In the nineteenth century, settlers, tourists, and artists were drawn to the picturesque beauty of St. Anthony Falls, while entrepreneurs used its water power for lumber and flour mills and promoters of river transportation sought to overcome the falls as an obstacle to navigation above Minneapolis. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers played an important role in the history of the falls, first helping save the waterfall from destruction in the nineteenth century and later designing and constructing the Upper Harbor Project in the twentieth century to extend the Mississippi River's navigation channel over the falls by means of the Lower and Upper St. Anthony Falls locks. That project included the Lower Lock and Dam, completed in 1956, the Upper Lock, completed in 1963, and dredging a channel 9 feet deep and at least 150 feet wide, making possible the passage of numerous commercial and pleasure vessels over the Mississippi River's only waterfall and fulfilling a century-old dream of extending river navigation above Minneapolis. Lock and Dam No. 1, on the Mississippi River six miles downstream from St. Anthony Falls, was originally authorized by Congress in 1899 to improve navigation between Minneapolis and St. Paul with a 4 1/2 foot channel depth through a project that included two locks and dams, the present Lock and Dam No. 1 and another upstream completed in 1906. Congress authorized a 6-foot channel on the Upper Mississippi River by 1907 and in 1908 authorized increasing the height at Lock and Dam No. 1 to allow hydroelectrical power generation. When the present lock and dam began operation in 1917, the upstream lock and dam was abandoned, and by 1930 Congress authorized the present 9-foot channel; when the second lock at Lock and Dam No. 1 was completed in 1932, it provided 9 feet of channel depth up to St. Anthony Falls. By the early 1980s, Lock and Dam No. 1 had reached the end of its 50 year design life and underwent a major rehabilitation program to continue for another 50 years. Under a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission agreement, Fort Motor Company operates the dam and power house to produce hydroelectric power for the lock and dam and for the Ford assembly plant, and Ford sells excess power to the local utility company.
