Water Power Park

With an awe-inspiring location on the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls, Hennepin Island presented a unique opportunity for interpreting waterpower’s essential role in propelling Minneapolis’s growth in the late nineteenth century.

As part of the FERC relicensing process for the Saint Anthony Falls Hydroelectric Project, Xcel Energy created a park on the northern end of Hennepin Island. We worked with Xcel, the project engineer and landscape architect, and members of the community to develop themes for interpretation. Using these themes, we wrote text and selected illustrations for eighteen interpretive panels on the island’s history and the role of waterpower in that history, and consulted with the graphic designer on the panel layouts.