About The Falls Initiative

As westward expansion advanced and soldiers and settlers systematically displaced Indigenous people, the Falls drew a different kind of attention. Industrialists seeking to tame the wilderness and grow wealth through resource extraction saw the Falls as an economic driver capable of powering large scale industries: first sawmilling for the lumber industry, then flour milling, and finally commercial navigation.

The once natural River was harnessed, hardened, and industrialized. As a result, the living River ecosystem was biologically diminished. It became a dangerous place to be, its waters inaccessible to people for generations. 

To Native people, these activities were a desecration, incompatible with a world view in which the River is a spirit and a mother, and in which all living natural things are our relatives.

The Upper Lock and the land around it is currently owned by the U.S. government. Since 2016, Friends of the Falls and the City of Minneapolis have advocated for the transfer of land to public control through legislative action. We have also worked to prevent hydropower companies from securing the site to transform it into a power station.

During early phases of engagement (Phases 1-3, 2016-2021), Friends of the Falls built a constituency to move government to action, gained understanding of adopted plans that address this site, listened to community values and priorities, and cultivated knowledge and relationships to fully center the project on Native American voices.

In upcoming phases of engagement (Phases 4-6, 2022-2023), we will educate and engage the community on topics that will inform programming and design, such as connectivity and sustainability. We will weave together direction and priorities voiced by the Native community and the broader public.

There are several adopted plans that anticipated the transformation of this site and the broader riverfront. They envision restored access to the river and creating a visitor center at the Lock. Those plans include the St. Anthony Falls Heritage Board’s Changing Relationships to the Power of the Falls (2014), Minneapolis Downtown Council’s Intersections: Downtown 2025 (2011); Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board’s Central Riverfront Regional Parks Master Plan (2016); Meet Minneapolis’ Destination Transformation 2030 (2016); and the National Parks Conservation Association’s Transforming the Lock (2016). The Falls Initiative was also developed in the context of Minneapolis 2040 (2019), the City’s comprehensive plan, and the Mississippi River Corridor Critical Area Plan (1979, most recently updated in 2017).

The Falls Initiative is one of many transformative riverfront projects within the Twin Cities and across the state. Among them, Wakan Tipi, Bdote (Ft. Snelling Revitalization), Indian Mounds Regional Park and others, are similarly concerned with elevating Native stories and Indigenous perspectives.

Each project is valuable alone, but taken together they represent a much larger gesture that will place the Twin Cities within the national conversation about Indigenous rights and truth and reconciliation.

The Falls is located within the Mississippi National River Recreation Area, our river National Park and is a feature of the 10-state Great River Road, a National Scenic Byway.