Saint Anthony Falls
Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony, located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. Throughout the mid-to-late 1800s, various dams were built atop the east and west faces of the falls to support the milling industry that spurred the growth of the city of Minneapolis. In 1880, the central face of the falls was reinforced with a sloping timber apron to stop the upstream erosion of the falls. In the 1950s, the apron was rebuilt with concrete, which makes up the most visible portion of the falls today. A series of locks were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s to extend navigation to points upstream.
The falls were renamed from their Dakota title in 1680 by Father Louis Hennepin after his patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua. The towns of St. Anthony and Minneapolis, which had developed on the east and west sides of the falls, respectively, merged in 1872 to fully use the power of the falls for milling operations. From 1880 to about 1930, Minneapolis was known as the "Flour Milling Capital of the World".
Today, the falls are defined by the spillway, the upper dam and the locks, located just downstream of the 3rd Avenue Bridge, and the Lower Lock and Dam, just upstream of the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge. These locks were built as part of the Upper Mississippi River 9-Foot Navigation Project. The area around the falls is designated the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and features a self-guided walking trail with signs explaining the area's past.
History
The falls hold cultural and spiritual significance for native tribes who frequented and lived in the area. The falls is an important and sacred site to the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the Mississippi River, hahawakpa, "river of the falls". The falls themselves were given specific names, mnirara "curling waters", owahmenah "falling waters", or owamni, "whirlpool". Dakota associate the falls with legends and spirits, including Oanktehi, god of waters and evil, who lived beneath the falling water. A small island in the stream, called Spirit Island, was once a nesting ground for eagles that fed on fish below the falls. Dakota people camped on Nicollet Island upstream of the falls to fish and to tap the sugar maple trees.Since the cataract had to be portaged, the area became one of the natural resting and trade points along the Mississippi between Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples. The Anishinaabe term was recorded as "kakabikah".
In 1680, the falls became known to the Western world when they were observed and published in a journal by Father Louis Hennepin, a Catholic friar of Belgian birth, who had earlier brought the Niagara Falls to the world's attention via a publication. Hennepin named them the Chutes de Saint-Antoine or the Falls of Saint Anthony after his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. Later explorers to document the falls include Zebulon Montgomery Pike and Jonathan Carver, the first Englishman to undertake an exploration of the west. According to the John Carter Brown Library, "Carver's purpose was to map the land, to befriend the, and to discover the Northwest passage. His journey began in 1766 and, in some ways, was the precursor of the Lewis and Clark expedition; his book was the first popular American travel book." Carver , in 1778.
Image:Mississippi-Minneapolis-20081006.JPG|thumb|left|Mississippi River at Minneapolis in 2008, looking downstream. The bridge in the foreground is the Third Avenue Bridge, behind it are the Upper St Anthony Falls to the left and the upper lock and dam to the right, followed by the Stone Arch Bridge. The new I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge can be seen in the background.
In 1817, Major Stephen Harriman Long headed a military excursion up the Mississippi River to the Falls of St. Anthony near the confluence with the Minnesota River. As a result of his recommendations, the Army established Fort Snelling to guard against Indian incursions against settlers in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Long recorded his experiences of the expedition in a journal, which was first published as Voyage in a Six-Oared Skiff to the Falls of St. Anthony, by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1860. In his journal, Long described the "majestic cataract" of the falls and said that "the murmuring of the cascade, the roaring of the river, and the thunder of the cataract, all contributed to render the scene the most interesting and magnificent of any I ever before witnessed."
Following the establishment of Fort Snelling in 1820, the falls became an attraction for tourists, writers, and artists who sought inspiration, even if Hennepin's descriptions were not as majestic as hoped for. By the 1850s a romantic "Indian legend" had become associated with the falls, describing a wife whose husband had taken a second bride. The offended first wife placed her child in a canoe and paddled toward the falls, plunging herself and her offspring to certain death as the husband looked on helplessly.
By the 1860s, industrial waste had filled the area and marred the falls' majesty. Further competition over the power of the falls on both banks of the river led to the Eastman tunnel disaster in 1869 which could have destroyed the falls. The disaster was fixed with a dike under the falls.
