It was North America’s greatest waterfall. River Warren Falls formed in what is now downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota, at the end of the last Ice Age. The power of the cascading waters continually eroded the base of River Warren Falls and over the next several thousand years the waterfall moved 15 miles up the Mississippi River creating a deep gorge. It ended up in downtown Minneapolis as Saint Anthony Falls—the “Waterfall that Built a City.” In its wake, a rock-walled gorge was carved. Streams became waterfalls as they leapt into the chasm, and none more famous than the Minnehaha Falls celebrated in the epic poem, The Song of Hiawatha, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

This is the story of eight waterfalls found in the Twin Cities—the only waterfalls along the entire 2,300-mile length of the Mississippi River. It is a thoroughly researched book that chronicles the early explorations of the Upper Mississippi River, leads you to tropical marine corals captured in stone, reminisces on the visits of Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, and Dvorak, and tells the tale of a 200-pound rodent dropped dead in the prime of its life.

Waterfalls of the Mississippi provides the most complete written description yet published of the magnificent River Warren Falls. The extensive bibliography contained in the book’s Sources of the Mississippi attests to the depth of writing and research found here. An elaborate fold-out map details over 30 miles of scenic trails that hug the banks and bluffs of the Mississippi as they lead you to this remarkable collection of waterfalls.
-Richard Arey