Minneapolis
The Dakota people have inhabited the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers since before 1000 A.D. They call this sacred place Bdóte, where their creation stories say they emerged from the earth. In 1805, Zebulon Pike purchased a strip of land south of Saint Anthony Falls through the Treaty of St. Peter. The agreement promised that the US would build a military fort while the Dakota retained usufructuary rights to hunt and fish on the land. By 1819, the US Army constructed Fort Snelling to direct Native American trade away from British-Canadian traders. Over the next sixty years, the federal government seized all Dakota land in the region. During the summer of 1862, annuity payments owed to the Dakota were late, causing acute hunger among the community. Facing starvation, a faction of the Dakota declared war in August and killed settlers. US commander Henry Sibley led raw recruits and volunteer mounted troops from Minneapolis and Saint Paul against them. After six weeks of conflict, a kangaroo court sentenced thirty-eight Dakota men to death by hanging. The army then force-marched 1,700 non-hostile Dakota men, women, children, and elders to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling during the winter of 1862. Minneapolitans reportedly threatened more than once to attack the camp. In 1863, the US abrogated and annulled all treaties with the Dakota. Governor Alexander Ramsey called for their extermination, and most Dakota were exiled from Minnesota.
Saint Anthony Falls served as the only natural waterfall on the Mississippi River and powered the city's early growth. Each of the two founding industries flourished nearly concurrently during the nineteenth century. By 1884, the value of Minneapolis flour milling was the world's highest. In 1899, Minneapolis outsold every other lumber market globally. Six companies manufactured artificial limbs due to the occupational hazards of milling. Disasters struck repeatedly: an Eastman tunnel leaked in 1869, fires destroyed sawmills twice, and an explosion at the Washburn A mill killed eighteen people. Lumbering declined around the turn of the century when steam power freed mills from dependence on the falls. The Weyerhauser mill closed by 1919 after depleting Minnesota's white pine. Flour production peaked at 18.5 million barrels in 1916 before soil exhaustion and stem rust quashed the industry. Cadwallader C. Washburn co-founded Washburn-Crosby in 1877, which later became General Mills. Austrian civil engineer William de la Barre acquired innovations through industrial espionage in Hungary. He calculated and managed the power at the falls while encouraging steam for auxiliary power. C.A. Pillsbury Company hired Washburn-Crosby employees and adopted these new methods. Wheat farming developed west across the Great Plains, connecting farmers to Minneapolis mills via new rail lines. Fourteen percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis in 1900, with about one-third shipped overseas.
The summer of 1934 brought financial downturn during the Great Depression and a refusal by the Citizens' Alliance to negotiate with teamsters. Truck drivers unions executed strikes in May and July-August that killed four men, two on each side. Charles Rumford Walker noted the military precision of the strike machine as a key factor in their success. The union victory ultimately led to federal laws protecting workers' rights in 1935 and 1938. Antisemitism was commonplace from World War I until 1950, with Carey McWilliams calling the city the antisemitic capital of the US. A fascist hate group known as the Silver Shirts held meetings in the city starting in 1936. In 1925, Minnesota passed a eugenics law, leading Eitel Hospital proprietors to sterilize people at Faribault State Hospital. Between 1958 and 1963, Minneapolis demolished skid row, removing over 200 buildings including the Gateway District. Opened in 1967, Interstate 35W displaced Black and Mexican neighborhoods in south Minneapolis. Relocated Native Americans founded the American Indian Movement in 1968. AIM's Heart of the Earth Survival School taught Native American traditions to children for nearly twenty years. In 1966 and 1967, suppressed anger among the Black population erupted in disturbances on Plymouth Avenue. Young Blacks confronted police, causing property damage through arson and minor injuries from random gunshots. A coalition reached a peaceful outcome but failed to solve Black poverty and unemployment. Charles Stenvig became mayor in 1969 after unrest and voter backlash, governing for almost a decade.
