Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 32

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190

USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 32

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This addition to the Blake building provides a gym- nasium, which will become the school chapel when the entire building is completed; a large "fun-room" in the basement, locker and shower rooms, and a large reading room.

The school opened in the fall of 1913 with 130 pupils and 16 applicants were obliged to wait or to be turned away. The teaching staff has grown to twelve men, including a physical director.

The Blake School, as has been already indicated. makes no profit. Its tuition of $250 a year and its luncheon charge of 35 cents a meal enabled it to cover expenses in its second year, and no more. Every parent who has a boy in the school gets not only his money's worth, but the value of the grounds, building and equipment. which form a splendid donation to the assets of Minneapolis.

Of the eighteen schools of this type now in exist- ence in the United States, only one surpasses Blake in extent of grounds, and this school is fifteen years

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old. The Blake School is, already, in its third year, third in size and in value of grounds and buildings, and first in the number and generosity of its gifts, among all similar schools in the country, ---- surely a record Minneapolis may be proud of !

The School is democratic. Its boys are not allowed to go to school in automobiles. Teachers and boys take the trolley cars together. Every boy stands, · with the teachers and with his fellows, on his own merits. The School teaches by precept and example that wealth means responsibility rather than privi- lege. In its course of study Blake School aims at simplicity and thoroughness. Only the tested essen- tials and fundamentals are taught. It prepares a boy for any University. It is unique in beginning its courses in Latin, French, and German early so as to gain a start in these subjects at the period from ten to thirteen, when a boy memorizes easily, and to prevent overcrowding and consequent "smattering" work. Above all, through and in its work and play, it aims for a high standard of thoroughness, honesty, loyalty, and fair play. It tries to furnish discipline tempered with wholesome fun, hard work buttressed by healthy recreation, justice administered with con- sideration and sympathy.

THE REAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE UNIVERSITY.

The same years which saw the real beginnings of the public school system of the twin communities like- wise witnessed the real founding of the University of Minnesota on the older portion of the present campus. Financial panic and war's distractions had held back or rendered abortive all efforts which had early been directed toward establishing such an insti- tution, so that about all that existed toward a univer- sity was an extensive land grant. At last, in 1867, a special commission, consisting of John S. Pills- bury, O. C. Merriman, and John Nicols, brought things to the point of finding assets on which to make a beginning of what is now a great seat of education. Rev. W. W. Washburn was made principal, and the preparatory department was opened in the old build- ing where years before a similar effort had been made, only to fail. And by 1869 the Board of Regents had made such progress that it felt war- ranted in establishing a college course. William W. Folwell was elected President and was inaugurated December 22, 1869. It was not until that time-so many had been the demands upon the creative facul- ties of the citizens of Minneapolis and Minnesota- that the University of Minnesota as it exists today may be said to have become a real entity in the educa- tional system of the city and State.

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDED.

Some of the same men and women who had now found it possible to busy themselves in creating and

building up the public and governmental institutions of the communities,-the institutions first represented by public schools,-had by the close of the war brought the Atheneum, the city's nearest approach to a public library, up to the point of the erection of a building to house its books and readers. The library of the Atheneum, founded in 1859, with a total of sixty-eight volumes, had increased to 1,300 volumes in 1865. Its affairs were in the hands of S. C. Gale as president and Thomas Hale Williams as librarian. By 1870 the number of volumes was 2,300, and Dr. Kirby Spencer's will had enriched the library society by his bequest of property that has since come to be worth $1,000,000. And by 1872, the year of the con- solidation of Minneapolis and St. Anthony, Atheneum property was valued at $40,000.

BEGINNING OF THE PARK SYSTEM.

The history of Minneapolis schools and that of its Public Library may be taken as the largest indication of the city's cultural sensibilities. But the history of the park system, though it may be traced back almost as far, fails to reveal general appreciation of the needs of a municipality in this particular. To be sure, as early as 1858, at a banquet in the new Nicol- let House, the subject of a park was brought up and the banqueters inspired to talk loudly of taking up a subscription and buying, for $500, a considerable tract between Washington Avenue and the river, in- cluding all of what is now known as Gateway Park. But the zeal of the citizens cooled next day, and there is no early-day narrative which includes further men- tion of parks until 1865, when there was a movement on the part of some of the residents of the West side to acquire Nicollet Island for park purposes. The next year saw the proposition-to buy the entire isl- and for $28,000-voted upon by the people of Minne- apolis-voted upon, and voted down. In 1868 George A. Brackett bought forty acres of land, which in- cluded the site of Fair Oaks and the Morrison man- sions of a later day-the site of the Art Museum begun in 1912-and vainly for several years tried to induce the city to take the land over for a public park at a cost of $16,000. Less than half a century later Mr. Brackett saw the purchase of Gateway Park for $635,000, and the purchase of Fair Oaks for $275 .- 000, to add to the park site of the Art Museum, valued at $200,000 by its donor, Clinton Morrison. Both tracts, that at the Gateway and the other at the Art Museum, the city had rejected, only to pay many times their first price, in later years.