Industry
The first private land claim at the falls was made by Franklin Steele in 1838 — though he did not obtain financing for development until 1847, in the form of $12,000 for a nine-tenths stake in the property. On May 18, 1848, President James K. Polk approved the claims made in St. Anthony, and Steele was able to build his dam on the east side of the river above the Falls, blocking the east channel.The dam extended diagonally into the river, was high, and was secured to the limestone riverbed. Its thickness tapered from 40 wide at its base to wide at the top. Steele dispatched logging crews to the Crow Wing River in December 1847 to supply pine for the sawmill, and by September 1, 1848, sawing commenced using two up-down saws. He was able to sell the lumber readily, supplying construction projects in the booming town. The new community at the Falls attracted entrepreneurs from New England, many of whom had experience in lumber and milling. He had hired Ard Godfrey to help build and run the first commercial sawmill at the Falls. Godfrey knew the most efficient ways to use natural resources, like the falls, and the great pine forests, to make lumber products.
The house built in 1848 in St. Anthony for Godfrey is the oldest remaining wood-frame house in the Twin Cities.
Steele had the town platted in 1849, and it incorporated in 1855.
By 1854, 300 squatters occupied the west bank of the river, and in 1855, Congress recognized the squatters' right to purchase the land they had claimed. The west side quickly developed scores of new mills and consortia. They built a dam diagonally into the river to the north, which, along with Steele's dam created the inverted V-shape, still apparent today. Steele created the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company in 1856 with three New York financiers, Davis, Gebhard, and Sanford. The company struggled for several years, due to poor relations with the financiers, a depression, and the Civil War. In 1868, the firm reorganized with new officers including John Pillsbury, Richard and Samuel Chute, Sumner Farnham, and Frederick Butterfield.
Image:Sawmills.jpg|thumb|Looking northeast across the river ca. 1868
As Minneapolis developed, the water power at the falls became a source of power for several industries including textile mills, wool, machinery, paper, and wood products, of which the North Star Woolen Mill was successful. Sawmills made the falls a major lumber producing area, with the mills largely built on platforms above the limestone cap forming the falls. Subsequently, the dominant industry became flour milling.
The falls industrialization caused problems. Logs, sometimes a hundred at a time, escaped from log booms and hammered the falls. Diversion of water left parts of the limestone cap dry, increasing weathering effects. Shafts and tunnels from sawmills and other users weakened the limestone and its sandstone foundation, accelerating the falls' upriver erosion to per year between 1857 and 1868. The falls quickly approached the edge of the limestone cap; once the limestone had completely eroded away, the falls would degenerate into sandstone rapids unsuitable for waterpower. To protect the falls and stop upstream progression a protective wood timber apron was built from the edge of the falls sloping downstream. The apron dissipated the energy of the falling water and moved it away from the base of the falls. It also protected from errant logs. An apron built in 1866 lasted until 1867. The Corps of Engineers completed one in 1880 that lasted until destroyed in 1952. It was replaced with a concrete apron.
The usual flour milling techniques did not work well for "spring wheat", which is the only kind that could be dependably grown on the rapidly expanding wheat farms in Minnesota and the Dakotas. In the late 1860s, major milling innovations at the falls were a "middlings purifier" and "gradual-reduction" grinding, both borrowed from Europe. Metal rollers replaced grindstones. The changes not only solved the spring wheat problem but produced high quality flour in a milling process that was highly profitable. As the result of the new technology, flour mills began to dominate the falls after 1870.
Image:stanthonyrecession.jpg|thumb|left|upright|A diagram showing the recession of the falls between 1680 and 1887
Millers on the Minneapolis side formed a consortium to extract power with the "Lowell model" in which water was supplied in a large headrace "power canal" connecting to the millpond above the falls and extending parallel to the river below the falls. Mills built on both sides of the power canal diverted upper-level water into waterwheel-equipped vertical shafts and then through horizontal tailrace tunnels to the falls' lower level. This system was very effective and mills lined the canal. "turning the west side of the river into the country's most densely industrialized, direct-drive waterpower district." The mills on the St. Anthony side of the river were less-well organized for harnessing the power, and therefore industry developed at a slower pace on that side. But the Pillsbury A-Mill, built on the east bank and completed in 1881, was the world's largest flour mill for 18 years. It produced about 1/3 as much flour as the entire west side. The mills at the falls were very large and substantially automated. "By the end of the century, they had created the country's greatest waterpower industrial district, which was also the country's leading flour milling center from 1880 to 1930."
By the early 1900s, three companies controlled 97% of the falls flour production. They were the Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company, the Washburn-Crosby Company, and Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company." The Pillsbury and Washburn-Crosby companies were started at the falls.