Mississippi River

Mississippi National River and Recreation Area

A Flowing Pageant of Life

From northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River flows on, remembering its past, nurturing the present, and shaping the future. Fed by 250 tributaries in 31 states from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the Mighty Mississippi ripples with stories of people and places reflecting major scenes in the great American pageant. The cast includes the Ojibwa and the Dakota, European explorers and fur traders, farmers and loggers, steamboaters and towboaters, factory workers and office clerks, teachers and engineers. In one way or another, directly or indirectly, their daily lives and the river have been intertwined.

Minneapolis and St. Paul

In recognition of the river’s historic and ongoing role in molding the national character, Congress in 1988 established the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. With Minneapolis and St. Paul at its center, this 72-mile stretch of the river encompasses a range of public places administered by state or local agencies and organizations. Together these sites interpret the natural, cultural, and economic history of the river corridor and offer a variety of recreational opportunities ranging from boating and fishing to hiking and birdwatching.

Minneapolis traces its roots to early European settlements at St. Anthony Falls. The falls powered the gristmills and sawmills that provided flour and lumber for the settlers. Historically St. Paul was the northernmost navigable point on the 2,350-mile-long river. Over the years the villages flourished and turned into major transportation hubs and commercial centers. Today the Mississippi provides drinking water and hydropower for much of the metropolitan area, carries away treated wastewater, and continues to serve, as it has for thousands of years, as a transportation corridor.

A Center for Trade

Ancestors of today’s American Indians began moving into the upper Mississippi Valley after the last of the continental glaciers receded. They established intermittent and seasonal villages on terraces above the riverbanks and canoed the waterways to hunt, gather plants, and trade goods.

Spanish and French expeditions explored portions of the Mississippi River in the 1600s and 1700s. Some explorers, entering from the north, were looking for the river’s mouth. Others, entering from the south, were searching for its origin – and hoping to discover that the river provided a shortcut across the continent to the Far East.

Recognizing the vast natural riches of the region, the French (late 1600s-1763) and English (1763-early 1800s) established trading posts along the upper Mississippi River and such tributaries as the Minnesota and St. Croix rivers. Great quantities of beaver pelts and other furs were traded at the posts for cloth, metal tools, and other products. Early settlers sent home reports of the bountiful wilderness and of opportunities to create new lives for themselves and their children.

In the mid-1800s immigrants from Germany, Norway, Sweden, and other European nations and Americans from the East moved into the area. This forced the Dakota Indians to leave the Twin Cities area in 1854 for reservations along the Minnesota River. The settlers cleared forests, built homes, and constructed roads linking farms with the villages and river ports. In 1858 St. Paul counted more than 1,000 steamboat dockings. Powered by the river, Minneapolis became the flour milling capital of the nation from 1880 to 1930.

Cities and towns grew in size, and suburban communities emerged as the population and transportation systems, such as roads, rose rapidly through the 20^th century. Water quality declined. Wildlife habitat shrank with the disappearance of woodlands, grasslands, and wetlands. Increasingly individuals and officials became concerned and started setting aside local, regional, state, and federal parks, refuges, recreational areas, and historic sites – some of today’s partners in the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area.

A Corridor of Wildlife

The Mississippi River corridor today is home to a great variety of birds, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and fish. Millions of birds migrate every fall and spring along the riverway, one of five major flyways in the United States. Migrants and resident species find a seemingly endless supply of food in the fish and microorganisms in the rivers, streams, ponds, and wetlands.

Soaring over the river, bald eagles swoop down to snatch fish in their talons to feed their young waiting in the treetops. Leaving their rookeries along the river, great blue herons and egrets stalk the edges of the marshes looking for fish and frogs. Beavers dine on silver maples, cottonwoods, and willows while raccoons forage for nuts, berries, and insects. The floodplains and adjacent forests also provide home for rabbits, foxes, deer, snakes, and salamanders while the mainstream, backwaters, and side channels of the Mississippi serve as nurseries for fish ranging from tiny darters to shovel-nose sturgeon.

Though it is just 72 miles long, the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area represents the many rich natural, cultural, and economic themes of the entire Mississippi River, the waterway known to the Ojibwa Indians as the Mee-zee-see-bee, the Father of Waters.

Trails along both sides of the Mississippi in the metropolitan area invite residents and visitors alike to spend some time outdoors hiking, biking, jogging, or just watching the traffic going back and forth on the riverway. Parkways, overlooks, trails, and picnic areas provide spectacular views of the deep gorge from the Gorge Regional Park. Hiking trails connect the bluffs to the water’s edge. Take a river excursion to sense the Mississippi’s role in daily life in the Twin Cities. Sternwheelers and other boats depart from Boom Island in Minneapolis and Harriet Island in St. Paul. At Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park, people of all ages fish for carp at the dam or fish for trout in Cenaiko Lake. A bridge connects hiking and biking trails on both sides of the river. Winter activities include cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing. Exhibits and educational programs focus on the river, wildlife, and history. The Mississippi retains its long-standing reputation as a working river as towboats and barges transport raw materials and manufactured goods between the Twin Cities and St. Louis or New Orleans. Typical goods heading south include grain, coal, oil, and gravel. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers operates the dams and locks.