This riverfront park is named after James Green, a Pennsylvanian, who, with his wife, Isabella, and three children, came here in 1848 from the Selkirk colonies (Winnipeg). Their arrival marked the beginning of permanent settlement at Little Falls.
Green joined Henry Rice and other investors to develop the waterpower at this location. He acquired half-interest in their firm, the Little Falls Mill and Land Company.
Green built a dam and sawmill for the company, but died of cholera in July 1850. The partners then bought out Isabella.
When completed, the company dam blocked the river channel east of Mill Island (also called "Rock Island"). The dam, along with a wing dam extending north from the island, created a millpond. Logs stored in the millpond were cut into lumber, lath, and shingles. Water from the millpond also powered the company sawmill.
One of the first contracts at the mill was to cut shingles for the new United States military outpost (Fort Gaines, later Fort Ripley) established 14 miles north of here in 1849.
Dams
Building dams here was a formidable challenge. Mill Island divides the river into two channels. The main channel and the Little Falls lie west of the island.
The first dam crossed only the east channel (behind you). In 1855 a ditch was cut through Mill Island to improve flowage. The severed, southern end of the island became known as "Maple Island."
Plagued with problems, the first dam washed out in 1861. That disaster, together with a failing national economy and the Civil and Indian wars, brought a temporary end to local prosperity.
An 1874 plan called for building a full-channel dam well above Mill Island and a lock on the east side to bypass the dam. The plan was later scrapped.
The first full-channel dam was built at the site of the present dam in 1887. The mid-point of that 830-foot long structure intersected the head of Mill Island. The new dam spurred settlement and industry on both sides of the river, giving rise to the modern community of Little Falls.
Log Drives
The easiest way for early lumbermen to move logs over great distances was to float them down rivers in "log drives." Little Falls witnessed countless log drives between 1834 and 1919.
Managing a log drive was a dangerous and dirty job. The men who did such work were called "river pigs."
Some "river pigs" at Little Falls were teenage boys. Daring men rode rafts of logs through the sluice at the Little Falls Dam to mills further downstream.
Logs owned by local companies were sorted from the drives to be milled in Little Falls. The log drives often jammed. The logjam of 1894, one of the world's largest, was seven miles long.
Minnesota Power
The hydropower at Little Falls initially transferred mechanical energy to nearby mills via ropes and pulleys. Electrical generation began at the dam in 1889. The dam and power plant were upgraded in 1906 and again in 1920. A few years later Little Falls hydro provided electricity to 22 towns in central Minnesota.
In 1923, Minnesota Power & Light, a company formed through the merger of several regional power companies, bought out the Little Falls operation. Today, the Little Falls hydro continues to provide 4.6 megawatts of clean, renewable energy. It is one of 11 hydro facilities operated by Minnesota Power that provide 120 megawatts of electric energy. That's enough power to energize a city the size of Duluth.
Boats & Bridges
The Mississippi was a major canoe route before the first steamboat went upstream here in 1858. An 1870 plan for steamers to make regular runs between Little Falls and Brainerd failed. The growing number of dams, bridges, and log drives on the river disfavored such traffic.
William Sturgis, a developer, opened a ferry north of here in 1857. The local pioneer, Nathan Richardson, later managed a ferry and a winter crossing (on the ice) at the same location.
The first bridge at Little Falls was a short-lived structure that crossed the river at Mill Island. Other early bridges include the north railroad trestle, built in 1880, and the first Broadway Avenue bridge, erected in 1884.
For more on Little Falls and Morrison County history contact The Charles A. Weyerhaeuser Memorial Museum
Comments 0 comments