Place:Minneapolis, Hennepin, Minnesota, United States

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NameMinneapolis
Alt namesFort Saint Anthonysource: Canby, Historic Places (1984) II, 601
Saint Anthonysource: Canby, Historic Places (1984) II, 601
TypeCity
Coordinates44.967°N 93.25°W
Located inHennepin, Minnesota, United States     (1819 - )
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
source: Family History Library Catalog


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Minneapolis is a city and the county seat of Hennepin County in Minnesota, United States. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins in timber and as the flour milling capital of the world. It occupies both banks of the Mississippi River and adjoins Saint Paul, the state capital of Minnesota.

Prior to European settlement, the site of Minneapolis was inhabited by Dakota people. The settlement was founded along Saint Anthony Falls on a section of land north of Fort Snelling; its growth is attributed to its proximity to the fort and the falls providing power for industrial activity. , the city has an estimated 425,336 inhabitants.[1] It is the most populous city in the state and the 46th-most-populous city in the United States. Minneapolis, Saint Paul and the surrounding area are collectively known as the Twin Cities.

Minneapolis has one of the most extensive public park systems in the US; many of these parks are connected by the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. Biking and walking trails, some of which follow abandoned railroad lines, run through many parts of the city; such as the Mill District in the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District, around the banks of Lake of the Isles, Bde Maka Ska, and Lake Harriet, and by Minnehaha Falls. Minneapolis has cold, snowy winters and hot, humid summers. Minneapolis is the birthplace of General Mills, Pillsbury Company, and the Target Corporation. The city's cultural offerings include the Guthrie Theater, the First Avenue nightclub, and four professional sports teams.

Most of the University of Minnesota's main campus, and several other post-secondary educational institutions are in Minneapolis. Part of the city is served by a light rail system. Minneapolis has two highly-rated hospitals.

Minneapolis has a mayor-council-government system. The Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL) has held a majority of council seats there for 50 years and Jacob Frey (DFL) has been mayor since 2018. In May 2020, Derek Chauvin, a White officer of the Minneapolis Police Department, murdered George Floyd, a Black man, and the resulting global protests put Minneapolis and racism at the center of national and international attention.

Contents

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Dakota natives, city founded

Prior to European colonization, the Dakota Sioux were the sole occupants of the site of modern-day Minneapolis. In Dakota language, the city's name is Bdeóta Othúŋwe (Many Lakes City).

The French explored the region in 1680. Gradually, more European-American settlers arrived, competing with the Dakota for game and other natural resources. Following the Revolutionary War, the 1783 Treaty of Paris gave British-claimed territory east of the Mississippi River to the United States. In 1803, the U.S. acquired land to the west of the Mississippi from France in the Louisiana Purchase.

In 1819, US Army built Fort Snelling at the southern edge of present-day Minneapolis to direct Native American trade away from British-Canadian traders, and to deter warring between the Dakota and Ojibwe in northern Minnesota. The fort attracted traders, settlers and merchants, spurring growth in the surrounding region. At the fort, agents of the St. Peters Indian Agency enforced the US policy of assimilating Native Americans into European-American society, encouraging them to give up subsistence hunting and to cultivate the land.[2] Missionaries encouraged Native Americans to convert from their own religion to Christianity.

The U.S. government pressed the Dakota to sell their land, which they ceded in a series of treaties that were negotiated by corrupt officials. In the decades following the signings of these treaties, their terms were rarely honored. During the American Civil War, officials plundered annuities promised to Native Americans, leading to famine among the Dakota. In 1862, a faction of the Dakota who were facing starvation declared war and killed settlers. The Dakota were interned and exiled from Minnesota.

Outwitting Fort Snelling's commandant, Franklin Steele laid claim to the east bank of Saint Anthony Falls,[3] and John H. Stevens built a home on the west bank. Residents had divergent ideas on names for their community. In 1852, the city's first schoolmaster Charles Hoag proposed Minnehapolis, with a silent h, combining the Dakota word Mníȟaȟa (waterfall)[4] and the Greek word for (city), which became Minneapolis (city of the falls). In 1856, the Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized Minneapolis as a town on the Mississippi's west bank. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867 and in 1872, it merged with the city of St. Anthony on the river's east bank.


