The Hennepin Paper Mill and Mill Park
For more than a century a paper mill ran on the west bank of the Mississippi in Little Falls. It made the wrapper for Crayola crayons. When it finally closed, the town turned the ground into a riverfront park.
It was the Hennepin Paper Company, established in 1890 on the west bank of the Mississippi. It ran for more than a century — long enough to make the paper wrapped around Crayola crayons — before closing in 1999. The city turned the site into Mill Park, which opened in 2005.
Why a paper mill here
Little Falls had already proven it could turn the river into industry once, with the Pine Tree Lumber Company. The paper mill was the second act. In 1890, Benjamin F. Nelson and Thomas Barlow Walker of Minneapolis chose Little Falls for a new pulp-and-paper mill, and the reasons were the same ones that had drawn the sawmills: cheap water power from the new 1888 dam and its power canal, good railroad connections, pulpwood within reach, and a local workforce ready to run it. They built on the west bank, and the choice held up — the mill ran there for over a hundred years.
A century of paper
The Hennepin Paper Company outlasted the lumber boom that came before it and most of the industries that came after. Its best-known product is also its most unexpected: for years the mill made the paper that wraps Crayola crayons, which means a small Minnesota river town had a hand in a childhood staple recognized around the world. Alongside the lumber mills, Hennepin Paper was one of the industries that carried Little Falls from a frontier settlement into a working manufacturing town.
Closure, and a park built from the ruins
The mill closed in 1999. When the city could not find a buyer for the plant and its riverfront land, it made a decision that fits the town's character: rather than let the site rot behind a fence, it turned it into public ground. Mill Park opened in 2005 on the former mill property, with views of the Mississippi and interpretive elements built from pieces salvaged from the Hennepin Paper mill itself. What was once a closed industrial site is now one of the more quietly interesting places to stand on the Little Falls riverfront — a park that explains the industry it replaced.
Seeing it today
Mill Park sits on the west bank, and the old dam that powered the mill is still right there making electricity. Pair a walk here with the riverfront at Maple Island Park and the rest of the town's history to see how the river built, and rebuilt, Little Falls.
Michael Paycer
Michael Paycer grew up in Little Falls, Minnesota. Today he is a Senior SQL Server Database Administrator Consultant based in Saint Cloud, and he keeps this Little Falls guide as a personal project about his hometown.
Sources & further reading
- Morrison County Historical Society — Hennepin Paper Company
- Visit Little Falls — Mill Park
- John Weeks — Little Falls Mill Ruins
- City of Little Falls — City History
External sites are provided for reference. Event dates, hours, and admission change annually — confirm current details with the official source before visiting.