Demographics

Main article: Demographics of Minneapolis

[hide]Racial composition	2010[56]	1990[57]	1970[57]	1950[57]
White	63.8%	78.4%	93.6%	98.4%
—Non-Hispanic	60.3%	77.5%	92.8%[58]	n/a
Black or African American	18.6%	13%	4.4%	1.3%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race)	10.5%	2.1%	0.9%[58]	n/a
Asian	5.6%	4.3%	0.4%	0.2%
Other race	5.6%	n/a	n/a	n/a
Two or more races	4.4%	n/a	n/a	n/a

As of the 2010 U.S. census, the racial composition was as follows:^[59][60]

• White: 63.8%
• Black or African American: 18.6%
• American Indian: 2.0%
• Asian: 5.6% (1.9% Hmong, 0.9% Chinese, 0.7% Indian, 0.6% Korean, 0.4% Vietnamese, 0.3% Thai, 0.3% Laotian, 0.2% Filipino, 0.1% Japanese, 0.2% Other Asian)
• Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.1%
• Other: 5.6%
• Multiracial: 4.4%
• Hispanic or Latino (of any race): 10.5%^[61] (7.0% Mexican, 1.3% Ecuadorian, 0.4% Puerto Rican, 0.3% Guatemalan, 0.2% Salvadoran, 1.3% Other Latino)

Die grossen blauen Pferde (The Large Blue Horses) by Franz Marc (1911) at the Walker Art Center. Over one-fifth of the population of Minneapolis is of German descent.

White Americans make up about three-fifths of Minneapolis's population. This community is predominantly of German and Scandinavian descent. There are 82,870 German Americans in the city, making up over one-fifth (23.1%) of the population. The Scandinavian-American population is primarily Norwegian and Swedish. There are 39,103 Norwegian Americans, making up 10.9% of the population; there are 30,349 Swedish Americans, making up 8.5% of the city's population. Danish Americans are not nearly as numerous; there are 4,434 Danish Americans, making up only 1.3% of the population. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish Americans together make up 20.7% of the population. This means that ethnic Germans and Scandinavians together make up 43.8% of Minneapolis's population, and make up the majority of Minneapolis's non-Hispanic white population. Other significant European groups in the city include those of Irish (11.3%), English (7.0%), Polish (3.9%), French (3.5%) and Italian (2.3%) descent.

American Swedish Institute. Immigrants from Scandinavia arrived beginning in the 1860s.

There are 10,711 individuals who identify as multiracial in Minneapolis. People of black and white ancestry number at 3,551, and make up 1.0% of the population. People of white and Native American ancestry number at 2,319, and make up 0.6% of the population. Those of white and Asian ancestry number at 1,871, and make up 0.5% of the population. Lastly, people of black and Native American ancestry number at 885, and make up 0.2% of Minneapolis's population.
Dakota tribes, mostly the Mdewakanton, as early as the 16th century were known as permanent settlers near their sacred site of St. Anthony Falls.^[13] New settlers arrived during the 1850s and 1860s in Minneapolis from New England, New York, and Canada, and during the mid-1860s, immigrants from Finland and Scandinavians (from Sweden, Norway and Denmark) began to call the city home. Migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America also interspersed.^[62] Later, immigrants came from Germany, Italy, Greece, Poland, and Southern and Eastern Europe. These immigrants tended to settle in the Northeast neighborhood, which still retains an ethnic flavor and is particularly known for its Polish community. Jews from Russia and Eastern Europe began arriving in the 1880s and settled primarily on the north side of the city before moving in large numbers to the western suburbs in the 1950s and 1960s.^[63] Asians came from China, the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. Two groups came for a short while during U.S. government relocations: Japanese during the 1940s, and Native Americans during the 1950s. From 1970 onward, Asians arrived from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. Beginning in the 1990s, a large Latino population arrived, along with immigrants from the Horn of Africa, especially Somalia.^[64] The metropolitan area is an immigrant gateway which had a 127% increase in foreign-born residents between 1990 and 2000.^[65]
U.S. Census Bureau estimates in the year 2015 show the population of Minneapolis to be 410,939, a 7.4% increase since the 2010 census. The population grew until 1950 when the census peaked at 521,718, and then declined as people moved to the suburbs until about 1990.
Among U.S. cities as of 2006, Minneapolis has the fourth-highest percentage of gay, lesbian, or bisexual people in the adult population, with 12.5% (behind San Francisco, and slightly behind both Seattle and Atlanta).^[66][67] In 2012, The Advocate named Minneapolis the seventh gayest city in America.^[68] In 2013, the city was among 25 U.S. cities to receive the highest possible score from the Human Rights Campaign, signifying its support for LGBT residents.^[69]
Racial and ethnic minorities lag behind white counterparts in education, with 15.0% of blacks and 13.0% of Hispanics holding bachelor's degrees compared to 42.0% of the white population. The standard of living is on the rise, with incomes among the highest in the Midwest, but median household income among minorities is below that of whites by over $17,000. Regionally, home ownership among minority residents is half that of whites though Asian home ownership has doubled. In 2000, the poverty rate for whites was 4.2%; for blacks it was 26.2%; for Asians, 19.1%; Native Americans, 23.2%; and Hispanics, 18.1%.^[65][70][71]

