Newspaper History: Day 4 of 9 📰 Long before trails and gathering spaces, this stretch of riverfront was part of Minneapolis’ booming logging era. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, thousands of logs floated down the Mississippi River, each stamped with a unique timber mark to identify its owner. Crews sorted them along the riverbanks, an essential step in powering the city’s milling industry. Today at Graco Park, you can still spot that history. The logs placed at the park (that many think resemble pencils) feature markings inspired by those original timber stamps, a subtle tribute to the river’s working past. This shoreline also borders Hall’s Island. In 1902, Dr. Pearl Hall turned the island over to the city after plans for a garbage incinerator never materialized. A bathhouse opened there in 1905, and the city completed the purchase of the land in 1917 for $35,000. The shoreline remained largely unchanged for decades until the Park Board acquired surrounding land in 2010, event...