USA > Minnesota > Otter Tail County > History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 30
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difficulty. Some have been run over the falls, but this experiment has always been hazardous.
"The earliest record of navigation at this point is that of David Dale Owen, United States geologist, who passed down the river from Otter Tail lake to Pembina in 1848, with a couple of French half-breed companions.
"He tells us in his report that as he was proceeding leisurely down the river, all unconscious of any rapids or any falls, a sudden bend in the river (just where the upper bridge now is) brought them so near the falls that they could not gain the shore, but were drawn over the rapids by the swift current. The boat capsized and a very wet party was the result. Provisions, mathe- matical instruments and outfit generally were watersoaked. This accident necessitated an encampment on the town site of Fergus, and as the geologist probably foresaw a city here, he thought it his duty to fix the latitude for the place; so when his instruments were dried he made observation and reckoned the latitude of the future city to be forty-six degrees thirteen minutes and thirty-four seconds."
STATE AID FOR ROADS AND BRIDGES.
The first act of the state Legislature appropriating money for roads or bridges in Otter Tail county was passed March 6, 1883. In that year four separate acts were passed and specific appropriations were made in each case. The substance of these four acts, all of which were passed on the same day (March 6, 1883), is as follows: First-An appropriation of twenty-one hundred dollars for a bridge across the south fork of Wing river in township 132, range 37, at a point where the Parkers Prairie and Henning roads crossed. This bridge was to be constructed under the direction of A. Beards- ley, John A. Hawkinson and Robert Barker. Second-An appropriation of two hundred and fifty dollars for a bridge over the Pelican river. Third- An appropriation of eight hundred dollars for a bridge over Red river at Fergus Falls, the same to be built under the direction of the city council. Fourth-An appropriation of four hundred dollars for a bridge over Red Eye river. The Legislature of 1885 passed a comprehensive internal improve- ment bill on March 9 (Special Laws, 1885, pp. 196-232) and under Title A 7 (pp. 224-225) is given a list of the bridges of Otter Tail county which received aid. To quote from the act: "Section 1-That the sum of fifteen hundred dollars is hereby appropriated out of any moneys which shall come into the treasury belonging to said fund, not already appropriated, for the purpose hereinafter mentioned, the said sum to be expended as follows :
"First-Three hundred dollars to aid in building a bridge across the Otter Tail river, above Otter Tail lake, between lot 7 and 8 of section 4. township 134, range 39, in said county of Otter Tail, and said bridge, when
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constructed, shall be kept in repair by said township, and be forever free from toll.
"Second-Two hundred dollars to aid in building two bridges and approaches thereto, across Leaf river, as follows: One bridge in the town of Deer Creek, where the Parkers Prairie and the New York Mills county road crosses Leaf river, near the center of section 16 in said town, in Otter Tail county.
"Third-Two hundred dollars to aid in building a bridge and approaches thereto, across Leaf river, at the outlet of Lake Inman, on the county road, between Wadena and Henning, near the line between the towns of Henning and Inman, all of said bridge and approaches being in the county of Otter Tail.
"Fourth-Three hundred dollars to aid in building and improving a road across Leaf Lake bottom, between sections 17 and 18 in the town of Deer Creek in county of Otter Tail.
"Fifth-Five hundred dollars to aid the city of Fergus Falls in Otter Tail county in grading Union avenue to and through state addition to Fergus Falls, between Rose and Beach avenues.
"Section 2-That the bridges mentioned in subdivisions one, two and three of section one shall be built under the direction of the county commis- sioners of Otter Tail county; the road mentioned in subdivision four of sec- tion one shall be built under the direction of the supervisors of the street commissioner of the said city of Fergus Falls, Otter Tail county, Minnesota.
"Section 3-That Homer Crocker, K. Peterson and O. C. Chase, all of Otter Tail county, Minnesota, are hereby appointed a committee on the part of the state to view said bridges, road and avenue mentioned in said sub- divisions one, two, three, four and five, of section one, when said bridges and road are completed and the grading done on said Union avenue, and to examine all contracts, vouchers and accounts respecting the said bridges, road and avenue, and to ascertain and fix the cost of building said bridges and road and of grading said Union avenue, and to make a report of such cost to the state auditor.
