page_title: Nicollet Island
section_title: 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Nicollet Island / History / 20th century
context_page_description: Nicollet Island is an island in the Mississippi River just north of Saint Anthony Falls in central Minneapolis, Minnesota. According to the United States Census Bureau the island has a land area of 194,407 square metres and a 2000 census population of 144 persons. The island makes up a large part of the city-designated Nicollet Island/East Bank neighborhood. The island is named for cartographer Joseph Nicollet, who mapped the Upper Mississippi in the 1830s.
  The island lies in the middle of the Mississippi, crossed by the Hennepin Avenue Bridge connecting Downtown and Northeast Minneapolis. The island is so near to Saint Anthony Falls that if the northward movement of the falls had not been stopped in the late 19th century, the island would no longer exist. In the early 19th century Nicollet Island was one of six islands near the falls, but all the others have been destroyed or joined to the east bank.
  The island was the site of the first bridge across the Mississippi River, opened in 1855, on the site of the present Hennepin Avenue Bridge. It is part of Saint Anthony Falls Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
context_section_description: From the 1910s, Nicollet Island and the rest of the Gateway District declined, and the flats and houses on Nicollet Island were subdivided to create cheaper housing. The island became a poor neighbourhood, owned by a few landlords, who provided little maintaince to its residential buildings. The family of Morris Lerner came to own much of the island, and ran the Island Grocery there. The Lerners were described as generous by sometime tenants and ran their store at a loss, but were described as slumlords by disgruntled tenants and the city newspapers. During the 1960s, David Lerner entered into a long and public dispute with Nicollet Island residents who formed a tenants union. The tenants picketed outside his store and his home on Cedar Lake, and in response Lerner told a newspaper that his tenants were either "nice ones" or "pigs", citing the poor condition his tenants left his properties in. In the 1940s, the iconic Grain Belt Beer sign was erected on the island, at the time one of the largest neon signs in the country. DeLaSalle expanded over the 20th century, demolishing and building on the site of the Eastman Flats. It became a college preparatory school, and went coeducational in 1971 by absorbing a Catholic girls' school.
caption: The Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. In the foreground to the right are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. The left side of the island, currently a park and the Nicollet Island Inn, is filled with milling buildings. At left, Pillsbury, power plants and the Stone Arch Bridge. The Washburn "A" Mill is across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall.
exif: {}