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 Song of Hiawatha Longfellow, who approved the work before its premiere in 1859, but despite early success it was soon forgotten. An equally ambitious project was the 5-part instrumental symphony by Ellsworth Phelps in 1878. The poem also influenced two composers of European origin who spent a few years in the USA but did not choose to settle there. The first of these was Frederick Delius, who completed his tone poem "Hiawatha" in 1888 and inscribed on the title page the passage beginning “Ye who love the haunts of Nature” from near the start of the poem. The work was not performed at