"Section 4-Upon the receipt of said report by the state auditor, he shall, upon demand of the county treasurer of Otter Tail county, draw his order in favor of said county treasurer, on the state treasurer, for money belonging to said fund for the cost of said bridges, road and avenue, as reported by said committee, and not to exceed the sum of fifteen hundred dollars, and the state treasurer shall pay over such money to the county treasurer of said county, upon said order, and such money shall be disbursed by said county treasurer, upon the order of said committee above mentioned, in payment of the cost of said bridges, road and said Union avenue."
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LEGISLATIVE ACT OF 1897.
Other acts were passed from time to time extending aid to the county, but it was not until April 9, 1897, that any considerable appropriation was made in any one year. On this date a comprehensive act (Chapter 102, Minnesota Laws, 1897) made seven separate appropriations for roads and bridges in Otter Tail county. Tabulated, this act may be summed up as follows :
I. $25 for road in Compton and Bluffton townships.
2. $50 for bridge over Bear creek; similar amount for bridge over Wolf creek.
3. $150 for road in Nidaros, Folden and Effington townships.
4. $150 for bridge over Toad river on line between Otter Tail and Becker counties.
5. $100 for bridge over Red river in Buse township (section 6).
6. $75 for ditch opening Lakes Anna, Dagmar and Fish.
7. $300 for bridge over Pelican river in Erhards Grove township (sec- tion 4).
PRESENT ROAD CONDITIONS.
Otter Tail county, with its land area of two thousand thirty-nine square miles, has an estimated mileage of roads totalling three thousand miles. Of this total, the last report (January 1, 1915) gives only two hundred miles as being improved and this does not mean that all of this mileage is graveled. Much of this so-called improved mileage is only surfaced with clay, which, although it is a decided improvement over a road not so treated, yet falls short of being an improved road at all times of the year. When it is taken into consideration that the county had an assessed valuation of $14,047,008 in 1914, it may be seen that it has not been because of the poverty of the county that no more miles of improved roads have been built. The 1910 census gave the county a population of 46,036 and this has increased until it has passed the 50,000 mark. Averaging the valuation and population of the county, it shows that for each mile of road there are .68 square miles of area, a valuation of $4,682 and a population of 15.3 persons. So much for valua- tion, population and actual road mileage in the county.
A study of roadmaking in Otter Tail county shows that the topography is such that it takes more than the usual amount to construct highways. A glance at the map of the county discloses the fact that it is thickly dotted with lakes, something over fifteen hundred being large enough to be dignified with names, and where such a large number of lakes abound there are certain to be long stretches of low, swampy ground. The commissioners' records are full of petitions for corduroy roads and bridges and thirty and forty years ago there were literally miles of fine timber laid across sloughs in various parts
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of the county. The corduroy has disappeared, along with the pioneers who made it, but the bridges, like the poor, will always be found in Otter Tail county. The last report of the county engineer shows that there are three hundred and fifty bridges in the county ten feet or more in length. The money spent in building the five bridges across Red river in Fergus Falls would pave several blocks, and in explaining the reason why the county seat and many villages of the county have poor streets, it must be remembered that if they did not have to put money into bridges there would be much better streets. The farmer in the rural districts can struggle through a few feet of mud, but when it comes to driving his team through ten feet of water it is a much different proposition.
Fortunately, the county has an abundance of gravel and clay for road- making purposes, although it is not evenly distributed over the county. Around the village of Dalton, northeast and west of the county seat, and in a few other places in the county road surfacing material is not abundant. The village of Perham is compelled to haul clay a distance of three miles, but few places in the county are at a greater distance from an available supply of good gravel or sand. The state took up the building of roads in earnest in 1914 and now has fund which is being distributed to the counties of the state. Last year the state spent the immense sum of $2,862.995.96 for road and culvert work in the various counties and, in addition, paid out $323, 111.27 for maintenance. At this point it seems pertinent to briefly summarize what experts have estimated as the cost of a "good road."
