Five minutes from the airport and a short light-rail ride from downtown, Minnehaha Falls pours over a limestone bluff in a silver curtain, right in the middle of the city. Poets sang about it, presidents came to see it, and generations of Minneapolitans have simply called it theirs.
The 53-foot falls crown Minnehaha Regional Park, one of Minneapolis’s oldest and most beloved parks, where Minnehaha Creek slips through a wooded glen on its way to the Mississippi River. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow made the falls famous around the world in The Song of Hiawatha, and the little statue of Hiawatha and Minnehaha still stands guard near the top of the cascade.
Stone bridges frame the classic postcard view from above, while a stairway winds down into the cool, fern-shadowed gorge for the behind-the-waterfall angle. In winter the falls freeze into a towering blue ice palace that Minnesotans visit like a seasonal cathedral.
Trails wander from the falls to the river, past gardens, picnic lawns and the historic Longfellow House. It is the rare city that hides a waterfall in its heart; Minneapolis wears hers with pride, and Happy City News counts it among the happiest surprises in America.
