Minnesota River

“ The Mississippi River alone is used for navigation; the Minnesota and the Red River are reported ‘navigable,’ but are little used. The direction of the rivers, as well as the position and formation of the innumerable lakes dotting the surface of the State, have been determined by glacial action. In the north the lakes are usually cut out of the old rock and display bold tortuous shores. In the south the lakes are often broad and shallow. ”

“ The town stands on the front of this low plateau, along the channel of the river, and has a population of nine thousand people, counting the nomadic lumbermen, who live half the year in the piny woods many hundred miles to the north, and the other half are floating on the rafts down the river; a rough but useful people, who betimes will lose their heads and winter's wages in a single drunken fray, which they seem to consider the highest pleasure vouchsafed to them each season as they return to the walks of civilized life. ”

“ The State of Minnesota is said to contain fully ten thousand lakes of all sizes, the largest being Red Lake in the northern wilderness, having an area of three hundred and forty square miles. The surface of the State rises into what is known as the Itascan plateau in the northern central part at generally about seventeen hundred and fifty feet elevation. From this plateau four rivers flow out in various directions—the one on the Western Minnesota boundary, the Red River of the North, draining the western slope towards Lake Winnipeg and finally to Hudson Bay ”

“ Traveling along down the Mississippi to the eastern boundary of the State and taking a wide range of country on the Minnesota side of the river, we find many prosperous settlements of our people. Again southwest, up the beautiful valley of the Minnesota River, in Scott, Sibley, Le Sueur, Nicollet and Blue Earth counties, there are numerous Catholic settlements, both in the woods and on the prairie. ”

“ The Mississippi river, which flows for about 800 m. within or along the borders of the state, has its principal sources in and near Lake Itasca. It affords facilities for the transport of logs by means of booms above Minneapolis, and is navigable below St Paul; being half a mile broad where it reaches the border of the state at Hastings. At the Falls of St Anthony, St Cloud, Little Falls and other places, it provides ample water-power for manufacturing purposes. Its two principal tributaries are the St Croix and the Minnesota. ”

“ The Mustinka river reaches the lake at its northern end just beyond the region of its high banks and makes a delta walling off Mud Lake. The Bois de Sioux flows north and is a sluggish stream, with low marshy banks for 15 miles to a point opposite where the Rabbit river enters from the Minnesota side. Beyond that, its banks grow higher. It flows down the eastern side of its basin so that the Minnesota lowlands on its bank are of small area. ”

“ Peter River, now the Minnesota, if possible to its source, Big Stone Lake. We invited the ladies who wished to go, promising them music and dancing. A merry time was anticipated and we were eager to see the fertile valley, knowing it was to be purchased of the Indians and opened for settlement to the frontier settlers. The passengers were men mostly, but enough women went to form three or four cotillion sets. ”

“ To give the emigrant a general idea of the characteristics of every locality in Minnesota, it is proposed to procure a map or chart of the state, showing its boundaries, streams, lakes, navigable rivers, timber and prairie sections, etc.”
One of my first and most pleasant duties as secretary of the board was to secure aid for the settlers along the Minnesota river. This locality had suffered from drought the previous year, and the settlers, most of whom were Swedes, Norwegians and Finlanders, were almost entirely destitute, and had no grain left for seed. ”

“ I came to Minnesota with a determination to lead an outdoor life as my lungs were giving me much trouble. One of the first things I did was to take a yoke of oxen to Traverse to meet Mr. Williamson who was a missionary at Lac qui Parle. It was in November. I was new at this kind of work. The oxen were delivered to me at Fort Snelling. I crossed the river in a canoe and swam the oxen across to Mendota. Then I went on towards Shakopee. There was a well [Pg 59] worn Indian trail leading along the Minnesota River and I followed that. I went through Black Dog's village. ”

