It was at our initial committee meeting that first I heard about the spiritual significance of Coldwater Spring/Camp Coldwater (adjacent to Ft. Snelling) to native Minnesotans.
I read about the area on the Friends of Coldwater web site and on historian Bruce White’s web page on Camp Coldwater: The Birthplace of Minnesota and then in mid-Feb, my son Graham and I paid a visit to the site.
(Click the screenshot of a zoomed-in Google map on the left.)
I was surprised to see how dilapidated the area is, especially the buildings for the Bureau of Mines Twin Cities Research Center which has been closed since 1995. That web page says:
The purpose of the project is to consider alternatives and potential impacts of alternative future uses of this federal property on the natural, historic and cultural resources. The former Research Center is located within two historic designations: the Fort Snelling National Historic Landmark, the Fort Snelling National Register Historic District.
The site includes the Camp Coldwater Spring and the Springhouse and pond. The buildings have been determined eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places.
I noticed that the Coldwater web sites didn’t have any current large/high-res photos of Coldwater Spring and the area around it, so I took a couple dozen. See this album of 18 Coldwater Spring photos or this slideshow.
[...] Springs occupation begins By Griff Wigley Back in April, I blogged about the importance of Coldwater Springs and posted a photo album of the site in [...]