The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area is the only unit in the National Park System dedicated exclusively to the Mississippi River, and it exists as one of the Park Service's most unusual experiments. Established in 1988, it protects a 72-mile corridor of the Upper Mississippi through the Twin Cities metropolitan area, running from Dayton and Ramsey downstream past downtown Minneapolis and Saint Paul to just below Hastings. The federal government owns only 67 of the corridor's 54,000 acres. Everything else - city parks, regional parks, a state park, a national wildlife refuge, scientific and natural areas, private businesses, private homes - is held and managed by dozens of other partners. The NPS coordinates, interprets, and exercises special authority over land-use decisions within the boundary, but it does not run the park in any traditional sense. This partnership model was designed specifically for an urban river corridor where public acquisition was neither feasible nor desirable. The corridor moves through five distinct river reaches in quick succession, and that variety is its defining character. North of the metro the river runs wild and state-scenic, slowing as it approaches the Coon Rapids Dam. A few miles later it drops over Saint Anthony Falls - the only major waterfall on the Mississippi's entire length - and enters the historic milling district that built Minneapolis. Below the falls the river carves a true gorge through the heart of the city, the only gorge anywhere on the Mississippi, before meeting the Minnesota River at Fort Snelling. From there the valley widens into forested floodplain and backwaters before the river turns wilder again past Hastings toward the Vermillion confluence. The human layers along this stretch are as dense as the natural ones. Dakota and Ojibwe presence is interpreted at Bdote, at the confluence with the Minnesota. The Stone Arch Bridge, Mill City Museum, and Mill Ruins Park record the flour milling era that made Minneapolis a global commodity city. Fort Snelling, Minnehaha Falls, and the Winchell Trail sit inside the corridor, along with sections of the Mississippi River Trail for bicycles. Paddlers move the full 72 miles on the Mississippi River Water Trail - Minnesota's first and longest - with a required portage at Saint Anthony Falls. Fishing, birding, biking, winter snowshoeing and cross-country skiing round out the uses. The main visitor center is inside the Science Museum of Minnesota at 120 Kellogg Boulevard West in downtown Saint Paul.