Cedar Lake East Beach is an urban beach in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It is managed by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and located on the east side of Cedar Lake. Formerly known as Hidden Beach, the area used to be obscured down a forested path, which contributed to its rise of prominence in the 1960s and 1970s as enclave of counter-culture. After receiving attention for several decades due to illicit activities and safety concerns, the beach underwent a contentious "family-friendly" shift following efforts by the park board in the late 2010s. The location was already deemed extremely family friendly, patrons often brought their small children and infants to experience a community without judgement and to meet people from all walks of life. Unfortunately, the neighboring residents were not so welcoming of the "all walks of life" aspect of the community that had grown at Hidden Beach.
History
Railway: 1860s to 1980s
Before 1867, Cedar Lake had a much different shape, and most of the woods surrounding Cedar Lake East Beach, particularly to the south east, were areas of water and wetland. In 1867, the St. Paul and Pacific Railway (a precursor to the BNSF Railway) built an earthen causeway through what was then a large bay on the east side of Cedar Lake. In 1871, the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad joined the St. Paul and Pacific Railway, running parallel tracks along the causeway. Slowly, by dumping cinders and other material, the part of the bay east of the causeway was filled in. The Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad (became the St. Paul, Minneapolis, and Manitoba and moved its tracks from the east side to the north side of the lake 1883) then used the new land to create a major train yard. In 1878, a large scale ice cutting operation known as Cedar Lake Ice Company was founded on the lake’s north eastern shore, which shipped ice to places as far away as St. Louis, Missouri. By 1900, Dingley’s boat house occupied the end of a thin peninsula on the eastern side of the lake, which eventually widened and became the site of Cedar Lake East Beach.
In 1913, as part of the effort to create the Chain of Lakes as well as the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway, Cedar Lake was lowered by to connect it with Lake of the Isles. As a result, what remained of the East Bay (west of the old earthen rail corridor) completely dried up. Despite the large railway operations going on nearby, the land surrounding Cedar Lake’s eastern shore was sold to build houses, hotels, and other such structures between 1895 and 1975. Unlike today, houses occupied both sides of Upton Avenue South. In the 1950s, the area was used as a city dump. Much of the road construction debris from the interstate highway projects wound up as mounds of rubbish along the eastern shoreline of Cedar Lake. The area quickly overgrew with cottonwood trees, resulting in the forested hills to the southeast of the beach.