Minnehaha

Minnehaha is a neighborhood in south Minneapolis, bounded roughly by Minnehaha Parkway to the north, Hiawatha Avenue (Highway 55) to the east, East 54th Street to the south, and 34th Avenue South to the west. It covers approximately 0.6 square miles and had about 4,300 residents at the 2020 Census. The neighborhood is part of the Nokomis community and borders Ericsson to the north, Hiawatha to the east, Keewaydin to the west, and Morris Park to the south, with the city's southern limit along the eastern stretch of 54th Street.

The neighborhood's name comes from Minnehaha Creek and Minnehaha Falls — the 53-foot waterfall just across Hiawatha Avenue. The word "Minnehaha" comes from Dakota words for water and for falling or curling — literally, a waterfall. The creek crosses the neighborhood's north end on its way to the falls; the falls themselves and most of the regional park around them sit just over the line in Hiawatha.

Two other neighbors shape the area: the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, a veterans' hospital campus a short way south, past 54th Street and outside the city limits, and the Blue Line light rail, which runs along Hiawatha Avenue on the eastern edge and stops at 50th Street/Minnehaha Park, inside the neighborhood. The VA hospital has been on that land since 1927; the Blue Line arrived in 2004.

By the numbers, Minnehaha is a settled, mostly owner-occupied place. Census estimates for 2020–2024, via MN Compass, count about 2,100 households; four in five own their homes, and the median household income is about $88,000. Nine in ten residents were living in the same home a year earlier.

Long before European settlement, the Dakota considered Minnehaha Falls an important place where all could gather in peace. The forced removal of the Dakota in the 1850s and 1860s pushed them out of the area, but the falls remain.

Minnehaha Falls was already drawing tourists in the 1840s and 1850s. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1855 poem "The Song of Hiawatha" — which features Minnehaha as a character (and names the falls, though Longfellow never visited them) — made the site nationally famous. Minneapolis bought the land for the state in 1889, making it one of the first state parks in the country; the Minneapolis Park Board has run it from the beginning, and it is now Minnehaha Regional Park.

The neighborhood's own landmark has a stranger history. The land that is now Longfellow Gardens, at the north end of the neighborhood along the creek, was once Robert "Fish" Jones's Longfellow Zoological Gardens, a private zoo that got most of the Park Board's animals in 1907 and offered camel rides and lion-taming shows; the Park Board took full possession of the land in 1936. Jones also built himself a replica of Longfellow's Cambridge house there. It served as a branch library from 1937 and was later moved east of Hiawatha Avenue when the highway was rebuilt.

Much of the residential neighborhood is older: Census estimates put about half its homes before 1940, with most of the rest built after 1970. Just south, past 54th Street, a veterans' hospital opened on former Fort Snelling military land in March 1927; the Minneapolis VA Medical Center still occupies the site.

The Blue Line light rail, which opened in 2004 along Hiawatha Avenue, brought modern transit infrastructure to the neighborhood's eastern edge. The 50th Street station, inside the neighborhood, and the 46th Street station a short way north in Ericsson provide direct connections to downtown, the airport, and Bloomington.

Living in Minnehaha means living on quiet residential blocks with a highway along one side and a regional park just past it. About 80 percent of residents are white and about 4 percent were born outside the U.S., according to Census estimates published by MN Compass. About a third of adults 25 and older hold a graduate or professional degree, and about one in five households includes children.

The housing stock is mostly older single-family homes, with newer construction mixed in — about half the homes date from before 1940, and more than a third from after 1970. The blocks next to Hiawatha Avenue live with the highway's noise and traffic; the blocks toward 34th Avenue and the parkway are farther from it. The contrast within the neighborhood is real — a quiet, tree-lined block along the parkway can feel like a different world from a noisy intersection near the light rail station.

Along the eastern stretch of 54th Street the city ends. The land past it, in the unorganized territory around Fort Snelling, holds the VA Medical Center campus and the VA Medical Center light rail station.

The park is the shared backyard, even though most of it sits across Hiawatha Avenue. On a Sunday afternoon in July it fills up — families grilling, kids in the wading pool, joggers on the trail, tourists at the falls.

Minnehaha's dining scene is thin — the neighborhood is mostly residential, and its businesses cluster on 34th Avenue around 50th Street, at the west edge.

Minnehaha's outdoor access is about as good as it gets in Minneapolis, even though most of it sits just over the neighborhood line.

Minnehaha is served by Minneapolis Public Schools, but no public school building sits inside the neighborhood. The closest is Lake Nokomis Community School, which splits its grades between two campuses: Wenonah (kindergarten and first grade) at 5625 23rd Avenue South, in Wenonah, and Keewaydin (grades 2–5) at 5209 30th Avenue South, in Keewaydin.

That may change. In September 2026 the district proposed a round of school consolidations, and all three of its plans would combine the two Lake Nokomis campuses at Keewaydin as a K–5 school. The school board is expected to vote Nov. 10, with changes taking effect in the 2027–28 school year.

Middle and high school assignments depend on the address. The district's school finder is the place to check a specific house.

Minnehaha is priced below the Minneapolis median. The median sale price was $321,000 in 2025, according to Minneapolis Area REALTORS, against $350,000 citywide, on 82 sales. That's up from $299,900 in 2021 but down from a 2023 high of $343,000.

The housing stock is predominantly single-family homes, about half of them built before 1940, with newer construction mixed in; about one in five 2025 sales were townhouses or condos. Four in five households own their homes, according to Census estimates.

Homes sell faster than in the city as a whole — 26 days on market on average in 2025, against 55 citywide, with sellers getting 101 percent of their original list price.

Minnehaha earns a Walk Score of 59 — moderately walkable, with shops on 34th Avenue at the west edge but limited walkable amenities within the residential core. The Bike Score of 66 reflects the trail connections — the Minnehaha Parkway trail along the north edge, the Mississippi River trails past the falls, and the broader south Minneapolis bike network.

The Blue Line light rail is Minnehaha's major transit asset. The 50th Street/Minnehaha Park station, inside the neighborhood, and the 46th Street station a short way north in Ericsson provide direct service to downtown Minneapolis, MSP International Airport (three stops south), and the Mall of America. This transit connectivity is a genuine differentiator — few south Minneapolis neighborhoods have rail access this direct.

By car, downtown is about 15 minutes, and the airport is even closer. Hiawatha Avenue (Highway 55) provides a direct route north-south, though it functions more as a highway than a neighborhood street. The highway's presence is a trade-off — fast car access at the cost of noise and a hard edge between the neighborhood and the park.

Minnehaha doesn't change fast. The things worth watching are mostly at its edges.