Saint Paul, Minnesota

“ For there is, even in this State, considerable choice for patients; while for tourists, any point offering attractions is the place for them. We shall briefly consider the whole subject, but first with regard to the former class.
The city of St. Paul, an account of which has been previously given, is the most natural place to make the first stop; and it is a bright, cheerful, busy city in which to while away the time. Its location is healthful, as well as beautiful, and invalids may remain there with perhaps as great advantage as at any point in the State, especially in the winter season. ”

“ My parents secured seven bushel and alloted very much on the winter supplies that these cranberries would buy when they could send them to St. Paul, our only market.
Soon one of the neighbors prepared to set out on a trip by ox-team to St. Paul. The only road at that time was by the Indian trail, which for several miles was where the county road now leads from Robbinsdale to Champlin. Then to the ferry at St. Anthony Falls, and so on down the east side of the river to St. Paul. ”

“ Although as a manufacturing city St Paul, not possessing the wonderful water-power of its sister city, does not equal Minneapolis, yet as a commercial and wholesale distributing centre it is in some respects superior, and it is the principal jobbing market of the North-west. Situated at the natural head of navigation on the Mississippi, it has several competing lines of river steamboats in addition to the shipping facilities provided by its railways and the lines of the Minnesota Transfer Co., a belt line with 62 m. ”

“ On Monday morning, the 15th, he attended a meeting of pastors, and on that evening and the next, preached to large congregations of Germans. During the remainder of our stay at St. Paul, he preached in English also at the Congregational, Methodist Episcopal, and Baptist Churches, and gave an address at a meeting of ladies one afternoon.
"St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, is on the river Mississippi, 2,082 miles from its mouth at New Orleans, and is the largest city in the State. The Mississippi rises in Minnesota ”

“ Paul, Minnesota, is our starting point, we will pause for a little and cultivate the acquaintance of her people. The picture represents St. Paul and Minneapolis about as we suppose they were previous to 1838, and before a white man gazed upon the natural beauties of our great country. In the picture you see “one of the first families,” in fact it is the first family, and a healthy, dirty-looking lot they are. ”

“ The Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Chicago, Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha roads have large repair shops here, these and the smaller shops of four other roads employing about 2500 men. Saint Paul is most important as a wholesale and jobbing centre, but it also has large manufacturing interests, ranking second among the cities of the State. It leads in the manufacture of boots and shoes, and of men's clothing. ”

“ But it is of the general prosperity of our Catholic settlements in Minnesota that we wish more particularly to speak, for as a general rule there is no business which has not its representative successful men.
Dakota County being close to the capital of the State, (St. Paul,) and possessing the advantage of having, on the Mississippi River, a market for its produce, at a time when there was not a mile of railroad in the State, was settled up at an early day. Among its settlers were Irish and German Catholics. ”

“ The City of St. Paul, capital and chief town of the State of Minnesota, gives promise of rising to a very high position among the great trade centres of America. It stands almost at the head of the navigation of the Mississippi River, about 2050 miles from New Orleans; not that the great river has its beginning here or in the vicinity, its cradle lies far to the north, 700 miles along the stream. But the Falls of St. Anthony, a few miles above St. Paul, interrupt all navigation, and the course of the river for a considerable distance above the fall is full of rapids and obstructions. ”

“ The twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, at the head of Lake Superior, form the most growing community of Canada. They call them twin cities, but I expect, like their Siamese predecessors, they will grow into one. Already the suburbs join each other, though proximity does not always lead to amalgamation or even to cordiality, as in the adjacent towns of St. Paul and Minneapolis. When the little American boy was asked in Sunday school who persecuted Saint Paul, he “guessed it was Minneapolis.” ”

“ Senator Paul Wellstone was a tireless advocate for the people of Minnesota, particularly for new immigrants and the economically disadvantaged. (2) Paul and Sheila Wellstone loved St. Paul, Minnesota, and often walked the neighborhoods of St. Paul to better understand the needs of the people. (3) Neighborhood House was founded in the late 1800’s in St. Paul, Minnesota, by the women of Mount Zion Temple as a settlement house to help newly arrived Eastern European Jewish immigrants establish a new life and thrive in their new community. ”

“ As a matter of course, places possessing salubrious climates are crowded with pallid seekers after health, and as St. Paul enjoys a dry and bracing atmosphere from its great elevation above the sea level, as well as from the purity of the surrounding prairies, its hotels--and they are many--are crowded with the broken wrecks of half the Eastern states; some find what they seek, but the majority come to Minnesota only to die. ”

“ Three more bridges span the Mississippi at Saint Paul, one at Fort Snelling, and two farther up connecting with Minneapolis. There is a splendid system of street railways operated by electricity generated mostly at the falls in Minneapolis. The lines in the two cities are operated practically as one system. Two double-track interurban routes join the network in the two cities, and a single line runs to Wildwood and Stillwater.
The city embraces an area of about 56 square miles. ”

“ LIFE MEMBERS. Hon. Samuel E. Adams, Minneapolis, Minn. Hon. C.C. Andrews, Saint Paul, Minn. Everett H. Bailey, Saint Paul, " Minn." D.A.J. Baker, Saint Paul, " Minn." Gen. James H. Baker, Saint Paul, " Minn." Hon. William L. Banning, Saint Paul, " Minn." Jacob W. Bass, Saint Paul, " Minn." Hon. George L. Becker, Saint Paul, Minn. Hon. Peter Berkey, Saint Paul, " Minn." Hon. ”

