Minnesota Valley State Recreation Area is a 5,490-acre part of Minnesota’s state park system in Scott County, stretching along the lower Minnesota River between Shakopee and Belle Plaine. Instead of one continuous park, it consists of separate waysides along the river corridor, reflecting the valley’s patchwork of protected land. Efforts to create a larger state park began by 1939 but failed in 1967 and again in 1969. That same year, lawmakers approved the Minnesota Valley State Trail, and through that project parts of the valley entered the state park system. Its waysides are interspersed with the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, authorized in 1976.