Thus the consolidated cities of Minneapolis and St. Anthony in 1872 possessed no park system. It had the nucleus of one in Murphy Square, set aside as a public park by Edward Murphy, when he platted his Addition to the town of Minneapolis, in the early sixties. But it was too young to have a park spirit.

CHAPTER XVI.

FROM THE CONSOLIDATION OF THE CITIES AT THE FALLS TO THE PRESENT.

MINNEAPOLIS AS A MUNICIPALITY-FIRST CITY GOVERNMENT-EXPANSION OF THE CITY.AND ITS TRIBUTARY COUN- TRY-THE CITY GROWS CONSTANTLY STRONGER-ENCOUNTERS AND PASSES PANICS AND OTHER OBSTACLES TO PROSPERITY-A STREET RAILWAY IS BUILT-OTHER FEATURES OF STRENGTH ARE SECURED-THE YEAR 1880 OPENS THE DOORS TO A GREAT BUSINESS BOOM LASTING SIX YEARS-A PARK SYSTEM INAUGURATED-PROGRESS ALONG ALL LINES-A GAIN IN POPULATION OF 118,000 FROM 1880 TO 1890-MORE RAILROAD BUILDING-THE EXPOSITION IS CREATED-THE OLD "MOTOR LINE"-THE STREET RAILWAY ADOPTS ELECTRICITY AS A MOTIVE POWER-BIG PUBLIC BUILDINGS ARE ERECTED-THE CENSUS WAR WITH ST. PAUL IN 1890-THE GREAT BOOM BURSTS, BUT TIIE SHOCK IS SURVIVED-NEW INDUSTRIES FOUNDED AND OLD ONES STRENGTHENED-TRADE CON- DITIONS BECOME WORTHY OF PRIDE AND BOASTING-DURING THE WAR WITH SPAIN-EFFORTS AT CHARTER CHANGING-SOME CENSUS FIGURES OF 1900-PROGRESS IN CULTURE AND REFINEMENT-THE NEWSPAPERS- CIVIC ORGANIZATIONS-RECENT IMPORTANT HISTORICINCIDENTS, ETC.

MINNEAPOLIS AS A MUNICIPALITY.

It is a remarkable fact that the history of Minne- apolis as a single municipality, inelusive of the old City of St. Anthony and the original Minneapolis of the west side of the river: did not have its beginning until 1872, twenty-four years after the older of its two component parts had been platted, and seventeen years after St. Anthony had been incorporated as a eity. St. Anthony, undisturbed by problems of title. had passed normally from village government to eity incorporation in 1855 and was definitely divided into wards, with a eity couneil and a mayor. But Minne- apolis, on the west side, was too busy, too often in the dark as to title to its lots, or too seriously disturbed by finaneial panie or by war's stress, to pay much attention to its form of government.

And so, chiefly because their first years on the lands west of the Falls were somewhat different years from the first years of the older settlement, the people of the West side were content with a town form of government for a considerable number of years. They had their eounty government; for as early as 1856 the courthouse of Hennepin County was estab- lished at what is now Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue South : and for fifteen years from the nam- ing of the settlement its people went forward, con- scious of no hampering faetor in their remaining under a town government.

On the east side of the river was eouneil govern- ment, with aldermen and a mayor, and on the west side, town government at first, with a board of trustees headed by a president whose powers were about like those of the mayor's on the east side. The city on the east side. as stated. formed its govern- ment in 1855. with Henry T. Welles as Mayor: and three years later, when the town of Minneapolis or- ganized its first government. Henry T. Welles had moved aeross the river and he was elected head of the board of trustees. Isaae I. Lewis. Charles Hoag.

namer of the city, William Garland, and Edward Hedderly were the first trustees.

FIRST CITY GOVERNMENT.