Geography and climate

Geography and climate

Main articles: Climate of Minnesota, Climate of the Twin Cities, and Geography of Minneapolis

View of downtown Minneapolis across Lake Calhoun (Bde Maka Ska)^[35]

The history and economic growth of Minneapolis are tied to water, the city's defining physical characteristic, which was brought to the region during the last ice age ten thousand years ago. Ice blocks deposited in valleys by retreating glaciers created the lakes of Minneapolis.^[36] Fed by a receding glacier and Lake Agassiz, torrents of water from a glacial river cut the Mississippi riverbed and created the river's only waterfall, Saint Anthony Falls, important to the early settlers of Minneapolis.^[37]
Lying on an artesian aquifer^[6] and flat terrain, Minneapolis has a total area of 58.4 square miles (151.3 km²) and of this 6% is water.^[38] Water supply is managed by four watershed districts that correspond to the Mississippi and the city's three creeks.^[39] Twelve lakes, three large ponds, and five unnamed wetlands are within Minneapolis.^[39]
The city center is located at 45° N latitude.^[40] The city's lowest elevation of 686 feet (209 m) is near where Minnehaha Creek meets the Mississippi River. The site of the Prospect Park Water Tower is often cited as the city's highest point^[41] and a placard in Deming Heights Park denotes the highest elevation. A spot at 974 feet (297 m) in or near Waite Park in Northeast Minneapolis, however, is corroborated by Google Earth as the highest ground.

Cityscape

The Minneapolis skyline seen from the Prospect Park Water Tower in July 2014

Climate

Lake Harriet frozen and snow-covered in winter

Minneapolis has a hot-summer humid continental climate zone (Dfa in the Köppen climate classification),^[42] typical of southern parts of the Upper Midwest, and is situated in USDA plant hardiness zone 4b, with small enclaves of the city classified as being zone 5a.^[43][44][45] As is typical in a continental climate, the difference between average temperatures in the coldest winter month and the warmest summer month is great: 60.1 °F (33.4 °C).
According to the NOAA, Minneapolis's annual average for sunshine duration is 58%.^[46]
The city experiences a full range of precipitation and related weather events, including snow, sleet, ice, rain, thunderstorms, and fog. The highest recorded temperature was 108 °F (42 °C) in July 1936 while the lowest was −41 °F (−41 °C) in January 1888. The snowiest winter of record was 1983–84, when 8.2 feet or 98.4 inches (250 cm) of snow fell,^[47] and the least snowy winter was 1890-91, when only 11.1 inches (28 cm) fell.^[48]

[show]Climate data for Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport (1981–2010 normals,[a] extremes 1871–present)[b]

