The Great Depression. Something like 25% of the work force had no jobs. Soup kitchens provided a hot meal, maybe the only one these people would get. Work relief programs were started by the presidents of the day, Hoover and then Roosevelt. These job-creation agencies worked on America’s infrastructure. And someone named Walter B. Dahlberg, possibly an employee of the parks, compiled some terrific reports on the works accomplished in the Minneapolis park system. These are available on-line for 1936-1942. (Perhaps any earlier reports were lost, or haven’t been put on-line yet.)
In June of 1921, a long-planned idea of Theodore Wirth’s came into being. He had been the superintendent of the Minneapolis Parks since 1906, all during the time when America’s personal transportation system was switching from horses to cars. In 1920, he had enlisted the enthusiastic support of the Civic and Commerce Association. Plans were being considered to put a camping place at Lake Calhoun, Glenwood Park, or The Parade for tourists arriving at Minneapolis in automobiles. The Northside Commercial Club beat him to it. In June 0f 1920, they opened a camping place for 200 cars under the bridge at 42nd Ave. N. Maybe that was nicer than it sounds. The north-siders also opened another camp in 1920 at Camden Park.
The site of the Minnehaha Auto Tourist Camp was announced in April, 1921.
Here’s a (likely) 1900’s image with the Falls of Minnehaha, just exactly framed. Everyone likes to photograph the waterfall: They always have and they always will. But look for the little details in the backgrounds and corners, those incidental features in these old pictures tell the interesting history.
An early bridge across the creek, probably one built by the Park Board.
That’s not an especially sturdy construction, compared to the stone bridge that sits there today. In fact, in September of 1903, the bridge across the stream as well as the dam upstream above the falls washed away in heavy rains. The Park Board noted, “The bridge was a great convenience to the patrons of the park, and one to take its place of the proper kind and in the right location is one of the problems that we have to solve.”
The Board instructed Superintendent William Berry to have a temporary bridge built across the creek above the falls in April of 1904. Though construction was reportedly underway nearby for a permanent and sturdy bridge, the temporary bridge collapsed on May 29, 1904, dropping people into the water. One woman nearly went over Minnehaha Falls.
And in 1906, Theodore Wirth was superintending the parks system and was out to make a big splash in his first year. He declared that “the low wooden footbridge above the falls is a cheap crude structure and should be replaced with a cut stone bridge, or, better yet, a reinforced concrete structure with a boulder arch-ring and rubble stone parapet walls.”
It’s unknown if this picture shows the bridge that washed away in 1903, the temporary bridge that collapsed in 1904, or the sturdy replacement under discussion in 1906. It could even be an earlier bridge yet, from the 1890s.
Part of the creek was blocked by barbed wire.
Between the bridge and the Falls, the Park Board installed a barbed wire fence, just barely visible here. Perhaps then, as now, people threw pennies into the creek and this was to keep people from trying to reach them when the water was low.
Perhaps this stonework was meant to stabilize the top of the Minnehaha gorge.
A Park Board groundskeeper was busy raking the grass just above this now-long-gone stonework and iron railing.
Early crowd control?
Peeking into the depths of this picture, we see that more barbed wire fence was installed. Who knows why, as it looks like this fence just wanders across the park.