For four years Minneapolis held to town govern- ment; then joined with the township government as by merger, and continued in this loose governmental organization until 1867. Then, the Legislature hav- ing granted a charter. for the first time the people came to the dignity of eity government. Dorilus Morrison was the first. Mayor and F. R. E. Cornell was President of the Couneil. Aeross the river, O. C. Merriman was Mayor, and a community as like to that on the west side as it is possible to be was earrying on a government of the same kind. Sep- arate fire departments, separate police departments were necessary; they were separate communities as truly as if they had been miles apart instead of on opposite banks of the river. And by the latter part of the decade of 1860 both communities were seeing the need of systems of waterworks and fire protec- tion, as well as other convenienees of a eity having each a population of several thousands, rapidly in- ereasing in numbers. Need of sewage systems was also apparent.

MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. ANTHONY CONSOLIDATED.

Common needs and common interests were diseussed on both sides of the river. But it was not until 1872 that the rival communities, each with its city government, could arrive at a common state of mind. agreeing on compromises and eoneessions, and vote to consolidate their governments as the eity of Minne- apolis. Not the least of the compromises was the elimination of the name of the older community of St. Anthony.

The consolidated eity was divided at first into ten wards. Twenty-sixth Avenue North was the north-

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ern boundary, and Franklin Avenue approximately the southern. April 9, 1872, was the date of organi- zation of the new City Council and of the municipal government of the greater city. The first Mayor was Eugene M. Wilson; the first President of the Coun- cil was A. M. Reid, and the other Aldermen werc Richard Fewer, M. W. Glenn, G. T. Townsend, Bald- win Brown, Captain John Vander Horck, T. J. Tut- tle, W. P. Ankeny, Peter Rouen, C. M. Hardenburgh, Samuel C. Gale, O. A. Pray, Leonard Day, Edward Murphy, N. B. Hill, Isaac Atwater, John Orth, and Joel B. Bassett. Thomas Hale Williams was the first clerk. Thus it may be seen that the greater city had auspicious beginnings, for its officials were for the most part men who were leaders in all the commer- cial, social, and other affairs of the city. Not more than two of the men named survived at the time this history of their first Council was written.

THE CITY AND TRIBUTARY COUNTRY EXPAND ALIKE.

The year 1872, marked by the municipal union of Minneapolis and St. Anthony, was about the mid- dle year in a period of astonishing State develop- ment; but, though the population of Minneapolis. which was about 22,000 in the year of con- solidation, more than doubled in a decade, the population of the agricultural districts of the Northwest also increased rapidly and in proportion. It was a time of great migration and settlement, and the forward strides of Minnesota in this period werc but those which believers in the workings of Provi- dence associate with the purposes expressed in the upbuilding of the flour and lumber industries at the Falls of St. Anthony. Here was a great manufactur- ing opportunity with its water power; here was a State rich in soil and fitting in climate to the needs of the agriculturist ; and here was the influx of great migration in the years following the Civil War, in- terrupted at times and nevertheless enhanced by financial panic which itself drove other thousands to the soil. It was natural that the farm development far outstripped the city's growth ; and it was natural, too, that the forward-looking men of the city, their interests united at last, went out into the Northwest to help in its development.

By 1872 Minnesota had come to have railroad mile- age of nearly 2,000 miles, much of which linked the wheat producer with the milling facilities and the wheat market of Minneapolis. The wheat production of the State was nearly twenty million bushels-the product of the greatest wheat State in the Union. Minneapolis men, led by H. T. Welles, W. D. Wash- burn, J. S. Pillsbury, and others of that group of men foremost in most big affairs in this city at that time, had begun the enterprise which constructed direct rail connection with Lake Superior and later laid the rails of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway south- ward and westward without a land grant. The Pa- cific roads had reached the Red River Valley and the Northern border. The lines of advancement were far flung, and Minneapolis was the gateway to a great and growing empire.

THE CITY GROWS STRONGER AND STRONGER.

