An Interesting Historical Perspective of Minnetonka City
Since the mid-1800s Minnetonka has evolved from heavily wooded wilderness thru in depth farming and thriving industrialization to its present primarily residential suburban character. The Dakota and Ojibway Indians were the first people to settle in the area. They thought the land around Lake Minnetonka ( minne meaning water and tonka meaning big ) was the legendary home of an extinct race. The first recorded exploration of the area by western european settlers was in 1822, when a group from newly created Fort Snelling made its way up Minnehaha stream ( then known as Brown’s stream or Falls stream ) to the lake. In 1851 the Dakotah sold the area including Minnetonka to the U. S. with the Treaty of traverse des Sioux. The 1st census, the Territorial Census of 1857, lists 41 homes. Twenty-nine of the heads of homes are listed as farmers. The occupations of the remaining 12 are associated with the operations of Minnetonka Mill and a nearby hotel.[5]
In 1852 a claim was staked on Minnehaha stream near McGinty Road. The sawmill that was constructed in the thick woods of maple, oak, elm, red cedar and basswood was the 1st privately-operated mill in Minnesota west of the Mississippi brook. Oak timbers from this mill were used to build the 1st suspension bridge across the Mississippi stream at St. Anthony Falls in 1853. The settlement of Minnetonka Mills that grew up around the mill was the first permanent European-American settlement west of Minneapolis in Hennepin County. In 1855 a two-story sawmill was constructed with a furniture factory on the second floor. A building for polishing furniture was built on the southern side of the stream, at the present Bridge Street. Production consisted mainly of chairs and bedsteads. There are plenty of Minnetonka lawyers, Minnetonka accountants and Minnetonka dentists that operate close to here.
But competition from the mills at St. Anthony, the drowning of the mill’s manager in 1857 and a fire in 1860 dashed the lofty hopes. From 1860 to 1869 the mill area had no active mill. In 1869, Thomas Perkins made a three story flour mill and an ad joining cooper shop. At the top of its production, around 1880, the mill ground about 400 barrels of flour daily and employed 18 men. One of its brands, “Snow Ball, ” was priced at $3.00 per hundred pound, and local farmers were paid $1.00 per bushel of wheat. From 1874 to the mid-1880s, Charles Burwell managed the Minnetonka Mill Company’s operations.
Milling played a major role in the development of Minnetonka and Minnehaha stream provided power to operate these mills. Almost all of the earliest settlers were from new england and other eastern and central states, with Irish folk settling in northern Minnetonka later . In the 1860s Scandinavians came where the climate and terrain reminded them of their native land. Immigrants from Czechoslovakia settled in the southern part of Minnetonka from 1854 to 1871. They contributed greatly to the professional, business and agricultural segments of the population. The raspberries they grew in Minnetonka for sale in Hopkins prompted Hopkins to call itself “The Raspberry Capital of the World. ”
In 1860, after only eight years of operation, the sawmill closed. In 1869 a flour and grist mill were made and operated until the late 1880s. In 1874 Charles H. Burwell came to control the Minnetonka Mill Company, and he constructed a Victorian home on the north bank of Minnehaha stream ( Minnetonka Boulevard at McGinty Road East ) for his folks. The Charles H. Burwell House is now on the national Register of historic Places and belongs to the city. There were 2 other mills in Minnetonka. The St. Alban’s Mill, which was less than a mile downstream from Minnetonka Mills on Minnehaha stream, operated as a flour mill from 1874 to 1881. A grist mill built on limbo stream was washed out in a flood straight after construction. Minnetonka Mills, with its post office and port for Lake Minnetonka, was the principal business and trading center for a giant area until the 1870s.
