Minneapolis: History

Pre-20th-Century History

By 1200 AD, bands of Dakota Indians had established a network of villages in what is now the Twin Cities metro area. In the 1650s, French trappers and fur traders began exploring the area, sailing up the Mississippi River from Louisiana.

In 1680, the Belgian missionary Louis Hennepin became the first European to set eyes on St Anthony Falls (in modern Minneapolis), one of the highest navigable points on the Mississippi and a natural terminus for river traffic. The French made only a few half-hearted attempts to settle the area. In 1803, the USA bought all the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border from the French government for US$15000000.00 in a neat package known as the Louisiana Purchase. Part of this land eventually became the US state of Minnesota.

In 1820, Josiah Snelling, a US army officer, built Minnesota's first military post near what would later become the Minneapolis-St Paul airport. The first flour mills were built along the river in the 1820s, using the power of the St Anthony Falls. The government opened up some of the Fort Snelling territory to settlers and in 1852 the settlement west of the St Anthony Falls was christened Minneapolis, after the Dakota word for 'of the waters' and the Greek word for 'city'. In 1872, the town of St Anthony was absorbed into Minneapolis, which was fast becoming an important processing centre for wheat from the prairies and timber from the north.

A few miles down the Mississippi, a French-Canadian bootlegger named Pierre 'Pig's Eye' Parrant built a riverfront saloon in 1838 that spawned a namesake town of sorts. This piqued the interest of Lucian Galtier, a French priest who saw ripe pickings in the lost souls of Pig's Eye. Galtier built and consecrated a church to St Paul in 1841. Shortly thereafter, locals adopted the same name for their settlement.

Modern History

Over the next 50 years, St Paul and Minneapolis developed a strong rivalry. When Minnesota was granted US statehood in 1858, St Paul was designated state capital. Thereafter, it became a political and financial centre, noted for smart Victorian neighbourhoods (home to lumber tycoons and railroad barons) and not-so-smart working-class suburbs (home to thousands of Irish and German immigrants).

Minneapolis, on the other hand, having already established itself as a major processing centre for wheat and timber, flourished even more. Rapid industrial growth followed, spawning mega-businesses such as General Mills (famous for its Cheerios and Wheaties brands) and Pillsbury (famous for a squishy doughboy). By the early 1920s, Minneapolis was the world's flour-milling capital. It was also a magnet for Swedish, Norwegian and Danish immigrants.

Recent History

The rivalry between Minneapolis and St Paul survives to this day, yet it's a good-natured competition that nobody takes too seriously. After all, both cities rate consistently high on US liveability surveys. Both have also worked hard to balance economic development with environmental preservation.

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