Itasca State Park

Itasca State Park, near Park Rapids, was established in 1891 and is Minnesota's oldest state park. It protects Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River, where the river begins as a stream narrow enough to walk across at its outlet. The park also preserves stands of old-growth red and white pine that predate European settlement, some centuries old, along with the historic Douglas Lodge built in the early 1900s. It remains one of the most visited sites in the Minnesota state park system because of the symbolic draw of the Mississippi's source.