Waterpower at the Falls

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The bank of the river is a grassy lawn today, but in the early 1900s you would have been standing inside of a flour mill. The neighborhood was filled with flour mills that were often six stories tall and more. Mills lined both sides of West River Parkway, drawing power from the falling water of the Mississippi. Because they all needed the same water source, the mills were packed closely together. In the early 1900s, you wouldn't have been enjoying the view of the river, the sun, or the greenery, instead you would have been standing in the shadows of densely constructed industrial buildings. Why were the mills built here, and how did they use water as power?

Images

Canal Reconstruction

Workers at the "tailrace," the spot where water exists the mills

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

In the early 1900s this was a bustling industrial neighborhood with workers going to and from the mills. Often the mills operated for twenty-four hours a day.

Why this location?

Mills were built here because of the elevation change in the river. The falling water provided water power, and it was an efficient way to run machinery before electricity or steam engines. Colonists to the Midwest also built large wheat farms that provided the mills in Minneapolis with wheat for flour production.

How was water used for power?

If you turn to face West River Parkway, you're actually looking at the path of a canal. In the 1850s, waterpower companies paid workers to construct a V-shaped dam to funnel water to each side of the river, which then went inland into canals. Plank roads (like bigger versions of the wood plank sidewalk that you can see along the Parkway) covered the canal so that it could still be used for transportation.

Water rushed into mills from the canal, then dropped to spin turbines that set in motion all of the mill machinery. Then, the water would rush back out from the mill and into the river. If you carefully walk further out on the bank toward the river, you can see the old tailraces in Mill Ruins Park (they kind of look like square "U's"). Tailraces are where water exited the mills.

BUT that wasn't the only significant environmental change. The waterfall that supplied power was also eroding. In 1870-84 Mill owners encouraged the U.S. Army Corps' construction of a ramp-like structure , first made of wood and later concrete, to cover the falls and keep it from eroding (That structure is called an “apron”). The Corps also built a dam and underground dike to stabilize the after an ill-fated attempt to tunnel under the falls for waterpower.

The changes were a financial success for mill owners. Between 1880-1930 Minneapolis led the United States in flour production, and the city grew in population as the mills and related industries grew. By 1914, twenty-five flour mills employed over 2,000 people.

Sources

Anfinson, John O. . Spiritual Power to Industrial Might: 12,000 Years at St. Anthony Falls, Minnesota History Spring/Summer 2003. Accessed July 21st 2020. http://collections.mnhs.org/MNHistoryMagazine/articles/58/v58i05-06p252-269.pdf.

Kane, Lucille Kane M.. Falls of St. Anthony: The Waterfall that Built Minneapolis. Revised Edition. St. Paul, Minnesota. Minnesota Historical Press, 1987.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Minnesota Historical Society Collections

Additional Information

Mill Ruins Park Website