Photograph of Cook’s Bay in Mound c.1950. This is where the Andrews Sisters spent childhood summers. A portion of Maxene Andrews’s ashes were scattered here.

Cook's Bay, Mound

Photograph of Cook’s Bay in Mound, c.1950. This is where the Andrews Sisters spent childhood summers. A portion of Maxene Andrews’s ashes were scattered here.

Painting of Father Louis Hennepin at the Falls of St. Anthony, 1680

Hennepin at the Falls of St. Anthony, 1680

Painting of Father Louis Hennepin at the Falls of St. Anthony in 1680. Painted c. 1903 by J. N. Marchand.

Hennepin, Louis (ca.1640–ca.1701)

Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollect friar, is best known for his early expeditions of what would become the state of Minnesota. He gained fame in the seventeenth century with the publication of his dramatic stories in the territory. Although Father Hennepin spent only a few months in Minnesota, his influence is undeniable. While his widely read travel accounts were more fiction than fact, they allowed him to leave a lasting mark on the state.

Photograph of flour mills and grain elevators overlooking Red Wing’s crowded riverfront, c. 1900.

Red Wing riverfront scene

Flour mills and grain elevators overlook Red Wing’s crowded riverfront, c.1900.

Late 1860s photograph showing barges along Red Wing's Mississippi River waterfront awaiting wheat for shipment to customers downriver.

Red Wing

This late 1860s photograph shows barges along Red Wing's Mississippi River waterfront awaiting wheat for shipment to customers downriver.

photograph of people on the newly constructed stairway

Barn Bluff stairway

The newly completed Barn Bluff stairway, shown about 1929, provided hikers a safer trail to the summit. Construction for a 1960 highway bridge caused the destruction of this route but many of its stairs were saved. They became a part of a 1983 staircase to the bluff-top.

photograph depicting a group constructing a path up Barn Bluff

Webster's Way

Red Wing citizens construct Webster's Way, an improved path to Barn Bluff's summit, in spring 1899. A stairway that followed this path would be added in 1929.

postcard photograph showing Barn Bluff limestone formation

Whitney View

This c. 1860 photo shows the west face of Barn Bluff as viewed from the Wisconsin shore of the Mississippi River. Much of the lower portion of the bluff was removed in 1960 for construction of a highway bridge.

He Mni Caŋ (Barn Bluff)

Roughly ten thousand years ago, raging glacial meltwaters created the broad valley of the Upper Mississippi River that we know today. They also helped form one of the river’s most famous and significant landmarks, known in Dakota as He Mni Caŋ (Hill Water Wood) and in English as Barn Bluff.

portrait photograph of Judge Miles Lord

Portrait of Judge Miles Lord

Portrait of Judge Miles Lord, October 16, 1968.

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