Bohemian Flats Exhibit Opens April 30 with Free Program at Mill City Museum

"Remembering the Bohemian Flats: One Place, Many Voices" explores the many perspectives on the people and the conditions of this early immigrant neighborhood adjacent to the Mississippi River.

Through photographs, newspaper clippings, maps and surveys, visitors can "journey" down the 79 steps from the bluffs to the flats, and see how a community in the middle of the city could simultaneously be at the margins of the river, of society, and of historical memory.

Exhibit opening, April 30, 6-8 p.m., at the Mill City Museum.

The exhibit will open with a program by State Archaeologist Dr. Scott Anfinson who will discuss urban archaeology projects along West River Parkway including Bohemian Flats, the Hennepin Avenue Bridge and the Federal Reserve Bank. University of Minnesota students Rachel Hines and Stefanie Kowalczyk will be on hand to discuss how they turned student research into an exhibit. Complimentary East European food from Kramarczuk’s and a cash bar by D’Amico Catering will be available.

"Remembering the Bohemian Flats: One Place, Many Voices" began as a senior thesis by University of Minnesota undergraduate Rachel Hines who earned the Elden Johnson Prize for the best senior thesis in archaeology. Three of Ms. Hines’s project advisors brought the project idea to a University collaborative sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Study and the Minnesota Historical Society. Undergraduate and graduate students delved into the local archives, and Rachel Hines and Stefanie Kowalczyk turned this wealth of research into an exhibit. A website featuring a blog and the student research papers will be available at http://riverlife.umn.edu/engagement/boflats_mcm_exh/.

"Remembering the Bohemian Flats: One Place, Many Voices" is located in the museum’s central Mill Commons, and is free and open to the public during regular museum hours. It is on view April 30-Nov. 1, 2015.

The exhibit is funded in part by the Legacy Amendment’s Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on Nov. 4, 2008.