150 Years on the River | Visual History Slideshow

Looking upriver toward Jim Hill’s Stone Arch Bridge and St. Anthony Falls, circa 1890.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Chief Little Crow's Kaposia Village, during the 1840s.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Fort Snelling, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

A wintry St. Anthony Falls, 1862. The bridge in the background linked the village of St. Anthony with Hennepin Island.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Wreckage following the Eastman Tunnel collapse, 1869.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Inside a Minneapolis flour mill, circa, 1858.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Building rubble and shattered machinery bear witness to the force of the explosion that flattened the Washburn “A” Mill in 1878.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

A view of Minneapolis’s milling district from the river in 1885, at the beginning of the fifty-year heyday of the city’s flour-milling industry.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Advertisements, circa 1890, for the competing products of archrivals Pillsbury and Washburn Crosby. Each said its flour was “best.”

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Stone Arch Bridge construction was nearly finished when this photo was taken in 1883.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

In 1891, a steel arch bridge replaced the short-lived second suspension structure. This view is from Minneapolis toward St. Anthony.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

Schoolboys navigate Bohemian Flats during 1898 flooding. The old Washington Avenue Bridge stands in the background.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

St. Paul's High Bridge.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

The marina below downtown St. Paul is home to both pleasure boaters and riverine residents.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

In 1936, during the Great Depression, squatters’ shacks hugged the riverbank at Camden Park in north Minneapolis.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

The Minneapolis skyline from the east bank of the river, 1940. City Hall, the Northwestern Bell Telephone (now Qwest) Building, and the Foshay Tower would dominate the view for decades.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

St. Paul’s West Side Flats. Street flooding in 1952.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

The new Guthrie Theater from the foot of Gold Medal Park—named after the famous flour whose logo still brightens the riverfront’s skyline.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

The Mill City Museum has brought new life to the ghost of the iconic Washburn “A” Mill, offering the best available perspective of life on the river a century ago.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society

A twenty-first century view of the Minneapolis waterfront, with the Stone Arch Bridge and the Guthrie Theater providing old and new brackets to what was once the Mill City’s industrial heart.

Photo courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society