Northeast, Minneapolis - History

History

In 1848, Franklin Steele purchased the land that would become St. Anthony and with the help of Ard Godfrey built the first commercial mill at Saint Anthony Falls on the east bank. This place marked the original northernmost navigable point of the Mississippi River. The falls provided a dependable power source and soon many mills had been constructed there and the nickname "Mill City" was born. The land west of the Mississippi was opened for settlement in 1852, and when people started settling it, St. Anthony found it had a competitor across the river. St Anthony was incorporated in 1855, 12 years before its neighbor Minneapolis. St Anthony and Minneapolis existed as separate cities until 1872 when they agreed to merge under the name of Minneapolis. The former St. Anthony became Northeast Minneapolis and a township north of the city incorporated the name St. Anthony.

Northeast has undergone several reinvestment periods of infrastructure. In the 1970s, as the area approached nearly a hundred years of settlement earlier than the rest of the city, the Neighborhood Revitalization Program assisted residents and businesses to utilize grants and loans to complete construction, alteration or improvement projects and the city invested in new streets and urban landscaping. The next few decades carried massive condo development which echoed the rising architecture in downtown Minneapolis.

The area also has a history of historic preservation. In the 1960s, a proposal to build a freeway through the area was fought. The proposed freeway, Interstate 335, would connect I-94 in north Minneapolis to I-35W north of the University of Minnesota. Land was bought and cleared with residents relocating before the project was finally defeated by local residents and activists. Ultimately new housing and industrial buildings were built on the cleared land. Soon after, a historic preservation district was enacted on the site of the Pillsbury A Mill, stretching east to nearby Marcy Holmes.