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 The Hiawatha Story The Hiawatha Story is a 1970 non-fiction book on railroad history by Jim Scribbins, then an employee of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (the "Milwaukee Road"). The book covers the history of the Milwaukee Road's most famous passenger train, the "Hiawatha", from its creation in 1934–1935 up through 1970. The book also covered the various other Milwaukee Road trains which carried the name "Hiawatha." "The Hiawatha Story" is organized chronologically. It begins with the construction of the first "Hiawatha" in 1934–1935. The Milwaukee Road created the train to compete with streamliners then under development