by Maria King
The Rum and the Mississippi rivers have had a tremendous impact on the lives of early Anoka County settlers.
Rivers were the first highways, providing a means for the fur traders and the Native Americans to get from place to place in their canoes.
The rivers provided power to turn the mighty mill wheel that would crush the wheat into flour, or turn huge blades that slice whole logs into lumber.
Saw mills were built in Anoka, St. Francis, Manomin and Columbus to turn trees into lumber.
Rivers also were the way to transport thousands of tons of trees to the sawmill in the early days of logging.
After communities were built along the rivers, they needed to ship their goods to other communities, and so the rivers were used again.
Wide flat bottomed steam boats could run up the Mississippi River as far as St. Cloud, until the Mississippi River was dammed at Coon Rapids in 1913-1914.
At that time the Legislature of the state of Minnesota failed to appropriate enough money for a system of locks.
People have always taken water from the river, as well as fish and fur bearing animals.
The river also provided challenges, like getting across it when it wasn’t frozen.
Bridges were built in Anoka County as early as 1853, when a Military Road was constructed between Point Douglas near Hastings and Fort Ripley.
The Anoka Main Street Bridge over the Rum River was built then and traveling south from Anoka, bridges were built over Coon Creek, and Rice Creek.
The road followed the route of the old Red River Ox Cart Trail and today would be roughly East River Road, Coon Rapids Boulevard and old Highway 10.
Before Minnesota became a state, Wisconsin wanted the Rum River to be the western border of Wisconsin, but influential Minnesotans sent a delegation to Washington to prevent them from taking such a bite out of our territory.
Today, the rivers are used primarily for recreation.
There is nothing so nice and cool on a hot summer day, as tubing down the Rum River or taking a dip in the Mississippi near the site of the Rice Street Beach.
Anoka’s County park system is largely responsible for keeping up the beaches along the rivers and lakes.
Boating, swimming, sailing, ice fishing and summer fishing are still important uses for the Anoka County rivers, just as they were 150 years ago-minus the jet skis.
Editor’s note: Maria King is a volunteer with the Anoka County Historical Society.
