Fawn's Leap Falls was a waterfall in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was destroyed with the expansion of European settlement of the area and no longer exists.

The falls were directly fed by marshland outside Saint Anthony, Minnesota and terminated at the nearby Mississippi River. Many small creeks, wetlands, and other water features extended to or from the Mississippi at the time. Today the location is near the current Saint Anthony Falls on University of Minnesota property.

Fawn's Leap along with Silver Cascade and Bridal Veil Falls were part of a grouping of waterfalls known as the Three Sisters. Only Bridal Veil remains in a diminished state.

History
Dakota people camped at the base of Fawn's Leap Falls, as illustrated in "Indian Rock" by German-American pioneer journalist Rudolf Cronau from an 1882 edition of the German-language entertainment magazine Die Gartenlaube by Ernst Keil. The image is inscribed with the phrases "Rud. Cronau" (artists signature), "Indian Rock" (illustration title), "Kacseberg & Oertel XJ" (possibly the printer or original publisher), "Fawn's Leap bei Minneapolis, Minnesota" (location depicted).

Die Gartenlaube locates the imagery at Fort Snelling, a significant military fortification in Minneapolis. From 1879 to 1886 Fort Snelling was headquarters for Department of Dakota (territory) and military operations during the Indian Wars. Although labeled as Fort Snelling in the text, the now-destroyed Fawn's Leap Falls were near the current day Saint Anthony Falls, more than 8 miles upstream from the fort. Fawn's Leap, as well as St. Anthony Falls and Fort Snelling, are part of the sacred Dakota location known as Bdóte.

Dakota were known to European populations particularly for the US–Dakota War of 1862 and the following internment of over 1,700 Native people, particularly women and child non-combatants, in concentration camps at Fort Snelling. The illustrator Croneau was sympathetic to Native struggles and published German-language journalism and illustrations on many Dakota public figures and domestic scenes to publicize their struggles.

Fawn's Leap along with the rest of the Three Sisters were a popular photographic subject to illustrate the beauty of newly settled land, which was depicted as pristine wilderness in sharp contrast to the genocidal policies enacted on the Native peoples who lived there. Today many postcards and film prints survive.

An 1888 editorial in The Minnepols Tribune advocated for its preservation as a park. Industrialization sharply increased in the 1880s, leading to mass development and anxieties around losing natural features such at the Three Sisters.

Fawn's Leap was largrly cut off from its source with the completion of the Stone Arch Bridge next to Saint Anthony Falls in 1883. James J. Hill's Great Northern Railway project fully divorced the falls from a source. Eventually the grotto was leveled to build warehouses.

The primary source for Fawn's Leap in the 1880s was sewage and drainage erected for the growing population and industry. The latest recorded incidence of the falls running was 1922.

The final textual mention of the falls as a current memory was in 1935.

References

Waterfalls of Minnesota