Welcome back to National Parks and other public lands with T! 

Falls Park is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, covering 123 acres around the Big Sioux River. We walked over to the park from our downtown hotel before beginning our road trip across the state. We strolled the path along the river, posed for photos by the main waterfall and admired the sculptures along the way. We climbed the small observation tower to take in the views. Click the YouTube link at the bottom of this post for some great aerial video of Falls Park.

We passed the ruins of the 1878 Queen Bee Mill. This mill was built to harness the power of the falls to save local farmers the cost of shipping their wheat crop to Minnesota. It was not successful as a flour mill, was converted to a warehouse in 1929 and burned down in 1956. The 1908 Light and Power company building, which used the raceway from the Queen Bee Mill, was abandoned in 1974. It was converted to the Falls Overlook Cafe by the city.