The Spokane River flows along the southern edge of the neighborhood, from which the terrain rises along the slopes of Beacon Hill to the northeast.

The city limits run along Havana Street in the east, beyond which lie unincorporated areas of Spokane County.

[4] The Spokane People inhabited the area that is now Minnehaha for thousands of years prior to the arrival of European settlers.

[5] Edgar J. Webster, a lawyer and early settler in Spokane, settled in what is now Minnehaha Park in the late 1890s and discovered a mineral spring on the property.

[7] The dance hall on the property burned down in 1889, but a stone building from the health spa days still stands in Minnehaha Park.

Between the time the city made the purchase and when it got around to developing the location, multiple movie studios rented the land in order to film motion pictures.

Once construction is complete, it is estimated that around 500 homes and 150 businesses will have been demolished in Minnehaha and the other neighborhoods that the freeway route will pass through.

The southern portion of the freeway, from just north of the Spokane River in Minnehaha south to its junction with Interstate 90, will be elevated.

[11] For cyclists, there is a dedicated bicycle lane on Upriver Drive, as well as the shared-use Spokane River Centennial Trail which runs alongside it.

The trail connects Minnehaha with Downtown Spokane and beyond to the west and stretches out past the Idaho state line to the east.