Sugar Loaf, a bluff above Winona on the Mississippi River, became famous for its tall rock pinnacle, a feature created in part by quarrying during the eighteen eighties. Brothers John and Stephen O’Dea cut the bluff’s limestone cap for stone used in Winona’s sidewalks and buildings after the devastating 1862 downtown fire, and quarrying ended in 1887. Long before that, the hill was a well-known landmark for explorers, traders, riverboat pilots, and tourists, and it inspired local legends and its name from old cone-shaped sugar loaves. Donated to Winona as a park in 1950, it was later recognized on the National Register as a defining symbol of the city.