City of Hustle by Patrick Hicks

Author:Patrick Hicks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Belt Publishing
Published: 2022-06-02T15:11:56+00:00

Falls Park

Marty McGoey

I love Dakota more and more—

Her prairies vast, her mines of ore—

I love her mountains and her glades,

But most her beautiful cascades.

—poem published in American Miller, 1880

All water has a voice. Whether it is moving or still, water calls to us. Many communities are built because of water at the confluence of rivers, on gulfs or bays, or where rivers meet larger bodies, be they oceans or lakes. The functional purpose for building on water is for the faster and easier transportation of goods, but I think water also beckons to us. We are drawn toward it, maybe out of respect for the past and the ancestors who crossed over it, maybe because we are biologically mostly water, or maybe because we are thirsty and water brings life? Perhaps it’s due to religious connections with baptism, Noah’s ark, and Moses’s infant journey down the Nile? It could also be the smell of fresh or saltwater or the play of light on the surface that we can stare at for hours, fishing or just meditating.

Located in the north central part of Sioux Falls, the falls of the Big Sioux, and the city’s namesake, offer so many sensory delights of light variations, smells, and sounds. On a pleasant day, people congregate at Falls Park as though it were a kind of church or gathering place. Visiting the park is an obligation for travelers and longtime residents, as it is a place of natural and human history. Calm days with perfect weather can be rare, but when they happen on weekends, you can bet that the park will be filled with people staring at the water, fishing in the Big Sioux, walking dogs, picnicking, and browsing the posted signs that reveal the history of the falls and the city.

The falls were formed thousands of years ago by a melting glacier that poured over bedrock quartzite. Archeological evidence suggests that prior to European exploration, the area around the falls was used as a camp by nomadic hunters who constructed burial mounds nearby. Later came the Oneota, ancestors of the Mandan, a more permanent and agricultural society than the nomads. The Lakota arrived in the area in the eighteenth century to find the mounds and camps as ancient ruins.

Stories of the falls were one of the major draws to the area, long before the rocks in the area were quarried or when the sidewalks of the park were paved. The history of the falls is inextricably tied to the city named for them. A description of the falls by French scientist and explorer Joseph Nicollet—who called them “beautiful and picturesque”—was one of the first draws for town settlers and developers. Local Native tribes called the river “Te-han-Kas-an-data,” which translates to “thickly wooded river.” It’s hard to imagine thick woods on the Big Sioux, even though photographic records prove otherwise. Many other historic photos of the area only miles away from the falls show rolling plains broken only by sparse trees and new buildings built by early residents.

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