Father Hennepin Bluff Park

Father Hennepin Bluff Park hugs the limestone river cliffs where the Mississippi churns through downtown Minneapolis. Its distinct profile comes from the heavy timber stairs and steel bridges that lace through the old-growth trees, connecting the upper park rim to the water level. Louis Hennepin, the seventeenth-century explorer, allegedly named the nearby Saint Anthony Falls after his patron saint here. Now, the park occupies the industrial shoreline once crowded by nineteenth-century flour mills and sawmills that powered the city's early economy.