In less than 100 years, these projects would radically transform the river that nature had created over millions of years and that Native Americans had hunted along, canoed on, and fished in for thousands of years.įIGURE 2. Anthony Falls Locks and Dams, and the little known Meeker Island Lock and Dam, which was the river’s first and shortest-lived lock and dam ( Figure 2).
Key local projects included Locks and Dams 1 (Ford Dam) and 2 (Hastings), Lower and Upper St. The four broad projects are known as the 4-, 41/2-, 6- and 9-foot channel projects. In response to their lobbying, Congress authorized four broad projects to improve navigation on the upper river and a number of site-specific projects in the Twin Cities metropolitan area since 1866. So they actively participated in local, regional and national campaigns for navigation improvement.
They needed local navigation projects, but these did little good without a navigable river downstream. The Twin Cities had to see that the entire Mississippi River was remade. Anthony Falls one of the river’s most engineered. To fulfill that destiny, they would help transform the entire upper Mississippi River and make the reach between Hastings and St. All this, they believed, was part of their manifest destiny. They also demanded a navigable river so they could deliver the bounty of their labor and their new land to the country and the world. Lying at the head of navigation, they demanded a river capable of delivering the immigrants needed to populate the land (not considering that they had taken it from Native Americans) and the tools and provisions needed to fully use it. Paul and Minneapolis pushed especially hard. From their pioneer days on, they insisted that the federal government should “improve” the river for navigation. The Mississippi River gave birth to most cities along its banks, and those cities did all they could to ensure that the river would nurture their growth. American Memory Project, Library of Congress.
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