© Mark Ollig
Located in Minneapolis, it is the only naturally occurring waterfall along the 2,340-mile-long Mississippi River.
In the summer of 1680, Antoine Auguelle and Father Louis Hennepin, a Belgian Roman Catholic priest and well-known explorer of North America, were canoeing down the Mississippi River, which got its name from the Ojibwe people who called it “mshi- (big) ziibi (river).”
They came upon a waterfall now known as St. Anthony Falls. The Dakota people called it “Owamni Yamni” (Three Whirlpools), and the Ojibwe people called it “Gakaabikaang” (The Falls).
Father Hennepin saw how powerful the waterfall was and named it St. Anthony Falls to honor St. Anthony of Padua, Italy.
St. Anthony, born in 1195 as Fernando Martins de Bulhões, became a Portuguese Catholic priest and friar.
In 1805, as early European settlers arrived, the US Army was surveying a site along the Mississippi River near St. Anthony Falls to build a military outpost.
The land obtained for the outpost was near Bdote, a location the Dakota called “where two waters come together.”
Construction of the military outpost began in 1819 using the heavy limestone quarried from the toss-side bedrock exposure along the Mississippi River.
The outpost was completed in 1825 and was named Fort Saint Anthony. It was later renamed Fort Snelling in honor of Col. Josiah Snelling, who had overseen its construction.
As time passed, the land surrounding St. Anthony Falls’ 60-foot waterfall drop was being purchased to build generating plants for powering the machinery used in the growing number of lumber, textile, and flour mills.
In 1849, the area we now live in was known as the Minnesota Territory. On May 11, 1858, Minnesota officially became the 32nd state of the Union.
The area surrounding St. Anthony Falls east of the river was given city status in 1860, and Minneapolis was chartered in 1867.
By 1881, Pillsbury completed construction near St. Anthony Falls of a seven-floor A-Mill building with a limestone foundation and wall exterior along the Mississippi River’s east side in Minneapolis. This mill was used for separating grain into flour.
Also, a Brush hydroelectric electric plant was installed to power Pillsbury’s machinery and electric lights.
Pillsbury’s A-Mill was reportedly the first industrial plant to use electric light bulbs.
The A-Mill’s basement contained holding water inlets, water-powered machinery, and an electrical room with a transformer vault.
In 1882, business people in Minneapolis established the Minnesota Electric Light and Electric Motive Power Company, which became the Minnesota Brush Electric Company due to a deal with Charles F. Brush, whose company had designed a new electric arc light and generator system successfully installed in Wabash, IN, in 1880.
The same year, the Minnesota Brush Electric Company constructed a power station on Upton Island and secured the water rights to harness hydropower directly from St. Anthony Falls.
On Sept. 5, 1882, the Minnesota Brush Electric Company’s Upton Island power station activated five generators, becoming the country’s first source of centralized hydroelectric power almost a month before a similar hydroelectric power plant was started in Appleton, WI.
Some say Appleton was first; however, I will use my writer’s prerogative and go with my home state.
Five Brush electric generators used the waterwheel at the Upton Island station to send electrical power through overhead wires installed along Washington Avenue in Minneapolis.
This electricity was distributed to homes, shops, businesses, and saloons.
At the time, using electric power was controversial in Minneapolis and other parts of the country because people feared the electricity traveling through the wires might catch fire.
Gas lighting was the primary source of illumination used in homes and businesses, with the Minneapolis Gas Light Company having exclusive rights to the city’s street lamps.
In February of 1883, the Minnesota Brush Electric Company installed a 257-foot tall tower mast with eight suspended electric arc lamps at the Bridge Square location in Minneapolis.
On the evening of Feb. 28, 1883, while many people watched, the electric lamps were turned on.
On May 3, 1883, the St. Paul Globe newspaper wrote, “during the night of the first of May, 1883, as a result of our observation we would report, that the electric mast lighted the territory mentioned [Bridge Square] much better than the gas lights, giving a much stronger and clearer light, and extending that light over a larger area than could be done by the gas lamps.”
By the end of 1885, 232 electric street lamps were being used in Minneapolis. This number kept increasing.
By 1924, gas street lamps were no longer used in Minneapolis.
Today, Xcel Energy operates the Hennepin Island Hydroelectric Plant at St. Anthony Falls, 360 feet from the original Pillsbury A-Mill building.
The Hennepin Island Hydroelectric Plant generates about 10 megawatts of power, which is distributed to homes and businesses.
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| (Photo "Right-to-Use" paid for by me!) |
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| Photo taken by Mark Ollig |
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| May 3, 1883, the St. Paul Globe newspaper |
