Minnesota River Interview - Charles Smith

Minnesota River Interviews
         
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Charles Smith

"We could walk under [this bridge] when I was a kid. It was probably five feet down. You might have to duck a little bit, but it was a great place to play..."

 
Creek below Falls - downstream
 
Creek downstream from falls
 
Creek below falls - upstream
 
Video Text: "The [creek] water [running downstream from the falls] used to be a lot clearer than [it is today] and you used to see a little moss in the bed of the creek and everything. The water has definitely changed. The water comes so fast it gets more riled up, the faster it comes, the more crap it carries with it, the more sediment. What you see [here at the base of the falls], this stuff here comes from up there [top of the falls].  It carries a lot more gravel than it ever did and runs really hard.

We could walk under [this bridge] when I was a kid. It was probably five feet down. You might have to duck a little bit, but it was a great place to play when we were kids because we were always running back and forth underneath.  It started filling in around the late 1960’s, somewhere in there.  It started to wash down the banks on sides more.  There used to be, actually buried underneath here, is a row a rip rap down that way probably thirty some feet. There were rocks couple feet square and this high, and they were showing all the way.  That’s been buried, but of course, the area in here, was filled when the road was built, they brought surplus [fill] down and got a permit to do that.  They needed to get rid of the hills and built it all up."

 
 
Bridge with sediment
deposits downstream of falls
 
Interview Transcript
       

 

This page was last updated 8/08