Members: ToXiC & Squeek
Pictures by: ToXiC

History -

By the mid-1880s, 25 flour mills, a woolen mill, a sawmill, and the city waterworks lined an extended canal. The mills were surrounded by machine shops, cooper shops, and other milling support industries. Railroad tracks were interspersed among the buildings paralleling the canal.

By 1890 the platform sawmills were gone and hydroelectricity was the up and coming industry at the Falls. The flour mills continued to dominate the district until the 1930s Depression when a number of them were torn down and Minneapolis lost the lead in flour production.

In 1960 the west side canal was filled-in during the construction of the Upper Lock and Dam and many of the mill ruins were soon covered with gravel. Flour production on the west side ceased in 1965 with the closing of the Washburn A Mill

The Exploration:

This was the same night that we had returned to Satans Cave. By the time we had gotten out of Satans and even though dawn was just breaking the sky we felt compelled to further our explorations. Me and squeek dispatched ourselves away from the group and decided to head over to west bank since a couple of days before I had noticed that a padlock had been broken off from the main gate.

There were a million god damn joggers. I couldn't believe it, I had never seen so many joggers in my life at sunrise. I was faced with a dilemma. I could walk away from more exploring and return the same night or I could go now since noone was really paying attention to us and risk leaving the same way. I gave the joggers the finger and decided to head in. Squeek was fine with that.

We jumped down onto the ice before the gate, carefully opened it without making any noise and jumped in. It was quite an impressive sight. Old wooden docks rotting, floor icicles, collapsed structures, and other misc. items. I was very impressive.

We decided to head down and start exploring. We came up to a muddy side tunnel with some natural limestone walling. It was alot different than what we had seen and decided it warrented a check out. We headed town the passage to the end where I discovered another tailrace which has been buried for god knows how many years with this passage being the only access point.

I decided it wasnt going anywhere and would be worth checking out another time. We headed back to the main section. We had a smoke while walking over some old piece of bridge for a lack of a better term when it came to a dead end. The other side of the wall had a ledge we could walk on so we carefully hopped to the other side with the assistance of a 4x4 piece of wood.

We got to the end to discover a massive multi-story grave of tailrace equipment. Gears, Pipes, Tanks, Valves, Meters, the whole lot. All that equipment had been down here for over a century. It was quite a site. We checked it out thoroughly and decided we should try and climb it to see if there was another exit.

Now let me explain, climbing rusty metal is not so fun. If you decide to do that, you had better make sure you dont mind getting alot of shit in your eyes and have had your tetnis shot in the last 5 years.

We climbed up the multilevel rust bucket. There was all matter of Thingamajigs in that climb. I cant even describe most of them. Rusted to hell. We got to the top and found another way out. I cant really talk about it here, sorry guys!

(Above: The icicle formations, uber awesome!)

(Left: The first side tunnel to the tailrace of doom!)

(Right: The second and last side tunnel, blocked off, damn)

(Left: Metal Ladder, watch your step)

(Right: Squeek coming up the Metal Ladder)

(Left: ToXiC climbing up a rusty water pipe)

(Right: Old tank of sorts)

Onto West Bank #2 (Coming Soon)