Award-winning writer Tom Weber will tell the fascinating, multifaceted history of St. Anthony Falls and other key sites in the area to demonstrate the importance of deepening our understanding of the history of our own urban landscapes.
This short-distance walking tour will showcase the Central Mississippi Riverfront to explore the roots of Minneapolis as we see it today. Participants will meet at Water Works Park, which contains remnants of industrial mills and is now home to Owamni by The Sioux Chef, and learn how immigrants shaped the population and workforce of Minneapolis. Next, Mr. Weber will discuss the cultural, geographic, and sacred importance of St. Anthony Falls to native tribes and how human interference led to both their collapse and their eventual rebuilding. Participants will learn how the railroad, flour, and lumber industry's mills and bridges shaped the central riverfront, why the once-booming Gateway District surrounding it saw the demolition of more than 200 structures during the post-war era, and how iterative planning efforts led to its revitalization 50 years later. The tour will conclude at the 35W Bridge Memorial. These examples highlight the many layers of human and natural history, hardships, and reconstruction efforts that shape our cities.
The disparities that we see today are not coincidental; they are often shaped through intentional human intervention. Similarly, planners, engineers, developers, and decision-makers have the tools to reconstruct urban and natural landscapes in an equitable way, and must know their city's "urban biography" in order to do their job well.
Learning Objectives:
Discover the roots of their own cities' stories.
Examine how the people, landscapes, and geographic markers that shape a city have not always existed in their current form due to centuries of human intervention.
Describe positive examples of rebuilding along an urban riverfront and will reflect on cross-disciplinary approaches to benefiting the trajectory of their own communities.
