Rhubarbism does some digging online and find this old article by former City Pages food writer Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl. The subject? Minneapolis’s wild and wooly past. It’s well worth revisiting. Some samples from the story:
The Sioux believed that this core of Minneapolis was a creepy place on two counts. The spirit of evil and waters, Oanktehi, lived behind the falls, and was given to making frequent and terrible mischief.
Minneapolis didn’t bother to lock up drunks; that was one of its attractions. Men from St. Anthony would come here for the pleasure of our liquor. “Every day,” noted the Minneapolis Tribune, “our city is visited by ‘denizens from the metropolis’ of the male persuasion …
The most violent of these shantytowns, Hell’s Half Acre, occupied the block between Eighth and Ninth Streets and Second and Third Avenues South. Mead’s History of the Police and Fire Departments described them as a settlement “of utter darkness, wailing, and woe. Bloody frays were a nightly occurrence….
8 Reader Comments
1:25 pm
To make things worse, the (now St. Anthony) falls were also haunted by the ghost of Ampato Sapa, a young mother who, according to legend, was so heartbroken by her husband’s decision to take a second wife that she dressed in her wedding robe, bundled her young son into her canoe, and, as her family watched aghast from shore, sang her death song and paddled over the falls.
eerily reminiscent of the kid who died on halloween a few years ago in / near the falls wearing a native american costume.
1:31 pm
Is it just me, or does that link not work?
1:37 pm
Huh. I wonder if I busted Rhubarbism.
2:18 pm
Wow, that was a walk down memory lane. You’ll never know how many hours that took, just sitting in the History Center and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling through microfilm… Technology buffs will be happy to know this story was composed on one of those apple computers with a 4×6 inch screen — a Mac Classic? — and submitted with a 2400 baud modem. I can almost hear the fax-like cry if I strain my ears.
Postscript: An A&E producer recently contacted me for my latest research on Kid Cann. I was like: Um, I stopped looking in to him in about 1995.
Postscript two: Y’all know I am not just a former City Pages writer, but live, breathe, and publish among you, right?
http://www.minnesotamonthly.com/media/Blogs/Dear-Dara/
Thanks for the memories!
2:22 pm
That’s true. Dara has continued a robust writing career at MnMonthly, which is also worth checking out.
8:03 am
D*mn that’s a long story. I had to stop for a break.
11:09 pm
Not cool that someone on MNSpeak is impersonating Dara. Let the poor woman rest in peace.
11:13 pm
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