Водопад Сент-Энтони: История и Значение реки Миссисипи

Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony , located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. Throughout the mid to late 1800s, 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 (3 km) self guided walking trail with signs explaining the area's past.

The falls hold cultural and spiritual significance for native tribes who frequented and lived in the area. The falls is an important and sacred site to the Mdewakanton Dakota and they called the Mississippi River, hahawakpa, "river of the falls". The falls (Haha) themselves were given specific names, mnirara "curling waters", owahmenah "falling waters", or owamni, "whirlpool" (mniyomni in the Eastern Dakota dialect and owamniyomni in the Teton Dakota (Lakota) dialect). Dakota associate the falls with legends and spirits, including Oanktehi, god of waters and evil, who lived beneath the falling water. A small island in the stream, called Spirit Island, was once a nesting ground for eagles that fed on fish below the falls. Dakota people camped on Nicollet Island upstream of the falls to fish and to tap the sugar maple trees. Since the cataract had to be portaged, the area became one of the natural resting and trade points along the Mississippi between Dakota and Anishinaabe peoples. The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) term was recorded as "kakabikah" (gakaabikaa, "split rock" or more descriptively, gichi gakaabikaa, "the great severed rock" which referenced the jagged chunks of limestone constantly eroding by the falls). In 1680, the falls became known to the Western world when they were observed and published in a journal by Father Louis Hennepin, a Catholic friar of Belgian birth, who had earlier brought the Niagara Falls to the world's attention via a publication. Hennepin named them the Chutes de Saint Antoine or the Falls of Saint Anthony after his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. Later explorers to document the falls include Zebulon Montgomery Pike and Jonathan Carver, the first Englishman to undertake an exploration of the west. According to the John Carter Brown Library, "Carver's purpose was to map the land, to befriend the , and to discover the Northwest passage. His journey began in 1766 and, in some ways, was the precursor of the Lewis and Clark expedition; his book was the first popular American travel book." Carver created this early image, an engraving of the falls, in 1778. In 1817, Major Stephen Harriman Long headed a military excursion up the Mississippi River to the Falls of St. Anthony near the confluence with the Minnesota River. As a result of his recommendations, the Army established Fort Snelling to guard against Indian incursions against settlers in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Long recorded his experiences of the expedition in a journal, which was first published as Voyage in a Six Oared Skiff to the Falls of St. Anthony, by the Minnesota Historical Society in 1860. In his journal, Long described the "majestic cataract" of the falls and said that "the murmuring of the cascade, the roaring of the river, and the thunder of the cataract, all contributed to render the scene the most interesting and magnificent of any I ever before witnessed." Following the establishment of Fort Snelling in 1820, the falls became an attraction for tourists, writers, and artists who sought inspiration, even if Hennepin's descriptions were not as majestic as hoped for. By the 1850s a romantic "Indian legend" had become associated with the falls (first noted in Long's 1817 journal

By the 1860s, industrial waste had filled the area and marred the falls' majesty. The new community at the Falls attracted entrepreneurs from New England, many of whom had experience in lumber and milling. He had hired Ard Godfrey to help build and run the first commercial sawmill at the Falls. Godfrey knew the most efficient ways to use natural resources, like the falls, and the great pine forests, to make lumber products. The house built in 1848 in St. Anthony for Godfrey is the oldest remaining wood frame house in the Twin Cities. Steele had the town platted in 1849, and it incorporated in 1855. By 1854, 300 squatters occupied the west bank of the river, and in 1855, Congress recognized the squatters' right to purchase the land they had claimed. The west side quickly developed scores of new mills and consortia. They built a dam diagonally into the river to the north, which, along with Steele's dam created the inverted V shape, still apparent today. Steele created the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company in 1856 with three New York financiers, Davis, Gebhard, and Sanford. The company struggled for several years, due to poor relations with the financiers, a depression, and the Civil War. In 1868, the firm reorganized with new officers including John Pillsbury, Richard and Samuel Chute, Sumner Farnham, and Frederick Butterfield. It produced about 1/3 as much flour as the entire west side. The mills at the falls were very large and substantially automated. "By the end of the century, they had created the country's greatest waterpower industrial district, which was also the country's leading flour milling center from 1880 to 1930." By the early 1900s, three companies controlled 97% of the falls flour production. They were the Pillsbury Washburn Flour Mills Company (later Pillsbury Flour Mills Company and now General Mills), the Washburn Crosby Company (later General Mills), and Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company (later Standard Milling Company)." The Pillsbury and Washburn Crosby companies were started at the falls.

