New Ulm, Minnesota

“ On the 25th day of August after the massacre of the 22nd, around New Ulm and in that vicinity, a little boy who had saved himself from the Indians by secreting himself in the grass of the swamps, came into New Ulm and said there were twelve people alive and a number of bodies to be buried sixteen miles from New Ulm. ”

“ My powers were general—to raise troops, commission officers, subsist upon the country, and generally to do what in my judgment was best for the protection of this frontier. Under these powers I located my headquarters at South Bend, being the extreme southern point of the Minnesota river, thirty miles below New Ulm, four from Mankato, and about fifty from the Iowa line. Here I maintained a guard of about eighty men. We threw up some small intrenchments, but nothing worthy of mention. Enough citizens of New Ulm had returned home to form two companies at that point. ”

“ The first notice of his approach is the crack of his rifle, and no one with experience of such struggles ever blames the timidity of citizens in exposed positions when assailed by these savages. I think, all things being considered, the people generally behaved very well. If a map of the state is consulted, taking New Ulm as the most northern point on the Minnesota river, it will be seen that the line of my posts covered the frontier from that point down the river to South Bend, and up the Blue Earth, southerly, to Winnebago City, and thence to the Iowa line. ”

“ The lands had not been surveyed by the general government, but our delegate in congress, Henry M. Rice, had anticipated that by obtaining the passage of the law allowing settlement and preëmption on unsurveyed lands. Under the law a town site could only embrace 320 acres, but the projectors of New Ulm laid out an immense tract, comprising thousands of acres. Many of the settlers had not taken any steps toward becoming American citizens, which was a necessary preliminary to preëmption, and everything among them was held in a kind of common interest, the Cincinnati society furnishing the funds. ”

“ Our advance guard reached New Ulm just in time to participate in its defense against an attack of about one hundred Indians who had been murdering the settlers on the west side of the river, between the town and Fort Ridgely. The inhabitants of New Ulm were almost exclusively German, there being only a few English-speaking citizens among them, and they were not familiar with the character of the Indians, but the instinct of self-preservation had impelled them to fortify the town with barricades to keep the enemy out. ”

“ The properties below have been removed from the National Register of Historic Places effective as follows:
MINNESOTA, Brown County, New Ulm, New Ulm Roller Mill Complex (Brown County MRA) , 222 First S. St. ”

“ June 22d it embarks at Fort Snelling for the seat of war.
1862. Call for 600,000 men. August 17th, massacre at Acton; 18th, outbreak at Lower Sioux agency; 19th, New Ulm attacked; 20th, Fort Ridgely attacked; 25th, second attack on New Ulm; 30th, Fort Abercrombie besieged; September 1st, the bloody affair at Birch Coolie; 19th, first railroad in Minnesota in operation between St. Paul and Minneapolis; 22d, battle of Wood Lake; 26th, captives surrendered at Camp Release; military commission tries 321 Indians for murder, rape, etc.; 303 condemned to die; December 26th, 38 hanged at Mankato. ”

“ New Ulm is the centre of a rich agricultural and stock-raising section, and carries on considerable trade. Its industrial establishments comprise grain elevators and flour mills, breweries, cigar factories, brick plants, machine shops, cooperage shops, and manufactories of pipe organs, woolens, pottery, and creamery products. Under a revised charter of 1891, the government is vested in a mayor, elected biennially, and a council. There are municipal water-works and electric-light plants. Settled in 1854, New Ulm was incorporated in 1876. ”

“ Perhaps the ratio of increase in population is not greater in Minnesota than in some of her adjoining sister States, notwithstanding her superior attractions of climate and scenery. Yet, if this be true, it is readily accounted for in that the majority of the people moving westward do not readily consent to make their new homes north of the parallel of their old ones. On the contrary, the general tendency is to drop southward, desiring to escape as much as may be the protracted cold of winter ”

“ The smooth, green, slightly rolling prairie, across which we were riding, had for its eastern horizon the broken bluffs, and, toward the west, gently sloping, wooded eminences. The towns, too, grew more frequent, and were better built. Indeed, the towns of Minnesota differed in this respect from new towns generally throughout the West. Perhaps this was due as much to climatic influences as to the character of the settlers. To be sure, the country bears a strong impress of New England; for New Englanders form a good proportion of the population ”

“ It might be entirely safe to assume that the people of Minnesota, as a whole, are distinguished by a more aesthetic character than their neighbors living in the nearly dead level country below them. It is but reasonable to suppose that some, at least, in seeking new homes, would give a preference to attractive localities, even at the sacrifice of something of fertility; which is, to some extent, the case; as the low flat lands of the rivers below are unrivalled in their power of production—whether it be of the grains of wheat or disease. ”

“ This region embraced parts of Illinois, almost the whole of Iowa, southern Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and parts of Montana—a region of imperial extent. Now, it happens that for every acre of pine land that has been denuded in Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota there are somewhere in the great treeless region further south and west two or three new farm-houses. The railroads, pushing ahead of settlement out into the open prairie, have carried the white-pine lumber from the gigantic sawmills of the Upper Mississippi and its tributaries ”

“ New Ulm is an important livestock market. The city is the seat of the Dr Martin Luther College (Lutheran, 1884) , a secondary school, with a normal and a collegiate department. St Michael’s Academy and St Alexander Hospital are under the charge of Roman Catholic sisters. New Ulm was settled about 1853, and was twice attacked and almost destroyed by the Indians during the Sioux uprising of 1862. There is a monument to those who lost their lives in the Sioux massacres. ”

