Minnehaha Falls

In 1819 Colonel Josiah Snelling took command of Fort Snelling. He set about to rebuild and strengthen the fortifications on the Mississippi River. To do this he needed lumber. A mill was built at what is now called Minnehaha Falls. However it was then called Little Falls. In 1820 the water level at the falls became too low for the mill so it was moved to the St. Anthony Falls. Two years later Josiah's son William Joseph Snelling and Joseph Renshaw Brown led an expedition to find the source of Minnehaha Creek. They discovered that Lake Minnetonka was the source. In 1829 Brown retired from military service and began farming land near the falls, which were then called Brown's falls. Minnehaha is a Dakota word that means waterfall.

Because it was once at the mouth of the Mississippi River, the falls were a popular destination for steamboats carrying tourists in the 1840s and 50s. The Mississippi connected Minnesota to the rest of the world. Steamboats that traveled the river enabled a healthy trade system and also became the start of Minnnesota's tourism industry. The famous artist George Catlin named the tour taken by steamboats "the Fashionable Tour". It became a favorite destination for honeymooners. A stagecoach took travelers from the docks in St. Paul to Minnehaha Falls.

But it wasn't until Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote about the falls in his poem "Song of Hiawatha" in 1853 that they captured the nation's attention. The poem is a romantic version of Indian legends recorded by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft.

The park that encompasses the falls is one of Minneapolis' oldest city parks.

Sources
http://www.minneapolisparks.org/documents/parks/Parks_Lakes_Trails_Much_More.pdf

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/hpc/landmarks/Minnehaha_District.asp