Midwest

“ Furthermore, the Mississippi had ceased to be a boundary. A magnificent vista reaching off to the remoter West and Northwest had been opened up; the frontier had been pushed far out upon the plains of Minnesota and Iowa. Decade after decade the powerful epic of westward expansion, shot through with countless tales of heroism and sacrifice, had steadily unfolded before the gaze of an astonished world ”

“ The relation of the Provinces of the Lake and Prairie Plains to the rest of the United States is an important element in the significance of the Middle West. On the north lies the similar region of Canada: the Great Lakes are in the center of the whole eastern and more thickly settled half of North America, and they bind the Canadian and Middle Western people together. On the south, the provinces meet the apex of that of the Gulf Plains, and the Mississippi unites them. To the west, they merge gradually into the Great Plains ”

“ Paul, great city of the Northwest that it is. We came over from West Superior by the “Great Northern” route, very comfortably in a new and fresh-kept sleeper—a night’s ride. I was early awake and sat for an hour watching the wide flat farming country of Minnesota. Not much timber, never a cornfield, much wheat and oats and hay land. A black, rich soil. Still a good deal of roll to the landscape, and, at the same time, a certain premonition of the greater, more boundless flatness of the land yet further west. ”

“ The physical geography of the Northwest shows a country so rich and varied in diversity of surface, of wide plains, smiling valleys, dense forests, broad rivers and rushing torrents, that the influence of the face of nature is inspiring. We look from some high mountain summit over the grand forests and valleys of our country, watching the clouds chase their shadows across the gorges and canyons, and, as the voices of the swaying pines, the murmur of a torrent or roar of some unseen waterfall falls upon our ear, our minds are full of thoughts that words fail to express. ”

“ The great Northwest—that wonderful frontier that called to itself a world's hardiest spirits—is rapidly becoming a settled country; and before the light of civilizing influences, the blanket-Indian has trailed the buffalo over the divide that time has set between the pioneer and the crowd. ”

“ The Northwest, in particular, had been settled by people drawn from every older portion of the country, and as the frontier receded and society took on a more matured aspect, differences of habits and ideas were accentuated rather than obscured. Men can get along very well with one another so long as they live apart and do not try to regulate their everyday affairs on common lines.
The great human streams that poured into the Northwest flowed from two main sources—the nearer South and New England. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were first peopled by men and women of Southern stock. ”

“ These migrations into the inland valleys of the Old South mark the first great westward thrust of the American frontier. Thus the beginnings of the westward movement disclose to us a feature characteristic also of the later migrations which flung the frontier over the Appalachians, across the Mississippi, and finally to the shores of the Pacific. The pioneers, instead of moving westward by slow degrees, subduing the wilderness as they went, overleaped great spaces and planted themselves beyond, out of contact with the life they had left behind. ”

“ Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennesee in the east, Iowa and Missouri, and a part of Arkansas in the west, are situated within the temperate zone. Agriculture and civilisation are extending there. These States, like their neighbouring States in the east, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, constitute the great corn-magazine of America, and the central portion of the Mississippi Valley. Beyond these, to the east, extend the Alleghany Mountains, and the Eastern or Atlantic States. Beyond the Mississippi States, to the west, extends the Indian Wilderness, Nebraska, and the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Instead of the low, level, treeless plain usually associated with one's ideas of the West, there is the high, rolling country, extending many miles back from the eastern frontier, while the general elevation of the State is upward of one thousand feet above the sea—abounding in pleasant and fertile valleys, large and valuable forests, together with many beautiful lakes, nearly all of which are filled with the purest of water and with great numbers of the finest fish. ”

“ We are taken through the productive wheat-fields of Minnesota and Dakota, among the gold and silver bearing hills of Idaho and Montana, into the prolific, garden-like valleys of Washington, whose lovely hopfields rival the gorgeous display of Kent in England, and whose abundant supply of coal and iron is only second to that of Pennsylvania. ”

“ Here in the Northwest we are blessed with a wonderful mountain range, extending from California through Oregon and Washington to British Columbia.
For beauty, grandeur and extent it has no superior; while as a field of defense, it simply stands unparalleled, and is rich in minerals, agriculture and commerce. Located at from forty to a hundred miles apart are the following mountain peaks, covered with perpetual snow: Baker, Rainier, Adams, St. Helens, Hood, Jefferson, Three Sisters, Pitt and Shasta. ”

“ The most potent single element of population in the Northwest is of New England origin, although more than half of it has found its way into Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kansas, by filtration through the intermediate States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois. ”

“ There is some justification for those who say that the north central portion of the United States is more fortunate than any other part of the earth. Nowhere else, unless in western Europe, is there such a combination of fertile soil, fine climate, easy communication, and possibilities for manufacturing and commerce. Iron from that outlier of the Laurentian highland which forms the peninsula of northern Michigan can easily be brought by water almost to the center of the prairie region. ”

“ Minnesota presents to the eye of the traveler a grand and impressive country in the form of rolling prairies, diversified by lakes,—of which there are said to be ten thousand in the State,—forests, and inviting valleys, the latter particularly adapted for raising wheat and for dairy farming. ”

“ When the sun rose we were well into Minnesota, the-most northern of the Union States. Around on every side stretched the great wheat lands of the North-west, that region whose farthest limits lie far within the territories where yet the red man holds his own. Here, in the south of Minnesota, one is only on the verge of that great wheat region. ”

“ Looking at the Northwest as a whole, one sees, in the character of its industries and in the elements of its population, it is identified on the east with the zone of States including the middle region and New England. Cotton culture and the negro make a clear line of division between the Old Northwest and the South. ”

