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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)