Saint Anthony Falls - History

History

Before European exploration, the falls held cultural and political significance for native tribes who frequented the area. The falls was an important and sacred site to the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the Mississippi River, hahawakpa, "river of the falls." The falls (haha) themselves were given specific names, mnirara "curling waters," owahmenah "falling waters," or owamni, "whirlpool" (mniyomni in the Eastern Dakota dialect and owamniyomni in the Teton Dakota (Lakota) dialect. Dakota associated the falls with legends and spirits, including Oanktehi, god of waters and evil, who lived beneath the falling water. The sacred falls also enters into their oral tradition by a story of a warrior's first wife who killed herself and their two children in anguish and forlorn love for the husband who had assumed a second wife. The rocky islet where the woman had pointed her canoe towards doom thus was named Spirit Island which was once a nesting ground for eagles that fed on fish below the falls. Dakota also 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 (Ojibwe) term was recorded as "kakabikah" (gakaabikaa, "split rock" or more descriptively, gichi-gakaabikaa, "the great severed rock" which referenced the jagged chunks of limestone constantly eroding by the falls).

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 also first published about Niagara Falls to the world's attention. 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 Jonathan Carver and Zebulon Montgomery Pike.

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 1860s, however, 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 its eventual downfall when it partially collapsed in 1869 and was reinforced and subsequently sealed by a concrete overflow spillway (or "apron").

The area around the falls was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District in 1971 which includes 8th Avenue Northeast extending downstream to 6th Avenue Southeast and approximately two city blocks on both shoreline. The district's archaeological record is one of the most-endangered historic sites in Minnesota. The National Register of Historic Places is facilitated by the National Park Service. The national significance of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District is a major reason why the National Park Service's Mississippi National River and Recreation Area was established along the Mississippi River in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area.

A Heritage Trail plaque nearby says,

"For untold generations of Indian people the Mississippi River was an important canoe route. To pass around the falls, the Dakota (Sioux) and Ojibway (Chippewa) used a well-established portage trail. Starting at a landing below the site now occupied by the steam plant, the trail climbed the bluff to this spot. From here it followed the east bank along what is now Main Street to a point well above the falls."