History of Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Minneapolis (pronounced [ˌmɪniˈæpəlɪs]) is the largest city in the state of Minnesota in the United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. Early on the community tried several names, rejecting Albion, All Saints, Lowell, Brooklyn, Addiseville and Winona. The twenty four small lakes that are now within the city limits led Charles Hoag, Minneapolis's first schoolmaster, to suggest Minnehapolis, derived from Minnehaha and mni, the Dakota word for water,^[1] and polis, the Greek word for city.^[2]

Minneapolis grew up around Saint Anthony Falls, the only waterfall on the Mississippi and the end of the commercially navigable section of the river until locks were installed in the 1960s. Dakota Sioux were the sole residents of the region until the French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut and Louis Hennepin, a Catholic priest and missionary also from France, arrived independently in about 1680. The city's land was acquired by the United States in a series of treaties and purchases negotiated with the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota and separately with European nations. England claimed the land east of the Mississippi and, France, then Spain, and again France claimed the land west of the river. In 1787 land on the east side of the river became part of the Northwest Territory and in 1803 the west side became part of the Louisiana Purchase, both claimed by the United States. Nearby Fort Snelling spurred the growth of villages and towns in the area.^[2]

A lumber mill was built on the falls in 1822 to supply the fort. In the 1840s, settlers were not allowed to stay on land controlled by the military without special permission, so the first settlement near the falls, St. Anthony, grew on the northeast side of the river, just outside of the fort's jurisdiction. The first person authorized to live on the river's west bank was Colonel John H. Stevens, who operated a ferry service starting around 1850. A few years later, the amount of land controlled by the fort was reduced with an order from U.S. President Millard Fillmore, and free settlement followed. The village of Minneapolis soon sprung up on the southwest bank of the river.

The Dakota were hunters and gatherers and soon found themselves in debt to fur traders. Pressed by a whooping cough outbreak, loss of buffalo, deer and bear, and loss of forests to logging, in 1851 in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, the Mdewakanton sold the land west of the river and ceded the east side, allowing settlement in 1852. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature recognized Saint Anthony as a town in 1855 and Minneapolis in 1856. In 1862, the St. Paul and Pacific Railways connected Saint Paul and Saint Anthony. Boundaries were changed and Minneapolis was incorporated as a city in 1867, the same year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. Minneapolis and Saint Anthony joined in 1872.^[2]^[3]