Mill City Museum, Minneapolis (must see)

Mill City Museum is a Minnesota Historical Society museum opened in 2003, built in the ruins of the Washburn "A" Mill next to Mill Ruins Park on the banks of the Mississippi River. It focuses on the founding and growth of Minneapolis, especially flour milling and the other industries which used water power from Saint Anthony Falls.

The mill complex, dating from the 1870s, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is part of the St. Anthony Falls Historic District and within the National Park Service's Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. The museum features exhibits about the history of Minneapolis, flour milling machinery, a water lab and a baking lab.

The centerpiece of the exhibit is the multi-story Flour Tower, in which visitors sit in the cab of a freight elevator and are taken to different floors of the building, each designed to look like a floor in a working flour mill. Voices of people who worked in the Washburn A Mill are heard throughout the show. Visitors exit on the 8th floor, where extant equipment is interpreted by staff, and are then lead to the ninth floor observation deck to view St. Anthony Falls. The work of local artists is featured throughout the building.