It should be said at the outset that these figures can be but averages, since conditions vary so widely that roads in one county may cost twice as much as in another, and roads in the same county may show as much variance in cost of construction. The character of the roadbed to begin with, the proximity of roadmaking material, the value of the land through which the road is to be built and the density of the population are factors which must be taken into consideration when the cost is figured. The experts employed by the state estimate the average cost of grading as $1,243.03 per mile, $236.00 per mile for blade grader work, with a general average of $830.00 per mile for dirt road construction. The average cost of gravelling on state roads is $831.70 per mile, and this means that an average of 1,000 cubic yards of gravel is used to the mile. The average cost of maintenance was $44.67 per mile and ranged from $7.77 in Cottonwood county to $280.65 in Ramsey county.
In 1914 Otter Tail county spent $24,106 for construction of highways, the state furnishing $14,759.40 of the amount. Of the maintenance cost of $6,143.97, the state furnished $3,500. The following table shows the
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total amount paid out for construction, the totals representing both the amounts paid by the county and the state :
Clearing and grubbing, 7.75 acres
$ 420.00
Grading, 22.37 miles 17,456.50
Turnpiking, 1.25 miles 399.00
Gravelling, 1.76 miles 2,829.00
Clay surfacing, 2.67 miles 1,151.50 1
Corrugated metal culverts, 68 in number 1,043.00
Steel bridge, thirty feet long 1,300.00
The work in Otter Tail county was all done under the direction of Martin Aalberg, the district engineer, a man of several years' experience and well qualified for the position which he holds.
The county owns five sets of road tools, each set consisting of a twenty- seven-hundred-pound grader, five No. 2 wheel scrapers, four drag scrapers (slushers) and one road plow. In addition, each township has its own roadmaking tools. As a result of concentrated work on the roads of the county within the past few years, the following roads may be considered as the best in the county: The road three miles southwest of the village of Pelican Rapids on state road No. 2 along the Pelican river; another stretch on the same road three miles southwest of Erhard; the road between the villages of Clitherall and Battle Lake along the shores of Lake Clitherall; the road leading east from Fergus Falls toward Battle Lake (known as road No. 5) ; the road leading out of the village of Battle Lake toward Henning; five miles of road in the northwestern part of Aurdal township.
It is the conclusion of Martin Aalberg, the district engineer, that the people of the county are well satisfied with the work on the state roads. In many of the townships people do not seem to like the paying of their road taxes in money, preferring to work them out in the old way. How- ever, in arguing this point, most fair-minded citizens agree that the new law is better than the old; that is, provided that the township board does its full duty and appoints a man for road builder who really understands how to make roads. It is safe to say that within the next few years the roads of the county will show the effects of the new law and that better roads will be the result.
The state highway commission during the first week in March. 1916, apportioned one million five hundred thousand dollars road and bridge funds among the counties of this state. Of this immense sum. Otter Tail county was given twenty thousand dollars, which was not as much as the county expected to receive. At their January meeting the county commissioners made a provisional appropriation of thirty thousand dollars to be expended on the roads during 1916, provided, however, that the state highway com-
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mission apportioned to the county an equal amount. The county had hardly expected to get the full thirty thousand dolars, but did think that the state commission would grant them twenty-five thousand dollars. The largest appropriation any county in the state received was thirty-five thousand dol- lars, and this amount was given to each of three counties, Hennepin. Ramsey and St. Louis. Each county in the state receives about two and a third per cent. of the total funds, the law providing that not more than three per cent. shall go to any one county. It is further provided that each county shall receive at least one per cent. of the amount distributed, so that no county receives less than fifteen thousand dollars for 1916. The great majority of the counties of this state received this minimum amount, only twenty-four out of the eighty-three receiving amounts in excess of this figure, and eleven of the total number of counties in the state receiving more than Otter Tail county.
