On This Date In Twin Cities History - December 6, 1914

On this date in 1914, Mrs. Richard Henry Dana (aka Edith Longfellow) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the daughter of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow visits Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the epic poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’.

The poem tells of the adventures of an Ojibwe warrior named Hiawatha and his love for a Dakota woman named Minnehaha. Longfellow himself never visited Minnehaha Falls but used Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s writings on Minnesota’s Ojibwe Indians as the basis for some of the legends and ethnography found in his work.

Widely read, the poem had a significant cultural impact in the United States for many years after its publication.

Read more about the Hiawatha and Minnehaha sculpture in Minnehaha Park…