Waterpower; lumber and flour milling

Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River, which was used as a source of energy. A lumber industry was built around forests in northern Minnesota, and 17 sawmills operated from energy provided by the waterfall. By 1871, the river's west bank had 23 businesses, including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes and wood-planing. Due to the occupational hazards of milling, by the 1890s, six companies manufactured artificial limbs. Grain grown in the Great Plains was shipped by rail to the city's 34 flour mills. A 1989 Minnesota Archaeological Society analysis of the Minneapolis riverfront describes the use of water power in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen". Minneapolis led the world in flour milling for 50 years.[5]


Cadwallader C. Washburn, a founder of modern milling and of what became General Mills, converted his business from gristmills to "gradual reduction" by steel-and-porcelain roller mills that were capable of quickly producing premium-quality, pure, white flour.[6][7] William Dixon Gray developed some ideas and William de la Barre acquired others through industrial espionage in Hungary.[7] Charles Alfred Pillsbury and the C.A. Pillsbury Company across the river hired Washburn employees and immediately began using the new methods.[7] The hard, red, spring wheat grown in Minnesota became valuable ($0.50 profit per barrel in 1871 increased to $4.50 in 1874),[6] and Minnesota "patent" flour was recognized as the best in the world.[7] Later consumers discovered value in the bran that " ... Minneapolis flour millers routinely dumped" into the Mississippi.

A single mill at Washburn-Crosby could make enough flour for 12 million loaves of bread each day and by 1900, 14 percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis. By 1895, through the efforts of silent partner William Hood Dunwoody, Washburn-Crosby exported four million barrels of flour a year to the United Kingdom. When exports reached their peak in 1900, about one third of all flour milled in Minneapolis was shipped overseas.[8]

Social tensions

In 1886, when Martha Ripley founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers, Minneapolis made changes to rectify discrimination against unmarried women. Known initially as a kindly physician, mayor Doc Ames made his brother police chief, ran the city into corruption, and tried to leave town in 1902. Lincoln Steffens published Ames's story in "The Shame of Minneapolis" in 1903. The gangster Kid Cann engaged in bribery and intimidation between the 1920s and the 1940s.

During the early 20th century, bigotry presented in several ways. In 1910, a Minneapolis developer wrote restrictive covenants based on race and ethnicity into his deeds. Other developers copied the practice, preventing Asian and African Americans from owning or leasing certain properties. Though such language was prohibited by state law in 1953 and by the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, restrictive covenants against minorities remained in many Minneapolis deeds as recently as 2021, when the city gave residents a means to remove them. The Ku Klux Klan entered family life but was only effectively a force in the city from 1921 until 1923. After Minnesota passed a eugenics law in 1925, the proprietors of Eitel Hospital sterilized about 1,000 people at Faribault State Hospital.


From the end of World War I in 1918 until 1950, antisemitism was commonplace in Minneapolis—Carey McWilliams called the city the anti-Semitic capital of the United States. A hate group called the Silver Legion of America held meetings in the city from 1936 to 1938. In 1948, Mount Sinai Hospital opened as the city's first hospital to employ members of minority races and religions.[9]

During the financial downturn of the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 led to laws acknowledging workers' rights. Mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and by 1946, a human-relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities was established. In the 1950s, less than two percent of the city's population was non-White. In 1966 and 1967, years of significant turmoil across the US, suppressed anger among the Black population was released in two disturbances on Plymouth Avenue. A coalition reached a peaceful outcome but failed to solve Black poverty and unemployment; Charles Stenvig, a law-and-order candidate, became mayor. Minneapolis contended with White supremacy, participated in desegregation and engaged with the civil rights movement; in 1968, the American Indian Movement was founded in Minneapolis.

Between 1958 and 1963, as part of urban renewal in America, Minneapolis demolished roughly 40 percent of downtown, including the Gateway District and its significant architecture, such as the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but encouraged interest in historic preservation.

On May 25, 2020, a citizen recorded the murder of George Floyd, an African-American man who suffocated when Derek Chauvin, a White Minneapolis police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck and back for more than nine minutes. The incident sparked national unrest, riots and mass protests. Local protests and riots resulted in extraordinary levels of property damage in Minneapolis; the destruction including a police station that demonstrators overran and set on fire. The Twin Cities experienced prolonged unrest over racial injustice from 2020 to 2022.

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