Corruption, social movements, urban renewal

Known initially as a kindly physician, Doc Ames led the city into corruption during four terms as mayor just before 1900.^[24] The gangster Kid Cann was famous for bribery and intimidation during the 1930s and 1940s.^[25] The city made dramatic changes to rectify discrimination as early as 1886 when Martha Ripley founded Maternity Hospital for both married and unmarried mothers.^[26]
When the country's fortunes turned during the Great Depression, the violent Teamsters Strike of 1934 resulted in laws acknowledging workers' rights.^[27] A lifelong civil rights activist and union supporter, mayor Hubert Humphrey helped the city establish fair employment practices and a human relations council that interceded on behalf of minorities by 1946.^[28] In the 1950s, about 1.6% of the population of Minneapolis was nonwhite.^[29] Minneapolis contended with white supremacy, participated in desegregation and the civil rights movement, and in 1968 was the birthplace of the American Indian Movement.^[30]
Minneapolis was a "particularly virulent" site of anti-semitism until 1950. A hate group known as the Silver Legion of America, or Silver Shirts, recruited members in the city and held meetings there around 1936 to 1938.^[31] The Jewish Free Employment Bureau tried to help victims of economic discrimination, with limited success. In 1938, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas was established to combat rising anti-semitism, fighting against hate-filled leaflets and anti-Jewish remarks, while also attempting to expose discrimination by real estate agents and employers who attempted to subvert anti-discrimination laws. After years of discrimination towards Jewish doctors, the Jewish community raised funds to create the Mount Sinai Hospital, which opened in 1951. It was the first private non-sectarian hospital in the community to accept members of minority races on its medical staff.^[32][33]
During the 1950s and 1960s, as part of urban renewal, the city razed about 200 buildings across 25 city blocks (roughly 40% of downtown), destroying the Gateway District and many buildings with notable architecture, including the Metropolitan Building. Efforts to save the building failed but are credited with sparking interest in (but not always succeeding in) historic preservation in the state.^[34]

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall. In the right foreground are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge.

History

Main article: History of Minneapolis

Sioux natives, city founded

Taoyateduta was among the 121 Sioux leaders who from 1837 to 1851 ceded the land where Minneapolis developed.^[12]

Loading flour, Pillsbury, 1939

Dakota Sioux had long been the region's sole residents when French explorers arrived around 1680. For a time relations were based on fur trading. Gradually more European-American settlers arrived, competing for game and other resources with the Dakota.
In the early 19th century, the United States acquired this territory from France. It gradually established posts here. Fort Snelling was built in 1819 by the United States Army, and it attracted traders, settlers and merchants, spurring growth in the area. The United States government pressed the Mdewakanton band of the Dakota to sell their land, allowing people arriving from the East to settle here. The Minnesota Territorial Legislature authorized present-day Minneapolis as a town in 1856 on the Mississippi's west bank. Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867, the year rail service began between Minneapolis and Chicago. It later joined with the east-bank city of St. Anthony in 1872.^[13]

Waterpower; lumber and flour milling

Minneapolis developed around Saint Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River and a source of power for its early industry. Forests in northern Minnesota were a valuable resource for the lumber industry, which operated seventeen sawmills on power from the waterfall. By 1871, the west river bank had twenty-three businesses, including flour mills, woolen mills, iron works, a railroad machine shop, and mills for cotton, paper, sashes, and planing wood.^[14] Due to the occupational hazards of milling, six local sources of artificial limbs were competing in the prosthetics business by the 1890s.^[15] The farmers of the Great Plains grew grain that was shipped by rail to the city's thirty-four flour mills. Millers have used hydropower elsewhere since the 1st century B.C.,^[16] but the results in Minneapolis between 1880 and 1930 were so remarkable the city has been described as "the greatest direct-drive waterpower center the world has ever seen."^[17]
A father of modern milling in America and founder of what became General Mills, Cadwallader C. Washburn converted his business from gristmills to truly revolutionary technology, including "gradual reduction" processing by steel and porcelain roller mills capable of producing premium-quality pure white flour very quickly.^[18][19] Some ideas were developed by William Dixon Gray^[20] and some acquired through industrial espionage from the Hungarians by William de la Barre.^[19] Charles A. Pillsbury and C.A. Pillsbury Company across the river were barely a step behind, hiring Washburn employees to immediately use the new methods.^[19] The hard red spring wheat that grows in Minnesota became valuable ($.50 profit per barrel in 1871 increased to $4.50 in 1874,^[18]) and Minnesota "patent" flour was recognized at the time as the best in the world.^[19]
Not until later did consumers discover the value in the bran (which contains wheat's vitamins, minerals and fiber) that "Minneapolis... millers routinely dumped" into the Mississippi.^[21] Millers cultivated relationships with academic scientists especially at the University of Minnesota. Those scientists backed them politically on many issues, for example during the early 20th century, when health advocates in the nascent field of nutrition criticized the flour "bleaching" process.^[19] At peak production, a single mill at Washburn-Crosby made enough flour for 12 million loaves of bread each day,^[22] and by 1900, 14.1 percent of America's grain was milled in Minneapolis.^[18][19] Further, by 1895 through the efforts of silent partner William Hood Dunwoody, Washburn-Crosby exported four million barrels of flour a year to the United Kingdom,^[23] and when exports reached their peak in 1900, about one third of all flour milled in Minneapolis was shipped overseas.^[23]