The early dams built to harness the waterpower exposed the limestone to freezing and thawing forces, narrowed the channel, and increased damage from floods. A report in 1868 found that only 1100 feet (335 m) of the limestone remained upstream, and if it were eroded away, the falls would turn into a rapids that would no longer be useful for waterpower. Meanwhile, as the result of a lawsuit, the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company approved a plan for the firm of William W. Eastman and John L. Merriam to build a tailrace tunnel from below the falls, under Hennepin Island, under the riverbed to Nicollet Island. Nicollet Island is 700 feet (213 m) or more above the falls. The tailrace tunnel would allow waterpower development at the Island. This plan met with disaster on October 5, 1869, when the limestone cap was breached. (Edison's Pearl Street Station also started producing electric power in 1882 using steam.) The waterpower companies encouraged or developed hydroelectric plants. Major plants were completed in 1894. 1895, and 1908. (The first large scale production of electricity in the world was at the Adams (Tesla) plant at Niagara Falls starting 1895). As waterpower became available it was used to generate electricity. After the third plant was in operation in 1908, 45% of the waterpower being used was for hydroelectric. One of the historic St. Anthony Falls plants is still operating. River flow is variable and flour production may have to be decreased with low flow rates. In the winter, mills may shut down because there is not enough water flow. So many mills supplemented water power with steam, starting with a 1,400 HP steam engine at the Pillsbury A mill in 1884. By 1892 ten of the fifteen mills had supplementary steam power. As electricity developed as a power source, some electricity was generated from steam to run equipment. Using electricity from the St. Anthony Falls hydroelectric plants was not very practical because those plants competed for the same water flow. But about 1910 electric power was available from St. Croix Falls and it was used in combination with waterpower and steam, and electricity eventually took over. The Mississippi river flow rate changes based on how much rain there is its watershed. Starting 1880, dams were created on the Mississippi further north to create reservoirs water could be released to increase flow at times when it would be low. This helped both waterpower industries and river navigation. The dams were at Lake Winnibigoshish, Leech Lake, Pokegama Falls, Pine River, Sandy Lake, and Gull Lake.

St. Paul was effectively the upper limit of commercial navigation on the Mississippi. The St. Anthony Falls and the Upper Dam. The upper dam ("horseshoe dam"), built on top of the limestone cap forming the falls, is successor to dams built in the 1850s. The dam increases the head for two hydroelectric plants and increases the water level above the falls. The water level rise from the falls is 35 feet (11 m) and from the dam is 14 feet (4 m). The lift at this lock, 49 feet (15 m), is the highest of any lock on the Mississippi. The upper pool has a normal capacity of and a normal level of 799 feet (244 m) above sea level. The navigation channel required alteration of the historic Stone Arch Bridge, which now has a metal truss section to allow ships to pass below. The Lower St. Anthony Falls Dam, located about a half mile below the falls, was completed 1897 with a water level rise of 20 feet (6 m). The dam was built for hydroelectric production, and included a power plant. There never was a falls at this location. The dam was rebuilt and locks added in 1956. The rise was increased to 25 feet (8 m). The new dam is a gravity type hydro electric dam 26 feet (8 m) in height, consisting of a long concrete spillway with four tainter gates. The upper pool (sometimes called the intermediate pool) has a normal capacity of and a normal level of 750 feet (229 m) above sea level. The upper and lower locks are each wide by long. The current around the spillway/falls is often swift and dangerous. In 1991, a small boat drifted too close and fell over one part of the dam. One person on board was killed, and one had to be rescued by helicopter. Rescues at the site are usually much less dramatic, but continue to happen occasionally.

Geologists say that the falls first appeared roughly 12,000 years ago about 10 mile (16 km) downstream at the confluence of the glacial River Warren (at present day Fort Snelling). When Father Louis Hennepin documented the falls he estimated the falls' height to be Later explorers described it as being in the range of high. These layers were the result of an Ordovician Period sea which covered east central Minnesota 500 million years ago.

Along with Yosemite Valley, Saint Anthony Falls held a particular attraction for painters of 19th century landscapes. The falls were a popular tourist attraction at the time, and were depicted in many paintings, including works by Albert Bierstadt, Henry Lewis, and George Catlin. Mark Twain visited the falls as part of his journeys recounted in the 1883 memoir Life on the Mississippi; the original printing of the book included a drawing by John Harley of the falls. Twain noted that the waterfall's industrial capacity was "of inestimable value, business wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as a spectacle, or as a background against which to get your photograph taken".