River history, frozen in time

A drawdown of water between the Upper and Lower St. Anthony Falls offered a rare, historical riverfront view.

By MARIA ELENA BACA , Star Tribune

Last update: February 20, 2008 - 10:56 PM

More than 100 hardy river- and history-buffs braved subzero temperatures and a searing wind to take a sightseeing trip back in Mississippi River history Wednesday.

During the first of several daytime tours, about 30 folks in parkas, scarves and bulky hats peered upstream of the Stone Arch Bridge, where clouds of water vapor spiraled on the surface of the frigid river. Piles of limestone chunks jutted out of the water. The pieces had been worn away from the waterfall’s edge as it moved upstream over the years, but they aren’t usually visible in the normally level expanse of water below the Upper St. Anthony Falls.

National Park Service Ranger Dave Wiggins regaled the group with stories about the history of the falls, its naming by Father Hennepin, its role in the Minneapolis flour milling and lumber industries. All of these are stories you can hear or read any day on the upper Mississippi, but not usually with anything this close to the original vista.

Starting Sunday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began to draw down the pool between Upper St. Anthony Falls and Lower St. Anthony Falls locks and dams to enable a scheduled 20-year inspection of the Bassett Creek Tunnel, immediately downstream of the Stone Arch Bridge. Around midday Wednesday, the river was at its lowest, 13 feet lower than its usual level, by way of releasing more water just downstream at the Lower St. Anthony dam.

“Think of it this way,” Wiggins told the group. “You can’t fill your bathtub with the plug out. It’s still coming through.”

The refill was to begin late Wednesday afternoon, with a return to normal levels expected Friday.

In the meantime, representatives of the Park Service, the Mill City Museum and the Friends of the Mississippi River are on hand to help sightseers make the most of the tour.

The group followed Wiggins across the bridge, turning to look back at the dark-russet granite feet of the Stone Arch Bridge, which normally are nearly covered by river water. And they turned again to see the roots of Spirit Island, once an 18-foot tree-covered stone column and Dakota sacred site jutting out of the river, now little more than a gravel spit just downriver of the bridge. Farther down, past an old piling from the dismantled 10th Avenue Bridge, a faint V-shaped shore-to-shore dip marks the location of a now-abandoned 1897 dam.

The group continued on into the Mill City Museum for a warm-up.

Among them was museum director John Crippen.

“You look at the historic photos of the river gorge, and you see these little rapids with big patches of rocks like this,” he said. “That’s the true flow of the river.”

Maria Elena Baca • 612-673-4409

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