On the southern bank of St. Anthony Falls in downtown Minneapolis, construction crews are working to bring a piece of Dakota history back.
The falls, known as Owámniyomni in Dakota, have a deep significance for the Dakota people. Long before industrialization in the mid-1800s converted the falls into the engine for the milling and timber industries that would define the city, Owámniyomni was a destination for Dakota ceremonies and for women to give birth on Spirit Island, a small island that used to sit beneath the falls.
Today, the dormant seeds of that history are beginning to reemerge…