“ The whole thing went on exactly as hotels do down in Massachusetts, or the State of New York. Look at the map, and see where St. Paul is. Its distance from all known civilization,—all civilization that has succeeded in obtaining acquaintance with the world at large, is very great. Even American travellers do not go up there in great numbers, excepting those who intend to settle there. A stray sportsman or two, American or English, as the case may be, makes his way into Minnesota for the sake of shooting, and pushes on up through St. ”

“ Daily communication is already had by rail with the cities of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Duluth, and in the near future another, and, perhaps, in some respects; the most important link of all, that connecting St. Paul with Omaha and the Union Pacific Railway, known as the St. Paul and Sioux City Road. This line traverses the most fertile district in the State, as well as the most populous, following up the rich valley of the Minnesota to Mankato, where it leaves the river, holding a southwest direction for Sioux City in Iowa. ”

“ Saint Paul is already a town of the greatest importance on the Upper Mississippi. Her streets teem with business, and boats of all descriptions lie at her wharves. Already a populous city, what she is to-day is but the beginning of what the future will behold her. A generation hence she will count her inhabitants by hundreds where now she counts them by tens; her business will have increased in like proportion; and in the no distant future she will be known as the great metropolis of the Northwest. ”

“ I came to Mankato in the year 1853 on the Steamer Clarion from St. Paul. I was eleven years old. My father, Hoxey Rathbun, had left us at St. Paul while he looked for a place to locate. He went first to Stillwater and St. Anthony, but finally decided to locate at the Great Bend of the Minnesota River. We landed about four o'clock in the morning, and father took us to a little shack he had built on the brow of the hill west of Front Street near the place where the old Tourtelotte Hospital used to be. ”

“ Paul is both the political and commercial capital of Minnesota, and must always remain such without doubt, though it does not occupy a central geographical position, still it is the practical centre of the commonwealth, made such by the enterprise of her people in extending the system of railways in all directions, with this point as a pivotal centre. ”

“ Paul, standing at the barn-door of the Dakota and Minnesota granaries, is all things to all men except to Minneapolis, eleven miles away, whom she hates and by whom she is patronised. She calls herself the capital of the North-West, the new North-West, and her citizens wear, not only the tall silk hat of trade, but the soft slouch of the West. ”

“ The first territorial legislature met at St Paul on the 3rd of September following. By the Federal census of 1850 the territory had a population of 6077, most of whom lived east of the Mississippi, or along the Red river in the extreme north-west. Two treaties negotiated with the Sioux by Luke Lea, commissioner, and Governor Alexander Ramsey in 1851 opened to settlement the greater part of the land within the territory west of the Mississippi, and such an unparalleled rush to the new lands took place that a census taken in 1857 showed a population of 150,037. ”

“ Paul to the head of Lake Superior in 1870 brought that city almost as near salt water as Chicago, and opened the great waterway of the lakes for Minnesota’s grain and lumber, and returning coal and merchandise. Later her annual millions of tons of iron ore have passed down through “The Soo” to Lake Erie ports.
The year following (1871) was abundant in railroad extension. The main line of the Great Northern was extended to Breckenridge on the Red River of the North; the River division of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, prolonged to Winona, shortened the journey to Chicago by many hours ”

“ Anthony as equalling Minneapolis as a place of residence in point of health. Even in the latter city it is important that a home be had as remote from the neighborhood of the Falls as is convenient. Its adaptability to the needs of the invalid consists more in the walks and drives, the ample boarding-house and hotel accommodations, good markets, and cheerful, pleasant society, than in the particular location of the town itself or in the character of the soil on which it is built. ”

“ Paul existed through all the calamity, and its people soon learned the actual necessities of Minnesota. While they mourn the departure of the "good times," many of them express a belief that those happy days were injurious to the permanent prosperity of the State. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Boarding can be had, at the hotels and private houses in the vicinity of the lake, at from seven to ten dollars per week. For the summer season, country life should by all means be the rule. In the inclement portions of the year the towns are most desirable; St. Paul and Minneapolis taking the lead as places of resort, and they are, at these seasons, the most desirable. ”

“ On March 12th, at midnight, we left for St. Paul, Minnesota, 324 miles from Milwaukee; and, after travelling for many miles along the banks of the Upper Mississippi through a beautiful district, reached our destination on the 13th, at 1.25 p.m. After our arrival the cold became so severe, that the thermometer registered 10 degrees below zero, that is, 42 degrees of frost. The next morning (Sunday, 14th) , at Immanuel Church, Mr. Müller held a meeting for the Germans, who form more than [158] half the population of St. Paul ”

“ The average citizen of to-day does not know that such a street ever existed. The Central house, on the corner of Bench and Minnesota streets, was the first hotel of any pretension built in the city, and it was one of the last to be burned. The first session of the territorial legislature of Minnesota was held in the dining room of this old hotel building, and for a number of years the hotel did a thriving business. ”

“ CAPT. E.Y. SHELLY. Much has been written of the trials and tribulations of the pioneer editors of Minnesota and what they have accomplished in bringing to the attention of the outside world the numerous advantages possessed by this state as a place of permanent location for all classes of people, but seldom, if ever, has the nomadic printer, "the man behind the gun," received even partial recognition from the chroniclers of our early history. ”

“ We will close these brief extracts—taken from the writings of persons well qualified to form a sound judgment on the subject they were discussing, and totally unconnected personally with the interests of Minnesota—with two extracts from a speech of the distinguished statesman, Hon. Wm. H. Seward, delivered in St. Paul, the capital of our State, so far back as 1860.
[Pg 17]
Mr. Seward said, and America has not produced so far-seeing a statesman:
"Here is the place—the central place—where the agriculture of the richest region of North America must pour out its tributes to the whole world. ”