At the time this volume went to press the commissioners had not decided on how the twenty thousand dollars was to be prorated among the various townships of the county. At their meeting the first week in March they selected about twenty different roads wihch were to receive aid from the state fund. The largest amount appropriated for any one township was three thousand dollars, this amount being set aside for use in Dane Prairie.
RAILROADS IN OTTER TAIL COUNTY.
The railroad in Otter Tail county is an integral part of the history life and development of the county. Without the railroad Otter Tail county would not be the county it is today by several thousand people ; had the building of the road through the county in 1871 been postponed a decade, the actual development of the county would have been postponed for that many years. Again, the building of the line through Fergus Falls in 1879 gave the city an impetus which started it on the road to its present prosperity. The great majority of the people of this county have been brought here by the railroad. It is safe to say that the railroad has been the means of making the county what it is today, and yet there are some who fail to realize the incalculable benefit which it has been to the county.
Three companies have lines running through Otter Tail county, each company running its trains from St. Paul. on the east. to Puget Sound, on the west. Two of these lines. the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern, were built through the county in the seventies, while the other line. the Saulte Ste. Marie. known as the Soo line, was not built through the county until 1901. The history of the first two railroads is closely interwoven with the early history of the county. During the decade. 1870-80, there was hardly a year that the railroad question was not a live issue in Otter Tail county, and it was not until after the first train came into Fergus Falls, in the fall of 1879, that
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the question became settled as far as the county seat was concerned. Before taking up the history of the railroads of the county, it is necessary to review briefly the history of railroads in Minnesota.
As in other western territories and states, Minnesota was dependent upon Congress for aid in the construction of railroads and, fortunately for the future development of the country, Congress was disposed to be very generous with the public domain. The great railroad companies of the West had their inception in the East, and ordinarily it was Eastern capital and brains, added to Western land and energy, which built the railroads from the Mississippi westward to the Rocky mountains and the Pacific coast. Not unfrequently there were unscrupulous capitalists who engaged in promoting railroads in the western territories for the sole purpose of fleecing the public. These pseudo-empire builders even went so far as to use their influence, backed by money, in the halls of Congress in efforts to get legislation in their interest.
An instance of this kind is concerned with a bill introduced in Congress in 1854. making a grant of Minnesota land for the construction of a road from St. Paul to Lake Superior. This bill gave the company twenty .sections per mile for building it. While the bill was in the hands of the enrolling committee, some fraudulent changes were made in its provisions in interest of the construction company. As result of this discovery, after the bill had passed both houses and was in the hands of the President, it was recalled by the House of Representatives which had originated the bill, the fraudulent passage was pointed out and further consideration of the bill was indefinitely postponed. As a further consequence, railroad enterprises in this state re- ceived a check from which they did not recover for some time.
The first statute of Congress pertaining to railroads in Minnesota was passed March 3, 1857, (U. S. Statutes at Large, Vol. II, 195-196), under the title of "An act making a grant of land to the Territory of Minnesota, in alternate sections, to aid in the construction of certain railroads in said terri- tory." This statute furnished the basis for the first railroad in Minnesota and with subsequent acts of Congress made it possible to construct the great trunk lines through the state. The act of 1858 provided the initial means for the railroad which was to run from the eastern boundary of the territory, on the St. Croix river, westward through St. Paul to the western boundary of the state, with a branch running from St. Anthony (now the eastern part of Minneapolis) northward to the navigable waters of the Red river of the North at such a point as the Legislature might afterwards designate. The act further sets aside six square miles for each mile of the road completed within a specified time, "six sections in width on each side of each said road and branches."
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This act placed in the hands of Minnesota, still a territory, a magnificent grant of nearly nine million acres to aid in the construction of the several projected trunk lines through her bounds. The roads specified were as fol- low: From Stillwater, on the Mississippi, by way of St. Paul and St. An- thony Falls, to a point at the foot of Big Stone lake and the mouth of the Sioux Wood river, with a branch by way of St. Cloud and Crow Wing to the navigable waters of the Red river of the North. Several others roads that had been projected were included in the provisions of the grant.