“ The trip of the Fanny Harris from Fort Ridgely to La Crosse was never forgotten by any one on board. The Fanny Harris being a stern-wheeler, was naturally difficult to steer in a strong current. The Minnesota is one of the most twisted and crooked rivers in the West. In April, 1861, the water was so high that the placid, winding river had grown a mile wide, flooding its valley from bluff to bluff, and in many places the water flowed with a rushing current, crossing the river bed at all angles and making innumerable short cuts across fields, marshes, and woods. ”

“ In the northern part of the state the great pine belt stretches from the head of Lake Superior westward to the confines of the Red River Valley, while along the north border and in the north-east the forest growth is almost exclusively tamarack and dwarf pine. More than three-fourths of the area of the state is arable, the small percentage of non-arable land lying principally in the north-eastern regions, which afford compensation in the form of rich mineral deposits. ”

“ Paul and Pacific Branch Railroad—now owned and operated by the Northern Pacific Railroad—the towns of Anoka and St. Cloud, both on the banks of the "great river," are either more desirable for invalids than most other points in the State within our knowledge, so far as location is concerned. They are high and dry above the river, and possess a soil in and around them of a loose sandy character, for the most part every way favorable to good drainage and dryness. The towns themselves are quite small, yet accommodations might be found for a large number in the aggregate. ”

“ It rises in the northeastern corner of South Dakota and flows through Big Stone Lake on the boundary between South Dakota and Minnesota, after which it traverses the latter State, first in a southeast direction to Mankato, where it makes a sharp bend, after which it flows northeast, entering the Mississippi opposite Saint Paul and just south of Minneapolis. ”

“ The run through Minnesota is as if through a great park. Everything is green and bright. Copse, meadow and field are as fresh as a May morning. The natural location of frequent wooded clumps, of prairie openings and of lakes, could hardly be improved by a landscape engineer. We passed the great wheat fields of Dakota at night, but I thought there was far less of barren plain and alkali patches as we approached the Missouri river, than I saw there seven years ago. ”

“ I used to run the ferry with Captain Tapper. It was a large rowboat. Once I had eight men aboard. When I got out in the river, I saw the load was too heavy and thought we would sink. "Boys", I said, "don't move. If you do, we'll all go to the bottom." The water was within one inch of the top of the boat but we got across.
I graded some down town, on Hennepin Avenue when it was only a country road. There was a big pond on Bridge Square. The ducks used to fly around there like anything early in the morning. ”

“ They grew wonderfully well. We caught fish and shot ducks and geese. On paper our town could not be excelled, with its streets and boulevards, its parks and drives, its churches and schools and public buildings. It was so inspiring to look at, that we each took one hundred and sixty acres adjoining the town, intending them as an addition to plat and sell to the on-rushers when the boom should commence.
We also built a boat here, or rather made a dugout, so we could explore the river. We had amusements in plenty, for wolves, Indians, mosquitoes and grasshoppers were in great abundance. ”

“ The country about these lakes is surpassingly beautiful and fruitful, and naturally attracted settlers in a very early day. In 1855 and 1857 a few families settled on a small river which heads in Minnesota and flows southward into Iowa, called in English Rock river, and in Sioux In-yan-yan-ke. In 1856 Hon. William Freeborn of Red Wing, Minn., started a settlement at Spirit lake, and near the same time another location was made about ten or fifteen miles north of Spirit lake, and called Springfield. ”

“ Here, all immigrants may, by following out to the terminus of the penetrating railways, find cheap and good lands awaiting them, and where just as beautiful homes may be made as in that portion nearer the river—now teeming with life and industries—but which, a few brief years since, was as desolate and untenanted as are the unbroken prairies to the westward. The prices vary, according to location and character, from five to fifteen dollars per acre, though a majority of the wild lands can be had at from six to eight dollars. ”

“ The deer were everywhere and game of all kinds bountiful. The soldier told me that no white man could settle here anywhere for ten miles as it was all in the Fort Snelling reservation. That is why the town of St. Anthony was built on the east side of the river instead of on the west side and why there was no town on this side of the river for many years after. We saw some Sioux tepees and met the Indians constantly. They were a fine sturdy race, with fine features and smiling faces. The soldier said they could be depended on and never broke a promise. ”

