Gold Medal Flour Sign and Minneapolis Skyline, Mississippi River

Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge spans the frozen Mississippi River at dusk with illuminated downtown skyline beyond.
Minneapolis Stone Arch Bridge spans the frozen Mississippi River at dusk with illuminated downtown skyline beyond.

The Gold Medal Flour sign has marked the Minneapolis riverfront since 1908, when the Washburn-Crosby Company — later merged into General Mills — mounted it above its flour mill on the Mississippi River bluff. The sign measures roughly 40 feet across and burns red through the night, a fixture of the city's skyline for more than a century. Minneapolis's downtown towers rise just west of the river, built up through decades when the city ranked among the world's largest flour-milling centers. The Mississippi River through downtown includes several locks and dams constructed in the 20th century to make the waterway navigable past Saint Anthony Falls.

Photo taken in March 2019.

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