About
Redwood River, Minnesota — 1864 Settlement, 1840s-1880s Logging, 1990s-2010s Redwood Trail 100-mi Redwood Falls. Long before any of that, the river belonged to the Dakota (Wahpeton) people, whose ancestral homeland lay along its banks. The name traces not to redwoods but to the red cedar that grew there. The 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, the 1862-1863 U.S.-Dakota War — which began at the Redwood River watershed and led to the execution of 38 Dakota men — and the forced Dakota exile of the 1862-1870s all reshaped the watershed. The Redwood Falls battle of 1862 remains the most-cited cultural touchstone of that period.
The settlement era brought industry that leaned hard on the river and its watershed. From the 1850s through the 1910s, the Redwood River watershed was heavily logged to feed the 1860-1890 Redwood County sawmill industry, the 1868-1910 Winona & St. Peter Railway expansion, and the 1880-1910 Redwood Falls flour milling industry. Major operators included the Redwood Falls and Marshall sawmills, the 1870-1895 Redwood County furniture industry, and the 1880-1910 Redwood River Granite Company, the largest granite quarrying operation in Minnesota. The exhaustion of the white-pine stands in 1910 and the creation of the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in 1934 ended large-scale logging.
As the community matured, it found its voice in print. In 1873, William B. Herriott and J. S. Beal established the Redwood Gazette as the official paper for Redwood Falls and its neighboring settlements. Four years earlier, in 1869, Minnesota State Engineer W.R. Marshall had led the first comprehensive hydrological study of the watershed — the Redwood River Survey — documenting streamflow records back to 1850 and the 1868-1869 land survey. That survey became the basis for the 1880-1920 drainage project that transformed the 280,000-acre watershed into agricultural land.
The same dramatic gorge that once powered millstones now draws visitors to Ramsey Park, a state park from 1911 to 1957 before the City of Redwood Falls bought it for a single dollar. It endures today as the largest municipal park in Minnesota, where the Redwood still tumbles past the falls that shaped every chapter of the town's life. The river was designated a State Water Trail in 1991, covering 62 miles from Russell to the Minnesota River confluence.
The modern river is defined by restoration. The 2024 Redwood River Restoration Program, a joint effort of Redwood County and the Three Rivers Resource Conservation and Development Council, removed 9 agricultural drainage tiles and restored 24 miles of riparian buffer. That work supported the 2018-2024 Minnesota Pollution Control Agency water-quality report, which found a 41% reduction in sediment and nutrient runoff. Paddling user-days reached 9,800 in 2024, up 21% from 2018, and the river now supports one of the densest smallmouth bass populations in the Minnesota River basin. Rated Class I, with an optimal flow of 40 to 130 CFS on USGS gauge 05315000 (average 84 CFS), the Redwood remains a working, paddled, and recovering river.
River conditions are community-verified. CFS ranges, difficulty ratings, and access points may not reflect every flow level or seasonal change. Always check current conditions, scout unfamiliar rapids, and paddle within your skill level.