Great Mill Disaster

The Mill District is a neighborhood within Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, and a part of the larger Downtown East neighborhood. The neighborhood contains several former flour mills left over from the days when Minneapolis was the flour milling capital of the world. With almost none of the mills still active, a number of these have been converted into condominiums leading to a revitalization of the neighborhood.Its approximate boundaries are the Mississippi River to the north, the I-35W Mississippi River bridge to the east, Washington Avenue to the south, and 5th Avenue to the west. It is bounded by Downtown West as well as the rest of the Downtown East neighborhoods. The Marcy-Holmes neighborhood is on the other side of the river, but there is no direct automobile connection between the two neighborhoods. There is a pedestrian and bicycle connection via the Stone Arch Bridge. The area also includes several cultural institutions, including the Guthrie Theater, the Mill City Museum as well as the MacPhail Center for Music. The area includes Mill Ruins Park, the new Gold Medal Park as well as the headquarters for the McKnight Foundation.

Mill Ruins Park is a park in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, standing on the west side of Saint Anthony Falls on the Mississippi River and running from 3rd Ave. S. to about 9th Ave. S. The park interprets the history of flour milling in Minneapolis and shows the ruins of several flour mills that were abandoned. The park is the result of an archaeological study of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1983, a project was being considered to extend West River Parkway along the west side of the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis. Scott Anfinson, then the municipal county highway archaeologist for the Minnesota Historical Society, developed a plan to assess archaeological sites along the riverfront. A number of test excavations along the route revealed a wide variety of sites containing items of interest. In the Bassett's Creek area, for example, the foundations of two sawmills and the remains of a railroad roundhouse were found, while near Hennepin Avenue, the investigation found the footings of the Great Northern Railway Union Depot and the tower bases of the first and second Hennepin Avenue Bridges. In the milling district, archaeologists found clues suggesting that there were still extensive remains of the foundations of the mills and waterpower system.The first round of archaeological surveys in the 1980s was intended to save the ruins from destruction as a result of road construction projects. Later, in the 1990s, the focus shifted from environmental impact assessment to exposing ruins for their interpretive value. As the ruins were made visible to the public, the goal was to create assets for education, tourism, and commercial development. The excavations for Mill Ruins Park began in 1998 and continued through 2001. The process also involved stabilizing the remains of the Washburn "A" Mill, which had burned in 1991. The Washburn "A" Mill became part of the Mill City Museum.Along with the remains of about 20 flour mills and other industrial buildings, the park also contains two stone piers and several iron girder piers that held a trestle for the Minneapolis Eastern Railroad. The tailraces from the waterpower canal are also clearly visible, and the water flow has been restored through the canal. Signs posted along the walkways interpret the ruins and the history of the area.

The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Oliver Rea and Peter Zeisler. Disenchanted with Broadway, they intended to form a theater with a resident acting company, to perform classic plays in rotating repertory, while maintaining the highest professional standards. The Guthrie Theater has performed in two main-stage facilities. The first building was designed by Ralph Rapson, included a 1,441-seat thrust stage designed by Tanya Moiseiwitsch, and was operated from 1963–2006. After closing its 2005–2006 season, the theater moved to its current facility designed by Jean Nouvel. In 1982, the theater won the Regional Theatre Tony Award.

