Nicollet Island

By Christopher Hage and Rushika February Hage

Above St. Anthony Falls, in the middle of the Mississippi River, hidden in the heart of Minneapolis, lies Wita Waste, the beautiful island. Named Wita Waste by Dakota Indians, it is known now as Nicollet Island, the only inhabited island in the Mississippi. Over the centuries, it has been a sacred birthing place, at the center of the lumber and flour-milling industries that built Minneapolis, and involved in the collapse of the Eastman tunnel, which almost doomed those industries. One of Minneapolis's largest fires, the great conflagration of 1893, started there. It has been the home of pioneers, veterans, elite barons of the Gilded Age, Roman Catholic monks, hippies, artists, vagrants, and donkeys. Many of their houses still remain, preserving Minneapolis's architectural heritage. Nicollet Island has been at the center of numerous controversies ranging from its original land claim to proposals to locate the state capitol there, to, more recently, the threatened demolition of its historic houses. Nicollet Island is the history of Minnesota in miniature, and its tale is one of beauty, romance, disaster, and conflict.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439639504

Christopher Hage

The images in Nicollet Island are from the Hennepin County Historical Society, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Hennepin County Public Library, De La Salle High School, and from photographs taken by and given to the authors by private individuals. Christopher and Rushika February Hage have undergraduate degrees in history and master's degrees in criminal justice and medieval history, respectively.

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INTRODUCTION

As the largest and only inhabited island of the many on the Mississippi River, Nicollet Island is unique in the United States. This 48-acre island lies in the middle of the river next to downtown Minneapolis. In the midst of the city’s bustle, it is a pastoral oasis, a city park that is home to 22 historic houses, three multifamily dwellings, a private Catholic high school and monastery, an inn and restaurant, and an event center. Connecting the island to both banks is the Hennepin Avenue bridge on the spot where the first bridge ever to span the Mississippi River was built. Yet many Minneapolitans do not even know that Nicollet Island exists.

The island owes much of its prominence in Minneapolis’s history to its location. It is situated just upriver from St. Anthony Falls, which provided the waterpower that built first the lumber and then the flour milling industries that made Minneapolis an important city. St. Anthony Falls is the only waterfall on the Mississippi River and was originally formed 12,000 years ago 12 miles downstream in what it now St. Paul when the glacier that covered part of Minnesota melted. The waterfall eroded the limestone and sandstone in the area, causing the falls to recede four feet a year until it was fixed in place at its present location through the intervention of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Early descriptions of the falls say they fell 30 feet or more and were quite impressive; the actual drop is about 16 feet, although if the rapids are included, it is more like 50 feet. Originally Nicollet Island was one of six islands surrounding St. Anthony Falls. The three above the falls were known as Boom, Nicollet, and Hennepin Islands, and the three below the falls were named Cataract, Upton, and Spirit Islands. Today only Nicollet remains as an island. Hennepin and Boom Islands were joined to the east bank of the river and the other three islands were destroyed. The destruction of Cataract Island occurred as the area became more settled. Spirit Island was eroded over the years and the last remnants were demolished when the Upper Harbor Lock and Dam was built in 1963. Upton Island, which was the site of the nation’s first hydroelectric plant, was also destroyed by the construction of the Upper Lock and Dam.

The falls and the area around them were considered sacred by both the Dakota and Ojibwe Indians. The Ojibwe called the falls kakabikah, or sacred or severed rocks, and the Dakota named them minirara, or curling water. The Dakota believed that Oanktehi, a spirit of evil and water, lived beneath the falls. The Ojibwe moved into Dakota territory from the north, and the two tribes frequently warred with each other. Nicollet Island may have been used by the tribes as neutral ground where they could meet to settle treaties. Dakota oral history holds that it was a place where women went to give birth.

The first European to see the falls was Fr. Louis Hennepin, when he was a captive of the Dakota in 1680. He called the site St. Anthony Falls after his patron saint, Anthony of Padua, and they have been known by that name since then. His description of the falls provided a landmark for future explorers, such as Capt. Jonathan Carver, Lt. Zebulon Pike, and Joseph N. Nicollet, after whom Nicollet Island is named.

As the nations of Britain, Spain, and France battled for domination of North America, portions of the area that became Minnesota passed between France, Britain, and Spain and then back to France in 1800. In 1803, Pres. Thomas Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with France, which made St. Anthony Falls and Nicollet Island part of the newly independent United States of America.

In 1805, Lieutenant Pike was sent to explore the area around the falls and acquire land for a military reservation. In 1820, Col. Josiah Snelling built a fort at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers. Over the next three years, his soldiers built two barracks, a sawmill, and a flour mill on the west bank of the river near St. Anthony Falls roughly opposite Nicollet Island.

Two treaties were negotiated with the Ojibwe and Dakota in 1837, which opened the east bank of the Mississippi River near the falls to settlement. Once the treaties were ratified in 1838, settlers and military personnel from Fort Snelling competed for the choicest parcels of land and the rights to the waterpower that came with the land. The one who came out on top was a 25-year-old sutler from Fort Snelling named Franklin Steele. He became the first owner of Nicollet Island. The settlement of the area had begun in earnest.

The next decades saw the development of the twin cities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis on the east and west banks of the Mississippi, respectively, with Nicollet Island lying right between them. The waterpower of St. Anthony Falls was harnessed to run the sawmills and later the flour mills that built the fledgling cities. The pioneers on Nicollet Island saw the two settlements grow from frontier towns to booming cities with churches and fine hotels. Future residents of Nicollet Island served in the Civil War and the Dakota Uprising and later built their homes on Nicollet Island and raised their families. During the Civil War, Franklin Steele defaulted on a loan made to him by Hercules Dousman and lost Nicollet Island, which had been put up as collateral. In 1865, Dousman turned around and sold the island to William W. Eastman and John L. Merriam, ushering in a new era for Nicollet Island.

Eastman and Merriam quickly set about developing the southern part of the island for industry and the central and northern parts as residential neighborhoods. Initially they offered the northern part of the island to St. Anthony and Minneapolis as a park, but this offer was voted down. Eastman and Merriam sought to get the most out of their investment, but when they tried to expand the waterpower of Nicollet Island by building a tunnel to there from Hennepin Island, they nearly destroyed the falls when it collapsed in 1869. St. Anthony Falls was saved by the efforts of citizens and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, preserving the waterpower that drove the economy of St. Anthony and Minneapolis. In 1872, the two cities merged into Minneapolis, and by the 1880s, it was the flour milling capital of the world.

Nicollet