chronicled in the Hennepin County History Magazine in the spring 1960 issue, while the history was bereft of the American Indians story.

The Falls of St. Anthony and the old Mill District.

In the decades before urban renewal, the vicinity of the falls was largely industrial. However, Nicollet Island was forty acres of residences, commercial and industrial buildings and De La Salle High School. The Lower Dam submerged Cataract Island. Finally, the fifteen acres of Hennepin Island was, as