The J.I. Case Building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota was a warehouse and branch headquarters of the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company. The building was part of a new warehousing development in Minneapolis, because wholesalers were starting to outgrow the warehouse district on the north side of downtown. Former Minneapolis mayor William Henry Eustis was promoting a new warehouse district on the south side of downtown, and had attracted some farm implement companies by the early 1900s. The J.I. Case Building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021 for its role in commerce and in community planning and development. Jerome Increase Case founded the J.I. Case Threshing Machine Company in Racine, Wisconsin in 1842. The company acquired a reputation for good customer service and high-quality products. Their products were sold by independent jobbers, as well as a network of company-owned distribution houses known as "branch houses". The J.I. Case Implement Company, a jobber, initially started sales at a warehouse at 308-310 Third Avenue North, in the traditional warehouse district. By 1900, they had expanded their warehouse space, but they needed more space than was available in that district. Minneapolis was becoming a major hub for the distribution of farm machinery, and by 1908 it was the largest distribution point in the world. By 1915, the dollar volume of farm implements sold in Minneapolis exceeded the dollar volume of the flour and grain trade. William Henry Eustis was promoting a new warehouse district on the south side of downtown, but there were some seedy elements in that part of town. An alley south of Washington Avenue between Park and Chicago Avenues was known as "Fish Alley", because a fish market had previously been located there. It was surrounded by overcrowded apartment buildings and was known for drinking parties and fights. Residents were warned, "It isn’t safe to go into the alley, unless you have a gun and policeman with you, and then you are not safe." There was also a dance hall and four saloons facing Washington Avenue on the block. By 1906, only one saloon remained, as a result of an effort to clean up the area, and fighting was reduced, but Fish Alley was still known for criminals and loose women. Some redevelopment was occurring in the area, though. The Great Northern Implement Company (also known as the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Building) built a location west of Park Avenue on Third Street. Advance Thresher built an architecturally distinguished structure on the east side of Park Avenue at Third Street, and Emerson-Newton Implement Company built a building immediately adjacent to Advance-Thresher. In the spring of 1903, Case purchased several properties on Washington Avenue between Park and Chicago Avenues. By September 1903, Case applied for a building permit for a "large $125,000 building". Construction did not begin immediately, though, because the company was preoccupied with a warehouse fire that destroyed 110 threshing machines, a new headquarters building in Racine, and a new thresher made entirely of steel. By September 1906, the company was finally ready to build, so they applied for a building permit for a brick warehouse with three stories and a basement, 70 feet (21 m) tall and measuring 115 feet (35 m) by 132 feet (40 m) with an estimated cost of $50,000. They selected the firm of Kees and Colburn, who had designed the Advance-Thresher and Emerson-Newton buildings on the same block. The building was completed by October 1907. By the late 1950s, farming was facing a change. 850,000 farms had been lost between 1954 and 1959, and other farmers bought out the land of those farms that folded. With fewer farmers and larger farms, the sales of agricultural implements had dropped 25 percent by 1960. Downtown Minneapolis was also changing, with more traffic and older buildings that had accumulated deferred maintenance during the Great Depression and World War II. In 1959, Case moved its branch office to a building on Minnesota State Highway 55 in Eagan, Minnesota. The downtown Minneapolis building became a warehouse for Minneapolis House Furnishings. In the early 1990s, the building was remodeled to house offices and a restaurant, the Old Spaghetti Factory, which opened in 1994. The Old Spaghetti Factory closed in 2019.

Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company Elevator A also known as the Ceresota Elevator and "The Million Bushel Elevator" was a receiving and public grain elevator built by the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company in 1908 in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The elevator may have been the largest brick elevator ever constructed (brick construction being relatively uncommon) and ran on electricity. The elevator was the source for the Crown Roller Mill and Standard Mill. Those mills closed in the 1950s but the elevator continued in use for grain storage until the mid 1980s. The building is a contributing property of the Saint Anthony Falls History District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1971. In 1987 the elevator was converted to 92,081 square feet (8,555 m2) of office space. That required removing the vertical bin structure and creating floors without destroying the building walls. Before the conversion the building was documented to Historic American Engineering Record standards. Conversion was sensitive to the building history and the building is still a contributing property. About 2015 the building was converted to Millers Landing Senior Living.

The following are all the contributing resources to the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The District is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, thus these properties are on the NRHP. The "period of significance" of the District was 1858–1941. The district's archaeological record is considered to be one of the most-endangered historic sites in Minnesota.

Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony (Dakota: Owámniyomni, lit. 'Three Whirlpools') located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. Throughout the mid-to-late 1800’s, various dams were built atop the east and west faces of the falls to support the milling industry that spurred the growth of the city of Minneapolis. In 1880, the central face of the falls was reinforced with a sloping timber apron to stop the upstream erosion of the falls. In the 1950s, the apron was rebuilt with concrete, which makes up the most visible portion of the falls today. A series of locks were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s to extend navigation to points upstream.The falls were renamed from their Dakota title in 1680 by Father Louis Hennepin after his patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua. The towns of St. Anthony and Minneapolis, which had developed on the east and west sides of the falls, respectively, merged in 1872 to fully use the power of the falls for milling operations. From 1880 to about 1930, Minneapolis was known as the "Flour Milling Capital of the World". Today, the falls are defined by the spillway, the upper dam and the locks, located just downstream of the 3rd Avenue Bridge, and the Lower Lock and Dam, just upstream of the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge. These locks were built as part of the Upper Mississippi River 9-Foot Navigation Project. The area around the falls is designated the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and features a 1.8-mile (2.9 km) self-guided walking trail with signs explaining the area's past.