Within its borders, its own institutions were going ahead evenly and surely. Since 1867 the city had read the daily newspaper, the Tribune, built on a consolidation of "Bill" King's State Atlas and Col. Stevens's Chronicle. Since 1867 the city had possessed a full-fledged theater, the Pence Opera House, destined for many years to be a factor in the amusements of the people. In 1871 the Academy of Music was built and took place higher than the Pence. Since 1870 the people who could afford to pay for it had the convenience of illuminating gas, furnished by a company promoted by men still active in the same business. For seven years the city had been in telegraphic connection with the outside world, though for a long time a single telegraph wirc had sufficed to carry the business. The city's schools were growing in educational leadership, the city's other elements of culture were gaining vigor. And in the important item of commercial union the foundation had been laid for organized, concerted effort which still endures (though under another name), with the same purposes as that Board of Trade which was in- corporated in 1867 when it was twelve years old, and which for a quarter of a century more promoted the interests of the community and of the State, and then gave way only to a re-organization and strengthen- ing of the same component parts. This old Board of Trade had as its leaders such men as Dorilus Mor- rison, W. D. Washburn, S. C. Gale, C. M. Loring, J. S. Pillsbury, E. J. Phelps, J. T. Wyman, and B. F. Nel- son, and its enterprises were so well carried forward as to make the organization a model for business interests of other cities.

ENCOUNTERS AND PASSES PANICS.

In the history of Minneapolis may be found a series of remarkably interesting coincidences of success and disaster, of the survival of community spirit above appalling discouragement. This was the case in 1855 to 1860, when the appreciation of great opportunity preceded by only a ycar or two the financial panic of 1857. It came again in the first half of the '60s, when recovery from panic times met with the terrible effect of war upon the progress of the nation. And- when the municipalities had been knit. into one and the whole prospect was bright with promise, there fell upon the nation another financial disaster, the panic of 1873-the strong men and women of Minneapolis were obliged to prove again the stuff of which their city was made. It is a singular circumstance that the men who pulled the city through the other diffi- culties were among the leaders in this other survival. New blood had been added since the war, but the cap- tains of the earlier time were still the custodians of the city's fate, and all through the story of the first fifty years these names recur again and again. They were the men who built the mills, who laid the rail- roads, who founded the commercial, civic, and cul- tural institutions of Minneapolis. With rare excep- tions they were builders of permanence; hardly a

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name among the leaders of the first quarter century of the community by the Falls is linked with flotation that was impermanent, or cloudy, or disgraceful. The men who laid the foundations of Minneapolis, as the Twentieth Century knows it, were doers, were build- ers, were partners of Opportunity in its best sense.

Coineidenee followed coincidenee in the period be- tween 1870 and 1880. As the panic of 1857 had its reaction of confidence and its succeeding disaster of war, so the panic of 1873 had its later period of re- covery which was shattered in a way by disaster. For in 1875 there came upon the State the grasshopper plague, which smote with poverty great areas of wheat- produeing farms and for three years clogged the advancement of Minnesota and the growth and pros- perity of Minneapolis.

Yet through all these years the people went for- ward, alarmed at times but never surrendering in their purpose to raise up a eity by the Falls. It was "never say die" with the builders. Proof of this may be found in the history of the beginnings of a street railway system in Minneapolis. And that his- tory begins in one of the darkest times known to the city.

BUILDS A STREET RAILWAY.

Prior to 1870 an effort had been made by Dorilus Morrison. W. S. King, and others to construet a street railway line. They had gone so far as to lay rails down Second Street South from Nicollet to Cedar Avenue, and to buy a steam locomotive. But that is as far as the enterprise got ; no car was ever run, and all except Morrison and Colonel King dropped the idea for a time. But in 1873 the splendid optimism, which was undaunted by panic in finanee, revived the traction idea, and a company was ineorporated by Messrs. Morrison, King, W. D. Washburn, R. J. Men- denhall. W. P. Westfall, J. C. Oswald, Paris Gibson, W. W. Eastman, W. W. McNair, and R. B. Langdon -the same group of men who may be found in other transportation enterprises of the time. Philo Osgood, an Eastern capitalist, was interested, and beeame principal stockholder, and the financing went for- ward. Mr. Osgood was the first president, with Mr. King as secretary.

By 1875 the promotion had gone ahead to such a point that the first construction was begun, and early in the fall a horse-ear line was put in operation. This first ear line started at the old station of the St. Panl & Paeifie Railway, near Washington and Fourth Avenues North, and extended down Washington to Hennepin, down Hennepin and aeross the suspension bridge, np Central Avenne to Fourth Street, and down Fourth Street Southeast to Fourteenth Avenue. It linked the principal railway terminal with the State University district and passed through the heart of the city. Its rails were of strap-iron laid on wooden stringers, its motive power mostly mule, its ears di. minutive, its facilities meagre. But it was a street railway.