Long periods of glaciation carved several riverbeds through what is now Minneapolis around 10,000 years ago. Meltwater from Lake Agassiz fed the Glacial River Warren, which created a large waterfall that eroded upriver past the confluence of the Mississippi River. This site became Saint Anthony Falls, which in turn eroded up the Mississippi about to its present location. The city sits above an artesian aquifer on flat terrain with six percent covered by water. Minneapolis has thirteen lakes, four streams, and seventeen waterbodies total. Horace Cleveland designed the park system in the 1880s, preserving geographical landmarks and linking them with boulevards. Minnehaha Park contains the fifty-three-foot Minnehaha Falls, one of Minnesota's first state parks. As of 2020, approximately fifteen percent of land in Minneapolis is parks, and ninety-eight percent of residents live within walking distance of a park. The Chain of Lakes extends through five lakes in southwest Minneapolis, connected by bicycle, running, and walking paths. A parkway for cars, a bikeway for riders, and a walkway for pedestrians run parallel along the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Theodore Wirth Park sits west of downtown Minneapolis and incorporates the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary. The city maintains forty-three outdoor ice rinks at twenty sites during winter as of 2024.
Five Fortune 500 corporations were headquartered within the city limits of Minneapolis including Target Corporation and U.S. Bancorp. The metro area gross domestic product was $350.7 billion in 2023. Hennepin Healthcare ranked as the largest employer in 2023, followed by Target Corporation and Hennepin County. Target Corporation generated revenue of $109,120 million, while U.S. Bancorp brought in $27,401 million. Xcel Energy supplied electricity to the region with revenue of $15,310 million. Ameriprise Financial reported earnings of $14,347 million, and Thrivent contributed $9,347 million. In 2024, the Twin Cities metropolitan area had the eighth-highest concentration of major corporate headquarters in the US. Control Data began in downtown Minneapolis where they replaced vacuum tubes with transistors in the CDC 1604 computer. A University of Minnesota computing group released Gopher in 1991, three years before the World Wide Web superseded its traffic. Frederick McKinley Jones invented mobile refrigeration in Minneapolis and founded Thermo King in 1938. Medtronic was founded in a Minneapolis garage in 1949. Minneapolis-Honeywell built a south Minneapolis campus earning military contracts for the Norden bombsight and C-1 autopilot.
The Walker Art Center began as a private art collection in the home of lumberman T.B. Walker around 1940 when it shifted focus to modern and contemporary art. The Minneapolis Institute of Art opened in 1915 with more than 90,000 artworks spanning six continents and about 5,000 years. Frank Gehry designed the Weisman Art Museum which opened in 1993 for the University of Minnesota. Tyrone Guthrie founded the Guthrie Theater in 1963 with an inventive thrust stage jutting into the seats surrounded by the audience on three sides. French architect Jean Nouvel designed a new Guthrie that opened in 2006 overlooking the Mississippi River. Prince studied at the Minnesota Dance Theatre through the Minneapolis Public Schools and lived in the area for most of his life. Eighties Minneapolis became a hotbed for American underground rock alongside R&B, funk, and soul thanks to First Avenue nightclub. The Minnesota Orchestra won a 2014 Grammy for their recording of Sibelius's first and fourth symphonies. The city hosts several other concert venues including the Cedar and the Dakota. The Armory, the Skyway Theatre, and the Uptown Theater have national management. Every August, the Minnesota Fringe Festival hosts performances in venues across town. James Beard Foundation Award winners include chef Gavin Kaysen, writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, television personality Andrew Zimmern, and chef Sean Sherman.
Continue Browsing
Common questions
When did the Dakota people first inhabit Bdote in Minneapolis?
The Dakota people have inhabited the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers since before 1000 A.D. They call this sacred place Bdóte, where their creation stories say they emerged from the earth.
What happened to the Dakota during the summer of 1862 in Minneapolis?
During the summer of 1862, annuity payments owed to the Dakota were late causing acute hunger among the community which led a faction to declare war in August. After six weeks of conflict, thirty-eight Dakota men were sentenced to death by hanging and 1,700 non-hostile Dakota were force-marched to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling during the winter of 1862.
How many lakes are there in Minneapolis according to the script text?
Minneapolis has thirteen lakes, four streams, and seventeen waterbodies total. As of 2020, approximately fifteen percent of land in Minneapolis is parks and ninety-eight percent of residents live within walking distance of a park.
Who recorded the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020?
In 2020, seventeen-year-old Darnella Frazier recorded the murder of George Floyd. The video contradicted the police department's initial statement about the incident involving Derek Chauvin who knelt on Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes until he suffocated.
Which industries flourished concurrently in nineteenth century Minneapolis?
Each of the two founding industries flourished nearly concurrently during the nineteenth century with flour milling reaching the world's highest value by 1884 and lumber markets outselling every other global market by 1899. Lumbering declined around the turn of the century when steam power freed mills from dependence on the falls while flour production peaked at 18.5 million barrels in 1916 before soil exhaustion quashed the industry.