Minneapolis–Saint Paul Grand Excursion, a trip into the Upper Midwest sponsored by the Rock Island Railroad, brought more than a thousand curious travelers into the area by rail and steamboat in 1854. The next year, in 1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow published "The Song of Hiawatha", an epic poem based on the Ojibwe legends of Hiawatha. A number of natural area landmarks were included in the story, such as Lake Minnetonka and Minnehaha Falls. Tourists inspired by the coverage of the Grand Excursion in eastern newspapers and those who read Longfellow's story flocked to the area in the following decades. At one time,
The Hiawatha Story Historical Society presented an "Award of Merit" to Scribbins for "The Hiawatha Story". "The Hiawatha Story" was first published by Kalmbach Publishing in 1970. The dust jacket featured a watercolor by Gil Reid, art director at Kalmbach, called "Roaring Through Rondout", depicting a Milwaukee Road class A passing through Rondout, Illinois, at speed. In 2007 the University of Minnesota Press published a reprint of "The Hiawatha Story" as part of its Fesler-Lampert Minnesota Heritage series. In place of Reid's watercolor is a nighttime photograph of a Skytop Lounge. The Hiawatha Story The Hiawatha Story is a 1970 non-fiction book on