Into its directorate and list of offieers had come a man who was to play a leading part in the develop-

ment of a great city. For Thomas Lowry, seeing the opportunities of eity expansion by means of ex- tending its traction facilities, had become interested in the street railway company, and had been elected its viee president. It was an event of great moment to the eity, although the circumstance went hardly notieed at the time. But there entered the man who was to put his whole energy into ereating a street railway system, and who was to become perhaps the best loved man among all the builders of the eity. That first year of the horse ears, on the first single line, daily receipts averaged about $40. Service began at 5 a. m. and ended at 11 p. m. The fare was 5 eents.

Within a year after the first line had been opened, another had been constructed, down Washington from Plymouth Avenue to Twelfth Avenue South. And every year thereafter saw extension of the system. And every extension and improvement absorbed divi- dends. By 1878 Mr. Lowry had become president of the company, and the poliey of expansion had been definitely adopted, to the end that, aceording to offi- eials of the present company, not a single dividend was deelared from 1875 until 1899, every eent of profit, when there was any, going into betterments.

With the construction of a street railway system, Minneapolis began to dream dreams. Betterment of transportation facilities gave reason for a larger sense of metropolitan importance ..

OTHER FEATURES OF STRENGTH AND PROSPERITY.

In 1874 a city hall had been erected on Bridge Square, and the following year a new suspension bridge had replaced that which had been constructed twenty years previously, linking the East and West Divisions, as the two portions of the city were called. Shortly afterwards other bridges, one at Plymouth Avenue on the north and one at Tenth Avenue on the south, had been built aeross the river. By 1878 the Federal Government completed its work of mak- ing permanent the apron and retaining wall of St. Anthony Falls, saved from destruetion ten years be- fore only by strenuous effort of the citizens when the limestone ledge had been undermined by the water. because of ill-advised tunneling operations. By 1879 the city reached the dignity of having a paid fire department to succeed the volunteer organization which had endeavored sinee 1867 to safeguard against fire. And there was a good beginning toward a waterworks system, though most of the mains were crude wooden pipes until shortly before 1880.

THE YEAR 1880 OPENS ALL THE DOORS TO GROWTH AND PROSPERITY.

Thus, when Minneapolis entered the deeade begin- ning with the year 1880, recovered from the financial setbacks of panie and grasshopper times and began taking on metropolitan ways. it followed that busi- ness expansion must go side by side with the agri- cultural advancement which had at last begnn. The population of the city in 1870 had been 18.000; now it had reached 46,887. Manufactures had begun to

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include other industries than flour and sawmills. The city was the gateway to a great and prosperous farm- ing territory, which was being brought in closer touch by means of railroad extension.

And so Minneapolis and its people began to dream dreams which they mistook for visions of immediate and enormous growth. And out of those dreams came the boom times which made and unmade thousands. By 1885 real estate activity became seemingly the chief factor of daily life; valuations were inflated astound- ingly when viewed in a calmer age. Additions were platted far out from the city's center, and the prices of lots leaped to figures which even the growth of a quar- ter of a century since would not justify at the present time. The period of real estate inflation is almost coincident with the limits of the decade, from 1880 to 1890. It ended in disaster for many individuals, in depression for the entire city for a time. But in some ways it was worth all it cost, in that it led to an era of sanity made more wholesome by the lessons taught. And while it was a boom time, it was like- wise a time of manufacturing development on which was laid the foundation for much of the present in- dustrial leadership. And as the people dreamed large dreams, they absorbed larger tendencies, conducing to the improvement of the city as a whole.

CREATION OF THE PARK SYSTEM.

Thus it was of the expansion of Minneapolis that the park system was born. There had been efforts toward a "city beautiful" in the earlier attempt to acquire Nicollet Island for a park, and in other pro- motion of the park idea which had only resulted in failure. But now the city regarded itself in a more exalted, if a more grandiose, light, and some expres- sion of a desire for municipal beautification was in- evitable. True, there had been healthy agitation toward the creation of a park system, in the proceed- ings of the Board of Trade. And the enabling act of the Legislature, which authorized the creation of a park commission, was passed in 1883, before the boom had gone far along. But it was on the boom that the park idea sailed to realization, and so. Minneapolis may thank the boom for her parks, almost as much as she may express appreciation of C. M. Loring's efforts by christening him "Father of the Park Sys- tem." Mr. Loring was the first president of the park commission, A. A. Ames was vice president, and R. J.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 32

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190