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 Iliad or the Poem of Force The Iliad or the Poem of Force "The Iliad, or The Poem of Force" () is a 24-page essay written in 1939 by Simone Weil. The essay is about Homer's epic poem the "Iliad" and contains reflections on the conclusions one can draw from the epic regarding the nature of force in human affairs. Weil's work was first published in 1940 under the title "L'Iliade ou le poème de la force" in "Les Cahiers du Sud". "Cahiers" has been described as the only significant literary magazine available in the French free zone when the essay was first released. The first