So Minnesota: The U of M’s St. Anthony Falls Lab

The University of Minnesota has a world-class research facility in the heart of Minneapolis but many people don’t even know it exists.

The University of Minnesota St. Anthony Falls Laboratory opened along the Mississippi River in 1938.

It was built using funding from the Works Progress Administration on the site of the former Minneapolis pumping station.

So Minnesota

The lab takes advantage of a natural 50-foot drop in the river to perform several types of water research.

“We’re still doing river research but we’re doing a lot of environmental work,” research manager Andy Erickson said. “We’re doing a lot of energy work, both wind energy and water energy work. We’re doing a lot of work with lakes, fish and ecology and it’s just a very wide swath of study.”

Minnesota is known as the “State of Hockey,” but with all the work being done at the lab, researchers at the U of M also call us the “State of Water.”

“We do things that make a difference in the world, and in the world locally and globally. I think people are really drawn to these things that make an impact, a difference in our lives,” Erickson said.