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WILLIAM WILCOXEN: On summertime Fridays at the Watergate Marina on Saint Paul's Mississippi riverfront, activity picks up early in the afternoon as boaters fill their gas tanks and get ready for a weekend on the water. JT of Saint Paul stops hosing down his craft long enough to confirm he's seen more pleasure boats on the Mississippi recently.

JT: Uh-huh, a lot. You can tell by the way they come around the corner. Every 5 minutes, there's two or three boats coming. So, yeah, they are returning back to the river, yeah.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Policymakers are encouraging recreational use of the river. In the Twin Cities, the Mississippi is now a national recreation area, overseen by the Park Service. Cities are also paying more attention to the riverbanks, adding green space and cultural attractions.

In Saint Paul, a new public dock faces the construction site that is becoming the new science museum of Minnesota. Behind it sits a city park about to be renovated to accommodate waterfront foot traffic. Patrick Seeb is president of a development agency called the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation.

PATRICK SEEB: The river has the potential. And the public spaces and the park spaces have the potential of really becoming-- once again, becoming our central gathering places for the city, bringing people from all walks of life, from all income levels, from all communities. And that's the role the river played at the turn of the century.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Riverside beaches and parks, popular early in the century, gradually disappeared as the river became more polluted. And much of the pollution came from industry. The commercial and industrial opportunities afforded by the river gave birth to the Twin Cities. Minneapolis sprang up around the falls of Saint Anthony, Saint Paul, around the two northernmost steamboat landings on the Mississippi. Judith Martin, who directs the University of Minnesota's urban studies program, says, to the pioneers who settled the cities, the river was an industrial resource.

JUDITH MARTIN: If you look at a place like Minneapolis, where-- the first people that came here looked at that falls and nobody said parkland. Everybody said opportunity to make money. That's what you do there. You park your flour mills and your sawmills and all that stuff along the riverfront. And nobody thinks twice about it because it's obvious in the context of 19th century thinking that this is how you build a city.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Industries that were once the biggest, most prominent features on the downtown waterfronts have disappeared. The flour mills left Minneapolis in the 1950s. And Saint Paul fixtures, such as the crane builder American Hoist & Derrick, and the Kaplan's scrap yards, left the riverfront in the last couple of decades. But some small businesses that cater to tourists have seen steady growth in recent years.

WILLIAM BOWELL: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome on board the Harriet Bishop. I'm excited you picked a beautiful day for a boat ride. A couple of announcements before we leave--

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: In 1971, Captain William Bowell began offering visitors to Saint Paul's Harriet Island rides on excursion boats modeled after the steamboats that once plied the Mississippi. Over the years, Bowell expanded his fleet and added Minneapolis rides. He estimates his packet boats have now carried 3 million passengers. And he thinks a steady increase in tourist traffic is partly due to a cleaner river. Bowell says an increase in wildlife is one sign of the river's rejuvenation.

WILLIAM BOWELL: The last couple of years now, we've had eagles up the river here. I remember one time I was on board. And this big buck deer swam right across in front of it. In fact, we had to stop to give him room to get by us.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Tom Welna is co-owner of a floating bed and breakfast and restaurant that occupy a reconstructed towboat moored across the river from downtown Saint Paul. Both businesses expanded this year. And Welna says both are as busy as they can be. Welna has lived on the Mississippi for 15 years. He says more of the visitors who come to the river are returnees.

TOM WELNA: They get down here. And there's a lot to see and experience. And they want to come back. We see that in the bed and breakfast and the restaurant. We see that on the bike trails. You start to see more and more people that a couple times a week, they walk their dog down here now. And they weren't here just 5 or 10 years ago.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Growing recreational use of the riverfront raises some questions about its traditional role as an industrial corridor. Recreational users have joined environmental and neighborhood groups in fighting to keep some large and imposing businesses, metal shredders, for example, off the river. But Welna says not all industry is bad for tourism.

TOM WELNA: Actually, some of the industrial uses of the river have become part of the recreational experience. For example, Big River publishes The Little Tow-Watcher's Guide. And we have a number of customers that come down, take their Little Tow-Watchers Guide and sit in the cafe, have a cup of coffee, look out at the river, and see which towboats they're going to see going by.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Many of the barges that carry cargo through the Twin Cities are cleaned, repaired, or stored by a Saint Paul company called Upper River Services. Company President Lee Nelson says as the public pays more attention to the river, there are more opportunities to educate people about the river's many uses.

LEE NELSON: There's far greater interest in the river. We hear much more about it, rightfully so. The river was a-- not fair to say it was forgotten. But it was a not often considered entity in the Twin Cities area.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: In the past, economic and environmental interests have often been pitted against one another. And recreational, cultural and historical considerations further complicate discussions about how to use the river. But Nelson says these days, more interest groups are shunning polarization in favor of cooperation.

LEE NELSON: I think many of us have learned a lot. No matter what faction you may come from, I think a number have learned a lot about the importance of all the different factions.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Recreational growth seems unlikely to interfere with movement of cargo on the Mississippi. But it is influencing decisions about what businesses are located on the riverfront. Saint Paul's Port Authority plans to renovate a 100-acre riverfront industrial park with two goals in mind-- to make the park look better by cleaning it up and adding vegetation, and to fill the park with businesses that rely on the river. Several current tenants do use the river. But Port Authority Vice President Mike Strand says other businesses-- an auto parts company, a trash hauler, possibly even the city impound lot-- will not see their leases renewed.

MIKE STRAND: Clearly, there's a need for companies of this type somewhere. We just don't feel there's a need for them on the river. And although we're not trying to say move today, we are, over time, trying to refocus our efforts on making sure that the companies that are there have a reason to be on the river.

WILLIAM WILCOXEN: Strand says as commercial uses of the Mississippi are examined more carefully, heavy industries will have to justify their presence on the river. The U of M's Judith Martin says the fact that industry, which once dominated the Twin Cities riverfront, must now justify its presence shows how much things have changed in a generation. I'm William Wilcoxen, Minnesota Public Radio.