Minneapolis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  (Redirected from Minneapolis, Minnesota)

This article is about the city in Minnesota. For other uses, see Minneapolis (disambiguation).

Minneapolis, Minnesota
City
City of Minneapolis
Clockwise from Top Left: Downtown Minneapolis at night, U.S. Bank Stadium, the skyline from Lake Nokomis, Minneapolis skyline and Minnehaha Falls.
Flag Seal Logo
Etymology: Dakota word mni (water) with Greek polis (city)
Nickname(s): "City of Lakes", "Mill City", "Twin Cities" (a nickname shared with Saint Paul), "Mini Apple"
Motto: En Avant (French: 'Forward')
Location in Hennepin County and the U.S. state of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota Location in the United States
Coordinates: 44°59′N 93°16′WCoordinates: 44°59′N 93°16′W
Country	United States
State	Minnesota
County	Hennepin
Incorporated	1867
Founded by	John H. Stevens and Franklin Steele
Government
• Type	Weak mayor–council
• Body	Minneapolis City Council
• Mayor	Betsy Hodges (DFL)
Area
• City	58.4 sq mi (151.3 km2)
• Land	54.9 sq mi (142.2 km2)
• Water	3.5 sq mi (9.1 km2)
Elevation	830 ft (264 m)
Population (2010)[1]
• City	382,578
• Estimate (2015)[2]	410,939
• Rank	US: 46th MN: 1st
• Density	7,485/sq mi (2,890/km2)
• Metro	3,524,583 (US: 16th)
• Demonym	Minneapolitan
Time zone	CST (UTC−6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC−5)
ZIP codes	55401 – 55488 (range includes some zip codes which are for Minneapolis suburbs)
Area code(s)	612
FIPS code	27-43000
GNIS feature ID	0655030[3]
Website	www.MinneapolisMN.gov

Minneapolis (ⁱ/ˌmɪniˈæpəlɪs/) is the county seat of Hennepin County,^[4] and the larger of the Twin Cities, the 16th-largest metropolitan area in the United States.^[1] As of 2015, Minneapolis is the largest city in the state of Minnesota and 46th-largest in the United States with a population of 410,939.^[2] Minneapolis and Saint Paul anchor the second-largest economic center in the Midwest, after Chicago.^[5]
Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river's confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state's capital. The city is abundantly rich in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. It was once the world's flour milling capital and a hub for timber. The city and surrounding region is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing America's fifth-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies.^[6][7] As an integral link to the global economy, Minneapolis is categorized as a global city.^[8] Noted for its strong music and performing arts scenes, Minneapolis is home to both the award-winning Guthrie Theater and the historic First Avenue nightclub. Reflecting the region's status as an epicenter of folk, funk, and alternative rock music, the city served as the launching pad for several of the 20th century's most influential musicians, including Bob Dylan and Prince.^[9]
The name Minneapolis is attributed to Charles Hoag, the city's first schoolteacher, who combined mni, a Dakota Sioux word for water, and polis, the Greek word for city.^[10][11]