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Saint Anthony Falls or the Falls of Saint Anthony, located northeast of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, was the only natural major waterfall on the Upper Mississippi River. The natural falls were replaced by a concrete overflow spillway (also called an "apron") after it partially collapsed in 1869. Later, in the 1950s and 1960s, a series of locks and dams was constructed to extend navigation to points upstream.〔(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District: Upper St. Anthony Falls )〕 Named after the Catholic saint Anthony of Padua, the falls is the birthplace of the former city of St. Anthony and to Minneapolis when the two cities joined in 1872 to fully use its economic power for milling operations. From 1880 to about 1930, Minneapolis was the "Flour Milling Capital of the World".〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Mill City Museum )〕 Today, the falls are defined by the locks and dams of the Upper Saint Anthony Falls, just downstream of the 3rd Avenue Bridge, and the Lower Saint Anthony Falls, just upstream of the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge.〔(U.S. Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District: Lower St. Anthony Falls )〕 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〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=St. Anthony Falls Historic District )〕 and features a 1.8-mile self-guided walking trail with signs explaining the area's past. ==History== Before European exploration, the falls held cultural and political significance for native tribes who frequented the area. The falls was 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 associated the falls with legends and spirits, including Oanktehi, god of waters and evil, who lived beneath the falling water.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= Engineering the Falls: The Corps Role at St. Anthony Falls )〕 The sacred falls also enters into their oral tradition by a story of a warrior's first wife who killed herself and their two children in anguish and forlorn love for the husband who had assumed a second wife. The rocky islet where the woman had pointed her canoe towards doom thus was named Spirit Island which was once a nesting ground for eagles that fed on fish below the falls. Dakota also camped on Nicollet Island upstream of the falls to fish and to tap the sugar maple trees.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Twelve Thousand Years Ago )〕 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).〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Preserve Camp Coldwater Coalition )〕 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 also first published about Niagara Falls to the world's attention.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title= A History of Minneapolis )〕 Hennepin named them the ''Chutes de Saint-Antoine'' or the Falls of Saint Anthony after his patron saint, Anthony of Padua.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=L'exploration de l'Amérique du Nord )〕 Later explorers to document the falls include Jonathan Carver and Zebulon Montgomery Pike. 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 1860s, however, industrial waste had filled the area and marred the falls' majesty.〔 Further competition over the power of the falls on both banks of the river led to its eventual downfall when it partially collapsed in 1869 and was reinforced and subsequently sealed by a concrete overflow spillway (or "apron"). The area around the river was added to the National Register of Historic Places as the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District in 1971 which includes 8th Avenue Northeast extending downstream to 6th Avenue Southeast and approximately two city blocks on both shoreline.〔 (Minneapolis' official promotional site for the riverfront district )〕〔(Engineering the Falls: The Corps Role at St. Anthony Falls ) - an article on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers website covering the history and geology of St. Anthony Falls.〕 The district's archaeological record is one of the most-endangered historic sites in Minnesota. The National Register of Historic Places is facilitated by the National Park Service. The national significance of the Saint Anthony Falls Historic District is a major reason why the National Park Service's Mississippi National River and Recreation Area was established along the Mississippi River in the Minneapolis – Saint Paul metropolitan area. A Heritage Trail plaque nearby says, "For untold generations of Indian people the Mississippi River was an important canoe route. To pass around the falls, the Dakota (Sioux) and Ojibway (Chippewa) used a well-established portage trail. Starting at a landing below the site now occupied by the steam plant, the trail climbed the bluff to this spot. From here it followed the east bank along what is now Main Street to a point well above the falls." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Saint Anthony Falls」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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