Saint Anthony Falls, or the Falls of Saint Anthony located at the northeastern edge of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, is the only natural major waterfall on the Mississippi River. In the late 1870s, the natural face of the falls was reinforced with a sloping timber apron to stop the upstream progression of the falls. In the 1950s the apron was rebuilt with concrete which is the very visible spillway. A series of locks were constructed in the 1950s and 1960s to extend navigation to points upstream.
The falls were renamed from their Dakota title in 1680 by Father Louis Hennepin after his patron saint, St. Anthony of Padua. The towns of St. Anthony and Minneapolis, which had developed on the east and west sides of the falls, respectively, merged in 1872 to fully use the power of the falls for milling operations. From 1880 to about 1930, Minneapolis was known as the "Flour Milling Capital of the World".
Today, the falls are defined by the spillway, the upper dam and the locks, located just downstream of the 3rd Avenue Bridge, and the Lower Lock and Dam, just upstream of the I-35W Saint Anthony Falls Bridge.