2014-09-17 Minneapolis History - Flour Mills

For 50 years, from 1880 - 1930, Minneapolis was know as the "Flour Milling Capital of the World. Grain would come in from all over the Midwest to be turned into flour. Water from the Mississippi River was used to turn turbines, which turned all sorts of devices to separate, grind, and bag the flour.

We toured the Mill City Museum for a couple of hours. There were lots of hands on exhibits for the children to play with.

The Flour Tower elevator tour found us sitting in a Hollywood Tower of Terror-type elevator (minus the seat belts) and moving from floor to floor seeing various aspects of the flour making process.

Karen and I were talking about our experience afterwards and our only disappointment was not seeing the flour making process from A-Z.

After lunch at Chipolte, we took a long walk around and through Minnehaha Falls Park.

Immediately over the bluff toward the Mississippi River was Lock and Dam #1.

Just a single small pleasure boat was going through the lock while we were there.

Very little traffic now uses this lock or the 2 north of it - Upper and Lower St Anthony Falls Locks. The State is concerned with Asian Carp fish traveling up the Mississippi River and taking over the other rivers so they are closing the Upper St Anthony Lock later this year permanently. Very little river traffic will be affected and most feel that the native fish in the hundreds of streams upriver will be saved.