Minnehaha Park (Minneapolis)

Minnehaha Park is a city park in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and home to Minnehaha Falls and the lower reaches of Minnehaha Creek. Officially named Minnehaha Regional Park, it is part of the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board system and lies within the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a unit of the National Park Service. The park was designed by landscape architect Horace W.S. Cleveland in 1883 as part of the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway system, and was part of the popular steamboat Upper Mississippi River "Fashionable Tour" in the 1800s.

The park preserves historic sites that illustrate transportation, pioneering, and architectural themes. Preserved structures include the Minnehaha Princess Station, a Victorian train depot built in the 1870s; the John H. Stevens House, built in 1849 and moved to the park from its original location in 1896, utilizing horses and 10,000 school children; and the Longfellow House, a house built to resemble the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The park was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969 as the Minnehaha Historic District in recognition of its state-level significance in architecture, commerce, conservation, literature, transportation, and urban planning.

The central feature of the park, Minnehaha Falls, was a favorite subject of pioneer photographers, beginning with Alexander Hesler's daguerreotype in 1852. Although he never visited the park, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow helped to spread the waterfall's fame when he wrote his celebrated poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The falls are located on Minnehaha Creek near the creek's confluence with the Mississippi River, near Fort Snelling. The main Minnesota Veterans Home is located on a bluff where the Mississippi and Minnehaha Creek converge. More than 850,000 people visit Minnehaha Falls each year, and it continues to be the most photographed site in Minnesota.

Minnehaha Falls gets its name from the nearby Dakota people, meaning mni ('water') and ȟaȟa ('curling'). It was considered a safe place for gathering.

European settlement in the area began in 1805 when the US Army bought a nine-square-mile tract of land at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota River from the Dakota people. Sited on the bluff overlooking the rivers, Fort Snelling was built under the command of Colonel Josiah Snelling between 1820 and 1824. In 1821 Snelling's son, William Joseph Snelling came to the fort after leaving West Point and spending a year with friendly Sioux. According to a Minnesota history account written in 1858, "The year after he came to the fort young Snelling set out in company with Joseph R. Brown, a frontiersman and local celebrity, to explore the rivulet that supplies the cascade of Minne Ha-Ha, as far as Lake Minne Tonka." Both "men" were 17-year-old boys at the time.

Some very early records refer to the falls as "Brown's Falls" which lead some historians to assume they were named after prominent pioneer Joseph R. Brown. Park Ranger Kathy Swenson, writing for the National Park Service in 2009 states: "The overwhelming evidence points to Brown's Falls (and creek) being named for Jacob Brown, major general and commander in chief of the army from 1814 to 1828 rather than for Joseph R. Brown, teenage musician at Fort Snelling and later army sergeant (1820–1828), fur trader, politician, editor, and inventor. However, I have not yet found a document that officially or specifically mentions Jacob Brown as the namesake." Swenson explains "'Browns Fall/Creek' seems to be most associated with military maps and personnel while 'Little Falls/Creek' seems to be favored by those without a strong military connection although there are exceptions." The current name is Dakota for waterfall.

The name "Minnehaha Falls" was in common use by 1855, when the publication of The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow brought the falls worldwide fame. Longfellow's epic poem features Hiawatha, a Native American hero who falls in love with Minnehaha, a Native American woman who later dies during a severe winter. Longfellow never visited the falls himself. He was inspired by the writings of Mary H. Eastman and Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, and by a daguerreotype created by Alexander Hesler when he chose the name for Hiawatha's lover. The image was taken in 1852, according to a letter written by Hesler, as discussed in "Minnesota History" magazine. Clearly, Longfellow took the name of his character Minnehaha from the falls; the falls were not named for her.

Beginning in 1828, steamboats began to travel the Mississippi River as far north as St. Paul, the upper limit of commercial navigation on the Mississippi, until two dams and a series of locks were built between 1948 and 1963. The steamboat journey began to attract the attention of tourists, and in 1835 well known artist of American Indian life George Catlin made a trip by steamboat up the Mississippi from St. Louis to the Falls of St. Anthony and Fort Snelling. Impressed with the scenery, Catlin proposed a "Fashionable Tour" of the upper Mississippi, saying: