Saint Anthony, Minneapolis

Summary: Established in 1849 on the east bank of the Mississippi River, St. Anthony Falls is the oldest neighborhood in Minneapolis. Covering much of what is now known as Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis, the area initially thrived on the fur trade and lumber industry, the latter fueled by the Falls of St. Anthony.  The construction of the first suspension bridge over the Mississippi in 1855 linked St. Anthony with Minneapolis. While both municipalities continued to grow, in 1872, Minneapolis incorporated the smaller St. Anthony, creating what was briefly known as East Minneapolis, and is now commonly known as the Northeast and Southeast neighborhoods of Minneapolis.

Body:      Platted on the east side of the Mississippi River in 1849 and incorporated as the town of St. Anthony Falls in 1855, St. Anthony is the oldest neighborhood in Minneapolis.  Covering the area from what is now the University of Minnesota on the east upriver through much of what is now Northeast Minneapolis, St. Anthony's population in 1850 was 656.  The completion of the suspension bridge at what became Hennepin Avenue in 1856 linked the village to the already growing town of Minneapolis, which was incorporated that same year on the west side of the river.  Over the next two decades, St. Anthony became home to hundreds of people and several businesses before it was annexed as part of the city of Minneapolis in 1872. 

The economy of early St. Anthony, like that of St. Paul, tied the lands of northern and western Minnesota to the East Coast through its location on the Mississippi River. Initially, the fur trade filtered through the area. By the 1850s, it was lumber, coming down from recently acquired Ojibwa lands in the north, to be milled and transported downriver that fueled the economy. In these early years, St. Anthony vied with the equally embryonic Minneapolis as a commercial center, with entrepreneurs like Steele erecting the noted Winslow House hotel (1856) and, later on, the same site, the Exposition Building (1886). By 1872, however, the west side of the river had surged ahead in both population and commercial development, and St. Anthony was incorporated into the growing city.

     A variety of people were attracted to St. Anthony, from land speculators and entrepreneurs to laborers, representing a variety of religious and ethnic groups.  Early religious presence in the area was primarily Anglo-American Protestants along with French Catholics. A growing immigrant population at the turn of the century resulted in the founding of a Lutheran church in the area in 1904.