An extra session of the territorial Legislature of Minnesota was called as soon as the governor received news from Washington of the passage of the bill of March 3, 1857. The Legislature convened in May, 1857, to accept the grant with the provisions as set forth by Congress, and to devise means and lay plans to build some of the proposed roads. The act of May 21, 1857, was the first attempt on the part of the state to construct a railroad within its limits. The general nature of the act is indicated by its title-"To execute the trust created by the act of Congress entitled 'An act making a grant of land to the Territory of Minnesota in alternate sections to aid in the con- struction of certain railroads in said territory,' and granting certain lands to companies therein named." Work was begun in 1857 on a part of the right of way between St. Paul and St. Anthony, but before any rails were laid all work was suspended. The financial panic of 1857, which was sweeping over the country, stopped the work on the little road, and the state was compelled to wait for five years before any more work was done in railroad construction within its limits.
The next step in the railroad history of the state is marked by the legis- lative act of March 3, 1861. This act was to aid in the construction of the Minnesota & St. Paul railroad, which company, by the way, was practically the same as the first one organized, the Minnesota & Pacific railroad. The act specifically provided that the state would release the company from all liens or claims held against it by the state upon condition that the company "shall commence the construction of that portion of said road or branch extending from St. Paul to St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids on or before the first day of July next, and put the same into operation, fully equipped for busi- ness, within eighteen months thereafter."
Following the action of the Minnesota Legislature, Congress again comes to the aid of the state.
On July 12, 1862, Congress passed a resolution authorizing the state of Minnesota to change the line of certain branch railroads in the state. An act of the territorial Legislature (May 22, 1857), was the first step on the part of the territory to take advantage of the federal statute of March 3, 1857. On this latter date the Legislature chartered the first railroad in the territory
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under the title of the Minnesota and Pacific Railroad. As soon as this charter was granted work was begun on the road, but financial reverses stopped all work before a single rail was laid and further progress in railroad construc- tion was delayed until 1862. The resolution of Congress, adopted July 12, 1862, was followed by action on the part of the state Legislature which lead to the reopening of work on the road which had been abandoned in 1857. The resolution gave the state the right to change the route of the road and author- ized a branch to Lake Superior, Congress again granting the state "the alter- nate sections within the six-mile limits of such new branch line of route as the authorities of the state may designate." It might be said in this connection that the new charter granted in 1862 to the St. Paul & Pacific Company, prac- tically the same company organized in 1857 as the Minnesota & Pacific Rail- road, was followed by active work on the part of the promoters. The graded portion between St. Paul and St. Anthony was completed the same year, iron rails were laid under the supervision of E. F. Drake, and on June 28, 1862. the first locomotive in Minnesota, named the "William Crooks." (so called in honor of the chief engineer of the road), ran over the completed line between St. Paul and St. Anthony. But once more all work was suspended and for three years the question of railroad extension lay dormant.
The experience of the men in building railroads in the state up to 1862 had shown them that it was going to be very difficult to sell a sufficient amount of land to extend the road beyond St. Anthony ( Minneapolis). The Civil War stopped all work on railroads throughout the United States except on those lines directly connected with the prosecution of the war. With the close of that struggle and the subsequent rapid immigration into the state of Minne- sota, the men behind the St. Paul & Pacific tried for the third time to get their road started across the state. For the third time Congress was appealed to for assistance and for the third time that body responded in a generous manner, The federal act of March 3, 1865, increased the land grant to rail- roads in Minnesota to "ten sections per mile on each side of said railroad and branches," but with the proviso, "That the land to be so located shall in no case be further than twenty miles from the lines of such roads and branches." This generous increase in the land grant, together with the rapid influx of settlers to those parts of the state where it was proposed to build railroads, gave the necessary impetus to railroad construction. By the fall of 1871 the St. Paul & Pacific had constructed a line from Minneapolis west and north through Wilmar, Benson and Morris to Breckenridge, a distance of two hun- dred fifteen miles. The Northern Pacific railroad by the same year (1871) had built from Duluth to Moorhead westward on their projected line to Puget Sound. This was the first line to reach Otter Tail county and the road which
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