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Changing landscapes

From oak savannah to agriculture to woodlands

Chopping down trees and splitting logs for lumber.

Painting of prairie and savannah
Artist’s conception of prairie oak savannah prior to 1843.

The river bluff environment has been greatly altered over the last two centuries. The bluff top area was formerly oak savannah with prairie and woodland elements. Natural springs and shallow flood plain lakes in the river bottoms supported wildlife and vegetation that were important to the survival of the native people.

How it happened

Prior to the arrival of Gideon and Samuel Pond in 1843, Native Americans subsisted off the land by hunting, gathering and also farming on a limited scale. The area was more extensively modified by the four generations of the Pond and St. Martin families who farmed, planted orchards and raised livestock on several hundred acres between modern-day Lyndale and Cedar Avenues.

Sheep standing
Sheep on the Pond farm overlooking the open vistas of the
Minnesota River Valley, 1900. Courtesy Steve St. Martin.

When the Ponds first came here, they saw open vistas of the river valley surrounded by prairie and dotted by stands of burr oak and cottonwood. Deep furrow plowing and grazing quickly changed the face of the land. The wooded areas found on the site today are a result of a halt in agricultural production in the 1960s and the continuing stewardship of the valley by the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge and the City of Bloomington.

Aerial shows pasture with eroded bluff line from herd traffic.
The Pond/St. martin farmstead, est. 1936.
Courtesy Minnesota Historical Society.

For more information, contact:

Mark Morrison, Recreation Supervisor
PH: 952-563-8693, TTY: 952-563-8740, FAX: 952-563-8715
E-mail: artsintheparks@ci.bloomington.mn.us