Join the hiking group for a hike south along the Mississippi River from Hidden Falls in the Highland Park section of St. Paul. In 1887, Hidden Falls Regional Park was selected by Horace W. S. Cleveland, a nationally known landscape architect and park planner from Chicago, as one of four major park sites for the city of Saint Paul. Plans for both Minneapolis and St. Paul park systems were originally developed by Cleveland in the late nineteenth century, who had the foresight to envision an inter-linking network of scenic drives, parks, and river boulevards for the "United Cities", and to understand the importance of preserving some of the natural features of the land adjacent to the cities' lakes and rivers. No improvements were made in Hidden Falls Park until 1936-1937, when the Works Progress Administration (WPA) under President Franklin D. Roosevelt carried out an extensive improvement program on the site. Featured in the park was a small spring-fed waterfall from which the park got its name. The waterfall is created by an underground aquifer fed by a large area of the county. Highland Park is a residential area that developed out of Reserve Township after World War I. After closing two earlier smaller plants, the nearby Ford Motor Company assembly plant began operation in 1926, including the damming of the Mississippi River for hydroelectric power generation to run the plant.
Directions: From I-94, on the western edge of St. Paul, take the Cretin/Vandalia exit and go south about 1.5 miles on Cretin Avenue to Randolph Avenue and turn west (right). Proceed on Randolph Avenue a few blocks to Mississippi River Boulevard and proceed south (left) on Mississippi River Boulevard umder the Ford Avenue/46th Street Bridge, just past the Ford plant, to the park entrance, Hidden Falls Drive, just north of where Magoffin Avenue connects with the parkway. Take Hidden Falls Drive down the hill to the parking lot and meet by the picnic shelter, near the north east corner of the parking lot.
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Last updated June 24, 2015.
