Where the Falls of Minnehaha Flash and gleam among the oak trees.
-Longfellow
You are always welcome in Minneapolis. It is a city famed as much for its hospitality as for its renowned beauty and its commercial greatness. This booklet gives you only the merest suggestion in pictures and paragraphs of its enchantment for the tourist and home seeker and of the excellent opportunities it offers to the investor seeking a business location. There are five large natural lakes within the city limits and several smaller ones, around which there has been laid out a park system of surprising beauty.
Minneapolis devotes one-tenth of its area to parks. One hundred parks, large and small, present a variety of attractions. It is a year-round system, with boating, bathing, fishing and band concerts, succeeded by flower shows, skating, tobogganing and boat and horse racing on the ice. Flower decked buildings down-town give you a foretaste of the beauty of its parks.
Minneapolis is one of the few cities that maintain an average of more than one hundred conventions annually. Its convenient and strategical location, excellency of transportation facilities, number and quality of hotels and the abundance of interesting features it possesses have won prominence for it as a convention city. Meetings held here usually break attendance records.
Minneapolis came into being as a manufacturer and it has attained high rank among industrial centers. The Falls of St. Anthony determined its destiny. The trails blazed around the world by its lumber and flour have been followed by a great variety of other products. Existing concerns seeking branch factory locations and new firms will find rare opportunities here.
Minneapolis is a city of homes. The proportion of wage earners owning their homes is unusually large. There is no single “exclusive” residential section. Palatial residences are found in all parts of the city. Lots average 40 feet in width and 128 feet in depth. Fortunes have been made in Minneapolis real estate in the past few years, but prices are comparatively low.
Minneapolis with its low death rate takes high rank among the healthful cities of the world. The Federal Census Bureau certifies to its standing. Pure water and a delightful climate make this record possible. The average temperature for summer is 70 degrees and for the winter, 17 degrees above zero. The atmosphere is dry and invigorating.
MINNEAPOLIS is situated at the geographical center of North America, and at the | head of navigation on the Mississippi river. Minneapolis has a population of more than 360,000. Adding the 250,000 of St. Paul, which adjoins it, it forms a community of 600,000 inhabitants. Minneapolis is the seat of the Federal Reserve Bank of the Ninth District. It has 28 banks with a capital of $14,580,000 and resources totaling $165,278,000. Minneapolis is the manufacturing center of the Northwest. Its factories produce an annual product valued at $184,000,000. It is one of the fore most cities in ratio of factory output to population. Minneapolis offers excellent sites for new industries in a district especially set aside for manufacturing. It has all the advantages required for factory purposes, including free switching and availability of labor. Minneapolis is the wholesaling and distributing w center of the Northwest, with more than 1,200 | wholesale houses, whose annual trade reaches a stupendous total. Its average of freight cars received and forwarded daily is 2,260. Minneapolis has maintained an average of more than 6,000 building permits annually since 1909, reaching a value of more than $16,000,000 in 1915. | Its real estate sales have averaged close to $25, 000,000 annually during the same period. Minneapolis is a world grain and milling center. Grain receipts have run as high as 235,000,000 bushels annually. Its mills have a daily capacity of more than 80,000 barrels. Flour shipments have ranged from 15,000,000 to 19,000,000 barrels since 1908. Minneapolis has the support of a constantly increasing purchasing power in the extensive territory directly tributary to it, plus the value of fortunate location and excellent transportation facilities. United States Census Bureau figures show the value of the farm products of the trade zone of Minneapolis to have been $804,800,000 in 1910, compared with $354,994,000 in 1900. Minneapolis has prepared to avail itself of the increasing advantages of water transportation by the construction of municipal terminals to care for shipping on the Mississippi river. Modern – devices will equip the city to enjoy all the economies of water freighting and with the completion of the government dam which will restore the title of “Head of Navigation” to Minneapolis, an immense tonnage is in prospect for the steamboat and barge lines.
Minneapolis is a city of culture with institutions and organizations that reflect the influence of its charming environment. Its educational facilities are complete and of the highest rating. When it wanted a public art museum, citizens subscribed $750,000 in one evening. It boasts a symphony orchestra which critics give high place among the great orchestras of the world.
Minneapolis and St. Paul (the Twin Cities, U. S. A.) form practically one community. Their limits merge without visible separation. Twenty six of the twenty-nine railroad lines serving Minneapolis also serve St. Paul. Four interurban electric lines and fast motor buses connect their business districts. Together, they constitute one of the largest and most important commercial centers in the United States.
Minneapolis possesses no hoary history. Its romance is the story of a great city grown from a grist mill in a half century. But there are historic spots surrounding it and pretty Indian legends abound. These center in Minnehaha Falls, located in one of the city’s pretty parks. Adjoining it are the grounds of the Soldiers’ Home and Fort Snell ing. Trails and drives lead to all points of interest.
Minneapolis presents unparalleled vacation attractions. No more delightful place could be found to spend a summer. Just think of finding good fishing within sight of modern sky-scrapers! If one has an automobile, the drives in and near the city afford endless and changing pleasures. Then one can go easily to any of Minnesota’s many lakes, one hundred of which are within 25 miles of Minneapolis.
-Minneapolis Civic & Commerce Association, 1916