For longer than people have been around, the Father of Waters has carved its mark on the area now called St. Cloud, but only during the last 150 years have humans made a lasting impression on this stretch of the Mississippi River. Today, St. Cloud residents rely more on the river than at any time in the past, said Patti Gartland, city planning director.
People cherish it more and value what it has to offer more.
As modern residents have come to view the river as a resource and addition to the quality of their lives, the way they interact with it and the pressures they put on it have changed. Industrial and municipal pollution has declined, but pollution from agricultural and residential chemical runoff has increased as more people and animals live near the river, said John Peck, a member of the St. Cloud Area Environmental Council and river advocate. It's obviously cleaner than it was 30 years ago because of the Clean Water Act and other measures to improve water quality. The way people have used the river has changed frequently since European Americans first began settling the land. For early explorers and settlers, the Mississippi River was a superhighway, bringing people like U.S. Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and his men to explore the newly acquired Northwest Territory in 1805.