The Advance Thresher/Emerson-Newton Implement Company buildings in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, are a pair of buildings designed by Kees and Colburn. The two buildings are united under a common cornice and appear to be a single structure. However, the two buildings were actually built four years apart. The Advance Thresher Company building was built in 1900 and has six floors. The adjacent Emerson-Newton Plow Company building was built in 1904 and has seven floors.The architecture of the buildings was influenced by Louis Sullivan. They are ornamented with terra cotta details that are more Classical Revival in nature. The buildings were renovated into offices in the 1980s. They are listed on the National Register of Historic Places for local significance in architecture for exemplifying the Sullivanesque style influencing large industrial and commercial buildings at the turn of the 20th century.

The Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company Building, also known as the Northern Implement Company and the American Trio Building, is a warehouse building in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. PPG Industries of Pittsburgh constructed the structure. It was designed by thearchitectural firm Kees and Colburn and shows strong influences of architect Louis Sullivan. The arches in the top floor windows are modeled after Louis Sullivan's designs, which in turn were influenced by Henry Hobson Richardson's Richardsonian Romanesque style. The corners of the building are subtly chamfered in at the bottom and rise toward a flaring cornice at the top, echoing John Wellborn Root's design of the Monadnock Building in Chicago.The building has now been converted to loft apartments.

The Stone Arch Bridge is a former railroad bridge crossing the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the only arched bridge made of stone on the entire Mississippi River. It is the second oldest bridge on the river next to Eads Bridge. The bridge was built to connect the railway system to the new Union Depot, which at that time was planned to be built between Hennepin Avenue and Nicollet Avenue. The bridge was completed in 1883, costing $650,000 at the time ($18.9 million today). 117 Portland Avenue is the general address of the historic complex. Located between the 3rd Avenue Bridge and the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge, the Stone Arch Bridge was built in 1883 by railroad tycoon James J. Hill for his Great Northern Railway, and accessed the former passenger station located about a mile to the west, on the west bank of the river. For a time, the bridge was dubbed "Hill's Folly" until the value of Hill's new bridge as a passenger rail link became evident.The structure is now used as a pedestrian and bicycle bridge. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1971 as a part of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District, (District #71000438). The bridge was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1974.

The MacPhail Center for Music is one of the nation's oldest and largest community-based music education centers. Located in the Mills District of Downtown East, Minneapolis, Minnesota, the school has over 16,000 students, providing instruction at more than 130 locations outside of its downtown Minneapolis facility on more than 35 instruments and in a variety of musical styles. MacPhail is registered as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization providing students of all ages, backgrounds and abilities access to inspiring and enduring music learning experiences through extraordinary faculty, relevant programming and integrated learning technology to create successful outcomes

The Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory (former name: Saint Anthony Falls Hydraulic Laboratory), or SAFL, is a research laboratory situated on Hennepin Island in the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Its primary research is in "Engineering, Environmental, Biological, and Geophysical Fluid Mechanics". It is affiliated with the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. Research is conducted by graduate students and faculty alike using the 16,000 square feet of research space and 24 different specialized facilities. The laboratory is unique in that its location next to Saint Anthony Falls allows it to use the hydraulic head from the waterfall to provide water for many of the experiments. The experiments performed at the laboratory are varied, and may include: Contract civil and environmental engineering work, such as dam construction and removal Understanding river system dynamics Work with oil exploration to characterize deposits in deltaic systems Work to understand the interactions between fluid flow and the ecology of rivers Work to understand cavitation in fluids in order to build better propellersThe Saint Anthony Falls Laboratory is also the headquarters of the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics, a National Science Foundation Science and Technology Center.The laboratory is a contributing resource of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.