“Those were happy, care-free times for the little waterfall, but dark days were in store for it. The vigorous, enterprising city which had grown up about the great Falls of St. Anthony two miles farther up the stream, began a rapid march down both sides of the river and in a few short years the territory drained by the little creek underwent incredible change.

“Broad meadows and quiet woodlands that had lain undisturbed for ages were torn and perplexed by numberless freshly-graded streets; ditches and tunnels ran here and there; hundreds of cellars and basements were dug; wells were sunk, water mains and sewers were laid and soon the great watershed to which the little stream had always looked confidently for an unfailing supply of pure sparkling water was so altered that the rains which fell upon it found themselves directed into a thousand unfamiliar channels.

“The once sizable creek became a modest brook, then dwindled to the dimensions of a tiny rill and finally disappeared from sight altogether save at the very rim of the ledge at the head of the glen where a pitiful trickle (barely enough for comforting tears but none at all for song) may now and then be seen by those whose hearts are touched by the little stream’s sad fate.”

Urbanization of Southeast Minneapolis since the 1860s buried the creek that fed the falls."


Coldwater Springs measured 130,000 gallons per day in 1990. The latest recorded flow rate is 64,800 gpd from January 2021. Coldwater Spring Water Discharge Results - Mississippi National River and Recreation Area (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

Coldwater is the last natural limestone spring in Hennepin County and has been running out of limestone bedrock for an estimated 10,000-years. For thousands of years before that Coldwater was buried under the Wisconsin Glaciation and was streaming meltwater from the glacier for perhaps 13,000-years.

It is awesome to hang out at an ancient, now acknowledged, Dakota sacred site.