Nicollet Island

Visitors get ready for a ride in a horsedrawn carriage near the Nicollet Island Inn.

Nicollet Island is an island in the Mississippi River just north of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, named for cartographer, Joseph Nicollet. DeLaSalle High School and the Nicollet Island Inn are located there, as well as three multi-family residential buildings and twenty-two restored Victorian-era houses located on the north end of the island. The Inn was built in 1893 as the Island Sash and Door Company.

The Hennepin Avenue Bridge crosses the Mississippi here connecting Northeast Minneapolis to downtown.

The south end of the island is home to the Nicollet Island Pavilion and the Bell of Two Friends, a gift from the city of Ibaraki, Osaka Japan. The pavilion was built in 1893 as the William Brothers Boiler Works. Nearby was a large Island Power building, which was razed in 1937. It housed a variety of shops driven by a cable connected to a water-powered wheel near Hennepin Island.

According to the United States Census Bureau the island has a land area of 194,407 square metres (0.075 sq mi) and a 2000 census population of 144 persons^{[citation needed]}.

Gallery

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  Lower end of Nicollet Island in 2006

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  King Bridge Company plaque on Merriam Street Bridge connecting Nicollet Island with St. Anthony

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  Nicollet Island Inn

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  Nicollet Island Pavilion

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  Bell of Two Friends; the nearby plaque says, "This sculpture represents a greatly enlarged half-mold of a dotaku bell found in Ibaraki, Japan. Such bells date to the Yayoi period of Japanese history, approximately 2000 years ago. The exact purpose of Dotaku bells is lost to history, but it is felt that they were largely ceremonial, rather than functional. The surface design of the bell suggests the importance of the ever-present waters and mountains of Japan."

Mississippi riverfront and Saint Anthony Falls in 1915. In the foreground to the right are Nicollet Island and the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, note 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. Today the Minnesota Historical Society's Mill City Museum is in the Washburn "A" Mill, across the river just to the left of the falls. At center left are Northwestern Consolidated mills. The tall building is Minneapolis City Hall.

External links

• Nicollet Island Home Page
• Nicollet Island Memorial Bridge
• Nicollet Island Inn
• Minneapolis Riverfront District