 The park saw conflict in the 1960s when the highway department planned an elevated freeway between Minnehaha Park and Longfellow Gardens over Minnehaha Creek . The park board challenged the plan and brought the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court . Fortunately for the park a similar case was decided in favor of the preservation of park land , thus setting a precedent , and the elevated freeway was never built . Eventually a highway was built in the late 1990s that routed the road through a tunnel over the creek and covered by a " land bridge " . A new garden , the Longfellow Garden , was established on top of the land bridge . 
