Some Edina street names could appear on any Minnesota city map. Surely, many other towns have dubbed a road "Lakeview Drive" or ""Meadow Ridge." But Edina has several uniquely named streets that reveal people and places from its past.

I found out the history of Gorgas Avenue recently from the godson of George and Eleanor Gorgas, who lived on the property where the short one-block long street runs today. The couple lived in two houses: 5132 France Avenue and 5136 Gorgas Avenue, located just a block apart.

Bob Barber remembers his godparents with great fondness. The couple had no children but were close friends of his parents, Ralph and Marguerite Barber. Growing up close by on 4410 Upton, Bob visited the Gorgases frequently. "They were both very attractive and deeply in love," Bob recalled.

That affection can be seen in two photos Bob donated of the couple, taken in 1924 at their Gorgas Avenue home. (See photo below)

"I know next to nothing about their families but I believe my mother and Eleanor went to high school together," Bob wrote. "George was with the Rock Island Railroad and probably retired from that company. Always dapper, George was an pilot in France during the first World War. They attended St. Thomas Church on 44th Street in the 1930s."

The couple first lived on the Gorgas Avenue house, then moved to the France Avenue home, where they stayed until Eleanor's death in 1955.

Since both houses are situated on 52nd street separated only by the length of one lot and the width of Gorgas Avenue, the Gorgases probably originally owned much if not all the property in the area before it was subdivided. As a nod to the original owners, many developers dubbed at least one street in a subdivision after the homesteaders. Such is the case with streets like Olinger, Tracy, Wind and several others. To learn more, see Joe Sullivan's stories on Edina street names in the city's quarterly newsletter About Town: the story is divided between two issues, Autumn 2004 and Winter 2005.

I am working on creating a list of all the streets in Edina and information about them. I'll post the info on the web site in the coming weeks.

"What is that thing in the middle of Minnehaha Creek just west of the Highway 100 bridge?" asked one blog reader who grew up on Sunnyslope and used to go rafting in the creek, from the Browndale bridge up to and past Hwy. 100.

Although it doesn't look like much today, the stone structure set off quite a celebration when it was completed in 1935 to create a cascade at the north end of the mill pond.

"Some call it Edina's own Little Niagra -- others thinking closer to home refer to it as the Country Club's little Minnehaha falls..." the July 1935 issue of Country Club's newspaper The Crier proclaimed proudly.

While either term was a wild overstatement, Edina residents celebrated the sight of rushing water as much as any tourist at the grandest waterfalls in the country. After years of drought and low water in the mill pond at the west border of the Country Club District, the new cascade meant the return of ice skating in the winter and waterside picnics in the summer.

To restore water levels (and property values), Edina used $17,000 in Civil Works Administration (CWA) money to drain the pond, line it with clay and install a pump to bring groundwater from a 400-foot deep well  instead of relying on water flow from upstream.

When a half-million gallons a day began tumbling over the man made cascade in July 1934, "hundreds of persons"  gathered at the site and took home souvenir bottles of water. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt was invited to attend the week-long festivities celebrating  the project. (The Crier did not report on her attendance, however.)

After the drought ended, pumping groundwater was no longer necessary, nor deemed a wise practice. While remnants of the man made wall remain, the Minnehaha Creek merely gently flows, rather than gushes, into Edina.

Do you have a history mystery you'd like solved? Contact me with your question and I and/or volunteers will put our intrepid investigating skills to work.

Note: This story first appeared in the July issue of Edina Magazine, where we have a regular back page history featured called "Last Glance." For a free subscription, see the magazine's web site.