St. Anthony Falls and Stone Arch Bridge

Long before the mills, this stretch of the Mississippi was and remains sacred to the Dakota, whose homeland this is, the land they call Mni Sota Makoce, from which Minnesota takes its name. The Dakota know the falls by their own name and hold this reach of the river, along with the nearby island and the confluence with the Minnesota River downstream, as places of deep spiritual importance.

The Dakota lived across this river country for generations before the fur trade and settlement, and the treaty era of the 1800s pushed them from these lands under great pressure, part of the history that led to the US-Dakota War of 1862. The city that rose on the water power of the falls was built atop that older world, and there is a growing effort today to honor the Dakota meaning of the falls alongside the milling story.

The energy of a big river dropping over a ledge is enormous, and in the 1800s that meant one thing: power to turn machinery. Sawmills came first to cut the pine floated down from the north woods, and then flour mills, harnessing the falls to grind the hard spring wheat grown across the surrounding plains. By the late 1800s Minneapolis was the greatest flour-milling center on earth, its mills sending flour around the world under names still recognized today.

The falls themselves paid a price for all that work. The limestone cap over softer rock made the ledge fragile, and heavy use, along with a disastrous tunneling accident, threatened to destroy the falls entirely by eating the ledge away upstream. Engineers finally locked the falls in place with a concrete apron and wall, which is why the water today pours over an engineered structure rather than a natural cliff, the price of saving the falls from unraveling.

In 1883 the railroad magnate James J. Hill built a stone bridge across the river just below the falls to carry his trains into the heart of the city. Rather than run it straight across, engineers curved it to meet the terrain, giving it its distinctive graceful arc, and they built it of native stone in a long row of arches that has stood for well over a century.

When the trains stopped running, the bridge found a second life as a pedestrian and bicycle crossing, and it has become one of the most photographed landmarks in Minneapolis. From the middle of the span the view takes in the falls, the ruins and restored towers of the milling district, and the downtown skyline beyond, all at once, which is why it draws walkers, runners, and photographers in every season.

The district around the falls is thick with history. The Mill City Museum is built into the burned-out shell of a great flour mill and tells the milling story from inside the ruins, and old mill buildings up and down the riverfront have been reborn as apartments, offices, and galleries. Trails run along both banks and out through the river gorge, so the whole area invites long walks with the river close at hand.

The seasons shape the mood. Spring runs the falls high with snowmelt, summer fills the riverfront with festivals and evening crowds, and fall brings color to the gorge trees along the gorge. Winter can freeze the falls into a landscape of ice and turn the Stone Arch Bridge into a quiet, snow-dusted walk with the city glittering beyond.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.