“ Going farther north, to Minnesota, a preponderance of the New England element is found; though people from all the various States of the Union are encountered to a greater extent than in any of the others lying in the Northwest; and this fact is important as one of the circumstantial evidences of the great repute this State bears, par excellence, in the matter of her climate. ”

“ We used to have neighbors in the west, but when our baby died in New York, not a person came near us, and we went alone to the cemetery. We thought we would come back home." How very many have had nearly the same experience. In the congested districts it seems to be everyone for himself. On the frontier a settler becomes ill, and his grain is sown, planted and harvested. ”

“ If then he should embark and follow the great river to the Iowa line, his course would have divided the state into two portions, not very unequal in extent. The political history of the two parts is sufficiently diverse to warrant a distinction between Minnesota East and Minnesota West. England never owned west of the river, Spain gained no foothold east of it. France, owning on both sides, yielded Minnesota East to England in 1763, and sold Minnesota West to the United States in 1803. Up to the former date, the whole area was part of New France and had no separate history. ”

“ The new States have had it in their power to do what most of the older ones had not, and after all they cannot claim all the credit of their advancement in these matters, for the general government shares part of the honor in this wise provision for the education of the people, having donated one section of land in every township in some of the newer States. This was the case in Minnesota. These lands are to be used in establishing a school fund, and this has already amounted to a large sum—two million five hundred thousand dollars ”

“ The Territory of Minnesota was organized in 1849, and immediately presented to the world a very attractive field for immigration. The most desirable lands in the new territory were on the west side of the Mississippi, but the title to them was still in the Indians. ”

“ My client then said, "Now young man, you'll see that land worth $25.00 an acre some day." Today it is part of the Weston farm and is valued at $150.00 an acre and is the nicest farm in the county.
The first political machine in the State was organized in Faribault the year Minnesota became a State. Five or six of us young men decided to put a little new life into politics and we prepared a slate. ”

“ Minnesota as a state is just in the age of development. She is rising to power and influence. Much depends upon our legislature, more than depended upon the legislature of New York when, actuated by good counsels it connected the waters of the [Pg 678] Hudson with those of Lake Erie by the 'Clinton Ditch,' so called in derision by the enemies of the measure. But the wisdom of Dewitt Clinton, the originator of that famous waterway, advanced the settlement of the great West at least a quarter of a century. ”

“ The town is not in the hands of capitalists, though moneyed men are interested in it. General Lowry is a large proprietor. He lives at Arcadia, just above the town limits, and has a farm consisting of three hundred acres of the most splendid land, which is well stocked with cattle and durably fenced. A better barn, or a neater farmyard than he has, cannot be found between Boston and Worcester. And while speaking of barns I would observe that the old New England custom of having good barns is better observed in Minnesota than anywhere else in the West. ”

“ Minnesota enjoys a great advantage in point of transportation to both oceans in the competition of Canadian roads, with branches penetrating to her principal cities. The water route eastward from Duluth has moderated costs of shipping out her staple products—grain, ore, and lumber—and given her favorable rates on returning merchandise.
The new states of the Northwest have departed far from the conservative doctrine that governments exist merely for the protection of persons and property. ”

“ AGRICULTURE.
In the early days of Minnesota its agricultural population was largely centered in the southeastern portion of the state. The soil was exceptionally fertile, and produced wheat in unusual abundance. The Western farmer of early days was a careless cultivator, thinking more of the immediate results than permanent preservation of his land. Even if he was of the conservative old New England stock, the generous soil of the West, the freedom from social restraint, and the lessened labors of the farm, led him into more happy-go-lucky methods than he had been accustomed to in the East. ”

“ The organization of the territory of Minnesota in 1849 naturally gave a new impetus to settlement, and marked an era in the progress of the settlements already made. None profited more by the new order of things than did Stillwater. The future metropolis of the St. Croix valley, though yet unorganized even as a village, and governed by town and county law, in 1850 presented a scene of unwonted activity. ”

“ The rank of the State has risen every decade, standing nineteenth in 1900. The largest absolute gain was in the decade 1880-90. From 1890 to 1900 the increase amounted to 34.5 per cent., as compared with 20.7 for the United States. During that decade every county in the State shared in the increase, but it was generally greatest throughout the northern ones, where the population is still very sparse. The movement of the population turned toward Minnesota at a period when the German immigration was still great and the Scandinavian peoples were just beginning to come in large numbers. ”

“ No other State contains so large a number of Swedes and Norwegians. In 1900 the foreign-born population numbered 505,318. The colored population numbered only 14,358, of whom 4959 were negroes, 7414 Indians taxed, and 1768 Indians not taxed. As is common in newly settled States, there is a large excess of the male sex. At the last census there were 22.1 inhabitants to the square mile. The State contains the two large metropolises of the Upper Mississippi Valley—Minneapolis and Saint Paul—and the per cent. of urban population is therefore high for so new a State. ”

“ Far up, beside one of those tributaries of the Mississippi, in the western portion of what is now the State of Minnesota, stands a small cabin, such as the early settlers in new countries build for themselves. About a quarter of a mile further up the stream is a large Sioux village, separated from the hut by a stretch of woods through which runs a well-worn footpath. This arrangement the young missionary, Harvey Richter, preferred rather than to dwell in the Indian village. ”

“ It is proposed to cast the statue in bronze and place it in Minnehaha park, Minneapolis, at some future day.
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ORIGIN OF THE NAME "GOPHER STATE."
Most of the states in the Union have a popular name. New York is called the "Empire State," Pennsylvania the "Keystone State," etc. As you come west they seem to have taken the names of animals. Michigan is called the "Wolverine State," Wisconsin the "Badger State," and it is not at all singular that Minnesota should have been christened the "Gopher State." These names never originate by any recognized authority. ”