The Mill City Museum is located in the ruins of what used to be the largest flour mill in the world, the Washburn A Mill ? a testament to why Minneapolis is known as the ?Mill City? in the first place. The museum offers various activities, from a fun exhibit that features an eight-story elevator ride to a culinary lab where visitors may learn more about the arts of baking.

A flour dust explosion had destroyed the original 1804 structure, the A Mill that stood in the area, and the incident had taken eighteen lives as well as ravaging majority of the business area along the riverfront. Although the mill had been rebuilt in 1880 and included state-of-the-art technology, it eventually became obsolete and closed down in 1965.

In the late 1990?s, the Minnesota Historical Society had expressed its intention to build a museum on the old mill?s location and it was then the Mill City Museum was born.