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by Erik Hare

Most people think Minnesota is a pretty flat state for a good reason – most of it is.  Yet there are the rolling hills of the “Driftless Zone,” which the glaciers missed in Southern Minesota.  We also have the majestic Lake Superior shoreline of tall cliffs.  But we can’t forget the bluffs of the Mississippi River that start in Saint Paul and define the town – not for the great beauty of them, but because they are why Saint Paul is what it is.

It all starts at the end of the last ice age, when a tremendous amount of ice melted and rolled south.  A great valley was carved by this river which had its top at what we now know as either Cathedral Hill or Yorg’s Bluff on the West Side.  Over time, the glaciers finally melted and all that was left to feed the river was the rainfall that makes Minnesota so fertile.  The river retreated into a much narrower valley and became the Mississippi of today.

The floor of the ice age river that still exists is often known as the “Downtown/West End Shelf”.  It’s about 70 feet above the Mississippi itself, but the uncarved land of all points around it is another 70 feet or so higher.  The result is a rugged land that seems like a strange place to build a city.

The reason that Saint Paul is here, however, can be traced to these bluffs on the Mississippi.  Practical  navigation on the great river ends roughly at Fort Snelling, where the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers converge.  Above that there just isn’t a lot of water, which is why Josiah Snelling stopped where he did to build the fort in 1819.  In practical  terms, it’s one end of America.

The high bluffs at Fort Snelling are good for building a fort, but not much use for a city.  The closest place to the end of navigation on the Mississippi where there was a break in the bluffs, meaning you could easily get down to the river, was at the Upper Landing.  In the 1890s, Saint Paul was built from there.  This is what we now know as Chestnut Street, and the Lower Landing was just downriver a little bit.  All together, it was the last place you could build a working city on the Mississippi, at least until it was dredged.

The river was dredged, and eventually Minneapolis became possible.  Perhaps not all technology is a benefit, after all.  But Saint Paul was already well established, and continued to be the place where the great wealth of this land was shipped out to the rest of the world.  The railroads came in and built their tracks along the Mississippi, using clear, flat swampland along the shallow river.  Gradually, fill along the banks made everything we see down on the “flats”, creating a third distinct level for the city.

The bluffs themselves are often hidden by buildings and concrete, but they can be seen in many places.  The picture above shows the bluff just below Kellogg Park in Downtown, one of the best preserved natural bluffs in the heart of the city.  These bluffs are not only beautiful, they are why we are.  Saint Paul always has been a city defined by the bluffs of the Mississippi.