Shifting Sands

It’s a summer day and a man on a beach with a cassette player duct-taped to his shorts picks something out of his toenail and flicks it into the water. A dozen paces away, somebody in a beach chair is wailing away on an oxidized old saxophone, and a group of young people wearing little more than their tattoos are dancing a little on beach towels. An unaccompanied child is playing with the contents of a plastic bucket—six small fish, presumably caught bare-handed.

Photo by Shane Kolstad

Hidden Beach—there’s something fundamentally bizarre about this place. The world seems to spin sideways into strangeness here. It’s old, and you can feel its oldness in the dirty sand between your toes and the weathered, knife-scarred cottonwood bark under your hand.

Formally known as Cedar Lake East Beach, Hidden Beach is a swath of land on the eastern side of Cedar Lake in the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis. Since its formation in the 1970s, the beach has remained a haven for Minneapolis’ queer community, and it has been far from stagnant. In the past 50 years, it has gone from secluded grotto, informally known as Minneapolis’ only nude beach, to sprawling park, boasting picnic tables and grills and hosting hundreds of visitors a day in the summer. This transformation has not been a quiet one—fraught with tensions between the beach’s original free-spirited, anti-establishment patronage and the more modesty-minded families in the Kenwood neighborhood. Despite this, all parties involved in the evolution of Hidden Beach share one thing: a deep and unyielding love for this exceptional place.

Courtesy of Kenwood Neighborhood Association

CHANGE IS COMING

“At first, a lot of people came here because of the nudity,” Jeanie Revor says, “but that’s never stopped us. We’d join right in.” Revor sits next to Susan Stever on a graffiti-scarred picnic table, looking out toward the lake. They are comfortable, relaxed, shading their eyes from the evening sun. The two have been coming to Hidden Beach since their high school days in the ’70s.

“Back then, it was almost like you were getting away with something,” Revor says. “It was hidden. You could take off all your clothes, smoke a joint, and go swimming.” It was from this era that Hidden Beach acquired its name. As the beach grew in popularity, it collected oddities.

“I’ll never forget it,” Stever says. “When we came around the corner [of the lake] in our canoe, there was this woman dressed like Elvis singing ‘Can’t Help Falling in Love’ in just the most beautiful voice.”

The Elvis Lady, as she is commonly referred to, was an icon of Hidden Beach for years, second only to another in the canon of fabled figures at the beach.

Ask any regular beachgoer for stories, and the first thing they’ll likely mention is the Mudman. A kind and helpful character, the still-active Mudman is said to take care of the large mud pit in a marshy area behind the beach—keeping it free of rocks and sticks so it’s safe for children to play in—and to provide useful information about the pit’s conditions to passersby.

Courtesy of Kenwood Neighborhood Association

Far from a folktale, the Mudman has been two very real people. The original Mudman, Andrew J. Foss, began caring for the mud pit after it formed during a wet summer in 1983. He became important to the beach’s culture, and, after his death in 1992, the mud pit received a plaque declaring it as the “Andrew J. Foss memorial mud pit.”

Foss’ good friend, Steven Vasseur, took over in 1993 and is on his 31st season taking care of the pit. Aside from clearing the mud of debris, Vasseur tracks daily beach attendance and compiles it into a spreadsheet used in data analytics classes in neighboring high schools.

Though the mud pit has remained largely the same, the past few decades have seen massive gentrifying or developing investments in the surrounding area. Cement pads were installed for benches and picnic tables, and two standing grills were placed nearby. The first two lifeguard chairs erected were burned down. The third still stands but is more often occupied by amorous couples than lifeguards.

Many of these amenities were funded by the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, who also station an additional park patrol squad car at the beach to cut down on criminal activity, according to nearby homeowner Sally Dargis.

Dargis moved to the Kenwood neighborhood with her husband in 2010. Their proximity to the area—only a few minutes’ walk—has familiarized them with both the benefits and drawbacks of the beach.

“There were some summers where there were weapons out over here,” Dargis says. “I don’t care if people are out here smoking pot on their blankets, as long as they’re not fighting over it.”

Dargis’ husband, Tim McManus, gets free graffiti removal kits from the fire station and removes graffiti from the picnic tables and signs in the park. The two speak passionately about their relationship with the beach.

Dargis and McManus say the beach’s new and carefully cultivated family-friendly feel is an improvement for the neighborhood. Others contend the enhancements and upgraded security detract from the beach’s unconventional and mischievous character.

In Stever’s words: “I think anyone who has moved here in the last 50 years should have known that this beach was here. This beach isn’t gonna leave. If you can’t handle the way it is, you should look for a different place to live instead of trying to change it in an aggressive way. It’s an institution.”

Photo by Shane Kolstad

Change is inexorably creeping toward Hidden Beach along a slowly expanding set of railroad tracks. The Green Line extension, set for completion in 2027, passes near the beach, with a stop positioned a minute’s walk away. Many beachgoers have expressed concern the new line will bring too much traffic to the already popular beach. “I’m concerned it’ll bring trouble in” Dargis says.

With concerns about the Green Line and the beach’s growing popularity—confirmed by Vasseur’s spreadsheets—the future of Hidden Beach is uncertain. On a typical summer day the beach is festooned with a colorful circus of hammocks, beach towels, bicycles, and paddle boards, as music buzzes from instruments and speakers through the weed smoke into the surrounding trees. But there’s something heavier than the smoke and the sound in the air: the slow, intense love people have for this remarkable place.

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