Camp Coldwater

Camp Coldwater is an area of several springs that are important to Native Americans, as well as an early European settlement in Minnesota, USA. Camp Coldwater is located adjacent to the Mississippi River in south Minneapolis, directly south of Minnehaha Park.

The camp was explored by early European settlers who were in the process of building Fort Snelling. On May 5, 1820, Lieutenant Colonel Henry Leavenworth moved his troops to the area because their former encampment, on the Minnesota River, was causing unhealthy conditions. (He was succeeded by Colonel Josiah Snelling in August of that year. The soldiers lived in tents and huts on the site during three summers while they built the permanent stone fort south of the location. The spring continued to supply water to the fort, first via water wagons and then via a stone water tower and underground pipes. Settlers who had left the Selkirk Colony settled near the location in 1821, but were forced to leave in 1840. They moved down the Mississippi River and settled in what eventually became Saint Paul, Minnesota. The Coldwater area once housed blacksmith shops, stables, trading posts, a hotel, and a steamboat landing, but nearly all of those buildings were gone by the time of the American Civil War. [cite book|title=Minnesota History Along the Highways|publisher=Minnesota Historical Society|first=Sarah P.|last=Rubenstein|date=2003|id=ISBN 0-87351-456-4]

The site is located on the United States Bureau of Mines property east of Minnesota State Highway 55.

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* [http://www.tc.umn.edu/~white067/ An exhibit] that has appeared at Fort Snelling State Park, the Hennepin History Museum Minnesota, and the Longfellow House in Minneapolis.