“ These people move with an alert vigor, their cheeks are rosy, their eyes are snappy, and I like the swing of their shoulders as they step briskly along the streets. Mankind migrates along earth’s parallels of latitude, so ’tis said—and Minnesota and the great Northwest is but another New England and New York. ”

“ Eighteen years ago I left the State of Minnesota and this delightful city which was my home, to do my share in the development of the Pacific Slope—"I love its rocks and rills, its woods and templed hills." Wild horses could not drag me back to Minnesota, where fifty years ago my father pioneered, and is yet interested—not that I love Minnesota less, but only that I love Washington more. You have grown and developed great cities. ”

“ As I have looked abroad upon the vast domain of the West beyond the dim Missouri, or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi, I have wondered at the contrast presented between the comparatively small number who penetrate to the frontier, and that great throng of men who toil hard for a temporary livelihood in the populous towns and cities of the Union. ”

“ A great proportion of Michigan is covered with white-oak openings. Standing on a gentle hill, the eye wanders away for miles over an undulating surface, obstructed only by the trunks of lofty trees,—above you a green canopy, and beneath, a carpet of velvet grass, sprinkled with flowers of every hue and form. ”

“ Our country to the West always has inspired me with the extremest curiosity, and animated me with the loftiest hopes. Since the year 1683 that great river, the Missouri, emptying into the Mississippi, has been looked upon as the way to the Pacific Ocean. One hundred years from that time—that is to say, in 1783—I myself asked one of the ablest of our Westerners, none other than General George Rogers Clark, to undertake a journey of exploration up that Western river. ”

“ When I left my state-room, as if waiting to greet me, it arose majestically from the bosom of the water, flooding the lake with light. No land was descried upon the east, but we were near the Michigan shore off Thunder bay. The Shanewaging islands which stretch across it were distinctly visible, and presented various beauties of shape and tint. All trace of man has now disappeared, for the northern part of Michigan has never been settled owing to the intense cold of the winters. ”

“ Yet to the east of us, to the end of the river at Buford, to the south along the Yellowstone, and on all the great rivers that the cowmen used for range—along the Little Missouri and the Musselshell and the Judith and countless other streams whose names you have heard—lay the greatest game country the world ever saw, the best outdoor country in the world! ”

“ If the Northwest be plain like a picture in your mind’s eye, you can recall how in the far North the Cascades and Rockies are intermingled, and how, as we come down through British Columbia to our own soil, they gradually separate, slope apart, so that by the time they reach the latitude of Portland, Oregon, a wide, flat domain lies between them. ”

“ There is nothing to connect "the dark backward and abysm" of mound-building times with those of the red race of the Northwest; and all that is known of the latter dating earlier than their first discovery, is exceedingly dim and shadowy. Upon the extended area bounded by Lake Superior on the north, Lake Michigan on the east, wide-spreading prairies on the south, and the Mississippi river on the west, there met and mingled two distinct Indian families—Algonquins [viii] and Dakotas. Concerning the various tribes of these families, nothing of importance could be gleaned by the earliest explorers ”

“ But in the territory of Michigan is a world of lakes, created by the hand of God, of all dimensions and shapes, just fitted for the sports of fancy, of childhood, and of youth—for the relaxations of manly toil—for the occupation of leisure;—the shores of which are overhung with beautiful and wholesome shades—and the waters deep, and so clear, that the fish cannot play in their lowest beds, without betraying their motions to the observer, floating in his bark upon the surface. ”

“ It was the glory of the Northwest to offer a competence to the needy, the baffled, the discouraged, the tormented of the eastern States and 188 of Europe. The bulk of its fast-growing population consisted, it is true, of ordinary folk who could have lived on in fair comfort in the older sections, yet who were ambitious to own more land, to make more money, and to secure larger advantages for their children. ”

“ A little snow was to be seen along the way, but not as much as in New York; the country does not look very thrifty; poor houses and neglected farms; here and there are stretches of forest. Crossed the Detroit river on a boat as we did the Missouri, but it is dark and I can only see the reflection of the electric light on the water as we cross to the Michigan shore. The night is dark and I sleep all I can. I did not get to see much of Michigan as we reached Chicago at eight, Friday morning. ”

“ Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa move westward with the slant of the mountains and the rivers. All America, as you will see, has a grandiose north-westerly-south-easterly direction or kink caused by the Rocky Mountains primarily, and by the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers secondarily. The Rocky Mountains control the continent. That is why we are travelling north-west. It is quite natural. It is America’s way. It is written in her rocks and by her waters.
“As the families migrated from Virginia to Kentucky and Illinois and Minnesota—so [70] we go following nature’s trail out to the wilderness.” ”

“ In the midst of this solitude, and on the banks once covered by a sparse growth of trees, one of the finest cities in the West has sprung up as if by magic, and the scene is one of busy life. This marvelous change has occurred within a space of fifty years. ”

“ West of the Central states are the Rocky Mountain and Pacific states. These are so called because the Rocky mountains cross them from north to south and the Pacific ocean borders them on the west.
They are Colorado (col-o-rah'-do) , New Mexico, Wy-o'-ming, Monta'na (mon-tah'-nah) , Arizo'na, Utah, Idaho, Nevada (ne-vah'-dah) , California, Oregon, and Washington. The Territory of Alaska (see map of North America, p. 33) also is classed with this group.
2. Early History.— About eighty years ago Indians and Spaniards were almost the only inhabitants of this part of our country. ”

“ One can travel today three hundred miles at a stretch across the prairies of the Dakotas or the fields of Minnesota without leaving land that is owned by Scandinavians. They abound also in Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Eastern Nebraska, and Kansas, and Northern Michigan. Latterly the lands of Oregon and Washington are luring them by the thousands, while throughout the remaining West there are scattered many prosperous farms cultivated by representatives of this hardy race. ”