“ The Winnebagoes, numbering about 1,500, were removed from the neutral ground, in Iowa, to Long Prairie, in Minnesota, in 1848, and in 1854 were again removed to Blue Earth county, near the present site of Mankato. While Minnesota was a territory its western boundary extended to the Missouri river, and on that river, both east and west of it, were numerous wild and warlike bands of Sioux, numbering many thousands, although no accurate census of them had ever been taken. They were the Tetons, Yanktons, Cut-heads, Yanktonais, and others. These Missouri Indians frequently visited Minnesota. ”

“ My father moved to Minnesota Territory in '50. We lived with my uncle, Mr. Tuttle, who had a mill for some time on this side. He was living in a small house belonging to the government, but my father and he added two more rooms so we could stay with them. In the spring my father took up land and built a house down by the river not far from the Minnehaha Falls. He began to work on the Godfrey mill at Minnehaha. My mother was very timid. The sight of an Indian would nearly throw her into a fit. ”

“ The river was the only highway over which came human beings. In the winter the river still was the main traveled road, but with sleighs instead of boats. It was a rare treat for her to go as far as La Crosse. In the winter this trip was often accompanied with danger, from the uncertainty of the strength of the ice. I recall one trip she and my father made going to La Crosse one day upon the ice in the month of February. ”

“ It is seldom that they rise over two hundred feet from the water level, and their height is quite uniform, so that from a distant point of view their summit resembles a huge fortification. Nor, as a general thing, do they present a bold or rocky front. The rise from the river is gradual. Sometimes they rise to a sharp peak, towards the top of which crops out in half circles heavy ridges of limestone. The ravines which seem to divide them into separate elevations, are more thickly wooded, and appear to have been grooved out by the rolling down of deep waters. ”

“ The state of Minnesota shall have concurrent jurisdiction on the Mississippi and all other rivers and waters bordering on the said state of Minnesota, so far as the same shall form a common boundary to said state and any other state or states now or hereafter to be formed by the same; and said river and waters, and navigable waters leading into the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of said state as to other citizens of the United States, without any tax, duty, impost, or toll, therefor. ”

“ As the Red River flows northward, the first thaw of spring is usually south of the American International Boundary line at the head waters of the river which divides Minnesota and Dakota. In these States the floods are always, in consequence, greater than they are in Manitoba. ”

“ The Mississippi drains about 47,000 square miles in Minnesota; about 7,700 square miles are tributary to Lake Superior and the St. Lawrence; about 9,700 square miles are drained to Rainy River and the Lake of the Woods; and about 18,300 square miles to Red River, making together 28,000 square miles in this state tributary to Lake Winnipeg and, through Nelson River, to Hudson Bay. In the central part is one of the most valuable forests of the west, called the Big Woods. ”

“ Croix River near Hudson, Wisconsin and thence extending in a westerly direction to a point on the easterly limits of the city of St. Paul and then beginning at a point on the westerly limits of the city of Minneapolis and thence extending in a westerly direction to a point on Route No. 6 at Madison, affording St. Paul, Minneapolis, Hopkins, Norwood, Glencoe, Olivia, Granite Falls, Montevideo, Dawson, Madison and intervening and adjacent communities a reasonable means of communication, each with the other and other places within the State. ”

“ This business increased rapidly, and in 1865 this firm worked over seven hundred horses, and employed two hundred men.
During this staging period the railroads from the East centered in Chicago, and gradually reached the Mississippi river from that point; first at Rock Island, next at Dunleith, opposite Dubuque, then at Prairie du Chien, next at Prairie La Crosse,—each advance carrying them nearer Minnesota. The Prairie du Chien extension was continued across the river at McGregor in Iowa, and thence up through Iowa and Southern Minnesota to Minneapolis and St. Paul. ”