HISTORY
Camp Coldwater is the birthplace of the political state of Minnesota, home to the soldiers who built Fort Snelling (1830s) and to the settlers who arrived to service the fort. Coldwater Spring is located between Minnehaha Falls, a 53-foot drop, and the confluence of the Mississippi and
Minnesota rivers. Coldwater forms a creek, wetland and waterfall traversing down the river gorge—the only gorge on the 2,350-mile length of the Mississippi.

Before European-American settlement the area was sacred to the Dakota Nation as the geography of their creation story. Previous to the Dakota migration, the 2%-mile stretch of oak savannah atop the bluff from Minnehaha Falls to the confluence of rivers was sacred to the
Iowa, Anishinabe, Sauk and Fox, Potowatamie and other regional peoples who met in the Camp Coldwater area to perform certain rituals which required (what we would call today) consecrated ground and holy water. The area became America's first state park in 1889.

Ancient archaeological finds include a 9,000-year old bison spear point from the Sibley House dig, across the river in Mendota (summer 1996), a stone axe found south of the Coldwater reservoir by hikers (now held by the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Community), and an approximately 6,000-year old stone hammer found by amateur archaeologist Dave Fudally.

In April of 2000 "the largest deposit of Camp Coldwater artifacts ever found by any archaeologist" was uncovered by supervising archaeologist Christopher Schoen of Louis Berger and Associates working for the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Curiously Schoen recommended that "no additional archaeological investigations are warranted." Dr. Bruce M. White, University of Minnesota anthropologist whose report triggered the April dig, is rebutting Schoen s recommendation. It will be available on line by the end of October 2000 (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~white067). In a surprising move the National Park Service announced that Dr. Robert Clouse of the Minnesota Historical Society would begin a 3-week archaeological dig at Camp Coldwater on October 16, 2000. Clouse is credited with uncovering the 9,000-year old bison spear point.

Since 1957 when the highway 55 project was first considered, no comprehensive hydrology study has been done. Furthermore agencies have pieced out the project so the cumulative effects of the new roadway are not considered.

The other notable spring in the Twin Cities area disappeared after construction of Interstate 394 west out of Minneapolis. Called the Great Medicine Spring in what is now Theodore Wirth Park, the spring was frequented by Native Americans "who came hundreds of miles to get the
benefit of its medicinal qualities" according to the first white settler in Minneapolis, Col. John H. Stevens (1874).

In February 1999, ten-years after 1-394 construction, the Minneapolis Park Board drilled down 150-feet at the site of Great Medicine Spring and got a trickle. Treated city water is now piped into the park. Officials have discussed the same "solution" for Coldwater— city water piped in
to substitute for the natural Platteville limestone spring water.

Native people, along with non-native religious, environmental, neighborhood and small business people, want zero tolerance for the reduction of water quantity and quality to Coldwater Spring. Surely the best of 21st century technology and respect for native oral history is due the last great spring in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Preserve Camp Coldwater Coalition www.preservecampcoldwater.org
email   campcoldwater@yahoo.com
Contacts: Jeanne Hollingsworth 612-522-6140, Tom Holtzleiter 612-825-0460, Lynn Levine
612-920-8891 or John Steinworth 651-653-7517