For years, I have wanted to find a survey of the plants in Minnehaha Park. Continue reading “Minnehaha phenology April 16 2019”
Tag: springs
The WPA works in Minnehaha Park, 1936. Part 4: A Spring in the Park.
There’s a lot of groundwater just below the surface in the Minnehaha Falls area. This is hardly a surprise to anyone who takes winter walks in the park.

Continue reading “The WPA works in Minnehaha Park, 1936. Part 4: A Spring in the Park.”
viewing the falls, 1900’s: part 2

This photo is was taken on June 11, 1904, and shows that the Park Board’s viewing platform wasn’t holding up as well as one might hope. This looks like a combination of vandalism and deterioration, with groundwater probably playing a part in the crumbling edge. The land where this platform was looks like this today:
viewing the Falls, 1900’s: part 1

We can’t get this view of Minnehaha Falls today. After the Park Board took ownership of Falls, they built a huge stone platform just where the photographers used to have people pose. Not everyone liked this behemoth. Charles “Father of the Parks” Loring wrote: