Odd Tourism Nicollet Island

The Twin Cities is filled with historical sites that are occasionally overlooked in favor of modern stadiums and gargantuan malls. In Odd Tourism, we take a peak at local landmarks that sometimes go unappreciated.

There are three things most people associate with Nicollet Island: 1) the iconic Grain Belt sign; 2) the pavilion where their deep-pocketed frenemy got married; and 3) the speed trap where the cops wait for drivers racing over the Hennepin Avenue bridge on their way to Nye’s.

But the next time you’re in the area partying or getting ticketed, take a detour and explore the other side of the island, literally and figuratively. Head north on a side street past DeLaSalle High School, and you’ll find the Twin Cities’ own lost world: a time-warp of a pastoral village with some 22 historic houses dating to the late 19th century, all meticulously restored.

With all the elaborate Victorian-era details, white picket fences, and oak-lined brick streets, the overall effect is pretty damn Norman Rockwell. Even the most jaded urbanite can’t help but think, “This is really fucking charming”—and that’s before the island’s resident family of foxes ambles by. It’s a sleepy, country burgh but also technically part of downtown Minneapolis—same zip code as the Warehouse District, accessible with a 50-cent Downtown Zone bus fare. 

The island overlooks Saint Anthony Falls, which is pretty much why Minneapolis even exists; the falls drove the lumber and flour milling industries that made this a frontier boom-town by the late 1800s. Nicollet Island, at the heart of it all, became both an industrial center and residential area, with mansions and simple middle-class residences and stone rowhouses, a microcosm of the whole city. (Only one rowhouse is still standing, the Grove Street Flats, a French Second Empire building that looks like it belongs by the Seine, not the Mississippi—charm squared.)

Read the historic markers around here for some seriously tall-tales of the hard-nose workers, shifty hucksters, and all-around badasses who once populated the area—like William Eastman, who dug a tunnel under the falls, only to have the whole thing collapse into a Bruckheimer-worthy vortex.

After the decline of the flour milling industry in the early 1900s and the ensuing middle-class flight, Nicollet Island was one of the most potent symbols of the city’s hard times, full of crumbling buildings, unsavory characters, and shady dealings. It became a counterculture haven in the 1960s and 70s, when there were also two resident donkeys, Sheba and Pearl. (Ask one of the island old-timers to point out where Pearl is buried.)

Minneapolis has long had a particular fondness for tearing down historic buildings and putting up bland modern crap, just like every evil developer in every TV show, ever. And that was the city’s plan here in the 1970s: Level it all. But just like in those shows, the plucky island residents fought back against The Man. And they won.

The whole place has been restored, and in some cases, historic houses were moved from other parts of the city to fill vacant lots or replace run-down buildings that couldn’t be saved. Happy ending: Today, the island is arguably better than ever, an enchanted secret garden in the machine of the city.