History
In 1852, Ard Godfrey built a house, sawmill, and gristmill on Joe Brown's old claim, but he and his wife Harriet abandoned the site in 1871, as the mills at St. Anthony Falls economically overshadowed any commercial potential of Minnehaha.
The falls became a tourist destination, especially after the 1855 publication of The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. However, Longfellow never visited the falls himself. He was inspired by the stories of Mary Eastman and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and by a photograph of the falls.
Beginning in 1885, the state legislature began acquiring the land to become the first Minnesota State Park. But in 1889, it was turned over to the city of Minneapolis for a city park. Residents and visitors could fish, swim, picnic, and visit a zoo. The park also featured pony rides and a refectory. Each year, 20,000 campers stayed in the Auto Tourist Camp in the park— it was closed in the 1950s.
Read more about this topic: Minnehaha Falls
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“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
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