USA > Minnesota > Stearns County > History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 3
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This was doubtless at the locality of the drift and shafts mentioned be- yond; and the report of limestone in place is an error. About half a mile below this exposure, Eames reports a ferruginous sandstone or conglomerate four feet thick, seen in the bank of the river along a distance of twelve yards.
Three miles north of Richmond, in the S. E. 1/4 of the N. E. 1/4 of section 2, Munson, north of the range of morainic hills, a section noted by Eames in a ditch dug for drainage consisted of yellow and blue clay with three seams of lignite from one to six inches thick. The stratification here was irregu- larly confused and in part vertical, apparently on account of slides. Three
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
shafts were dug near this place in the hope of discovering workable lignite, by Theodore Bock. One of these went twenty-five feet, finding a lignitic layer six inches thick at thirteen feet, enclosed in blue clay, which, by boring twenty- five feet below the bottom of the shaft, was found to reach a depth of fifty feet, containing pyrite in some portions but no other lignitic seam. The other two shafts, forty and thirty feet deep, were wholly in drift. Eames referred this "coal" to the Cretaceous age, and rightly discouraged further mining for it, stating that his survey of the lignite-bearing strata on the Sauk and Cot- tonwood rivers "has demonstrated the fact that the state contains no outcrop of coal of value, in so far as the counties examined and points coming under observation are concerned."
Repeated fruitless observations for lignite have been made, however, by shafts in the Cretaceous beds on the southwest side of the Sauk river in the N. W. 1/4 of section 23, Munson, a fourth to a half of a mile west of Richmond. In 1871, at a point some thirty rods west of the bridge and less than a hun- dred feet from the river, a shaft was dug and bored to the depth of 120 feet. Its top is about 25 feet above the river. Black clay or shale with some lig- nite, which is seen here in the river's bank, was penetrated and found to be three feet thick. A drift dug in 1865, starting abont twenty-five feet farther northwest and following the lignitic layer sixty feet, found it to dip west- ward about four feet in this distance. It was said to contain "a seam of lig- nite four inches thick, which kept increasing in thickness, but remained im- pure and was considerably mixed with shale." Above and below the lig- nitic stratum is bluish gray clay or shale containing rarely crystals of selenite (gypsum) up to three inches long. J. H. Kloos found in the material brought up from the shaft "several fragments of shale containing scales of cycloid fishes, which had been met with near the surface." At a depth of 112 feet, according to Kloos, this boring reached "a hard rock, which proved to be granite. It was drilled for eight feet, and the fragments brought to light by the pump consist of feldspar, quartz and pyrites, such as are found in varieties of pegmatite or graphic granite, which I also found at the nearest outcropping ridges of the crystalline rocks." Nearly a quarter of a mile west from this place and about 75 feet above the river, another shaft was dug and bored in 1871 to the depth of 180 feet. This passed through a considerable thickness of drift, below which were blue, white and yellowish plastic clays, and shale. No more lignite was encountered than in the drift and the other shaft.
Again, in 1880 and 1881, the Richmond mining company claimed to have bored to the depth of 125 feet at a point only ten feet distant from the shaft and boring first described, close to the river. The only lignite found is the layer seen above the river-level; blue clay, with thin laminae of white and yellow clay, lies above the lignite; and bluish or greenish gray clay and shale extend below to the bottom of this section. No sand nor gravel, nor any hard rock, were encountered. In respect to these explorations, it must be added that it seems certain that no valuable deposits of lignite exist in this region, nor indeed in any portion of this state.
The only fossils known to have been found in these shafts are the fish-
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
scales before mentioned. A shark's tooth was also found by Mr. Kloos in the plastic clay that here forms the bank of the Sauk river.
F. B. Meek, to whom these fossils were submitted, wrote Mr. Kloos as follows: "The specimens - consist of Inoceramus problematicus, im- pressions apparently of Ammonites percarinatus, scales of fishes and a small shark tooth allied to Corax or Galeus. Among the drawings also sent by you, there is one of the inner volutions of Scaphites larviformis, or some nearly allied form. From these fossils, and the lithological character of the bed in which they were found, there can be no reasonable doubt, that it belongs to the Cretaceous system, as well as to the Benton group of the Cretaceous series as developed in the upper Missouri country. As you have suggested, the locality at which these specimens were collected, cannot be far from the eastern limits of the great Cretaceous basin that occupies so much of the coun- try along the Upper Missouri, and it is very desirable that the eastern boun- dary of this group of rocks should be traced out as accurately as possible, through Minnesota. Owing to the heavy deposits of drift there, however, this will be a difficult task, and can only be done by careful observations of all that is revealed by deep wells and other excavations. Consequently it is important that all the facts brought to light in this way should be carefully noted and published."
Glacial and Modified Drift. Glacial striae observed at Sauk Centre, as before mentioned, bear S. 40 degrees E., referred to the true meridian, being at right angles with the striae noted in Sank Rapids, Benton county, about forty miles farther east. Nearly all the ledges of Stearns county are planed and worn to a smooth surface by the ice-sheet; but, excepting at Sauk Cen- tre, none of them, so far as seen in this survey, retain glacial striae, be- cause of the slight disintegration wrought upon their surface by rains and frost.
The contour and material of the drift deposits have been stated in an earlier part of this chapter. The stages in the recession of the ice-sheet which they indicate are somewhat complex. During the culmination of the last glacial epoch, an ice-current from Lake Superior and northern Wisconsin extended over the east half of this county, to a limit in Luxemburg, Wake- field, northeastern Munson, Farming, Albany, Krain, and northeastern Mill- wood. In these townships, extending from south-southeast to north-north- west, the ice-current from the northeast, by which the striae in Sauk Rapids were made, was confluent with the ice-current from the northwest, which striated the rock at Sank Centre. West of this line of confluence boulders and gravel of limestone abound, derived, like the limestone everywhere pres- ent in the drift of western Minnesota and of Dakota, from the limestone strata which have their nearest outcrops in the vicinity of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Fragments of lignite, and very rarely of petrified wood, are also found in this western drift. The drift brought by the ice-current from the northeast is distinguished by the absence of limestone and the presence of boulders and pebbles of igneous and sedimentary rocks peculiar to the region of Lake Superior. A difference in color is also observable, the drift from the north- west and west being dark bluish gray, excepting near the surface, where it
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
is weathered to a yellowish color; while the drift from the northeast has a lighter gray color and is more or less tinted with red. These colors are due to the condition of the iron present, which in its protoxide combinations im- parts a bluish hue, in the condition of limonite yellow, and as hematite red. It exists under the first of these conditions in the Cretaceous clays and shales which have contributed probably more than half of the material of the west- ern drift; and as hematite it colors the red shales and sandstones about Lake Superior and the drift derived from them. The northeastern drift in Stearns county, however, does not usually show the reddish tint conspicuously, be- cause it has become mingled with much material from other rock-formations in its long transportation. The morainic hills one to six miles west and north- west from Cold Spring consist of this northwestern drift, and the same forms the surface thence northeast to St. Cloud and Le Sauk and onward all the way to Lake Superior.
Remarkable changes took place in the currents of the ice-sheet during its departure. The ice from the northwest and west becoming relatively thicker, pushed back that from the northeast upon a large area reaching from the southeast part of this county east-northeastward to the Snake and St. Croix rivers, even advancing into the edge of Wisconsin. After this western ice-lobe began to retreat, the line at which it first halted or perhaps re-ad- vanced, is marked by the morainic accumulations, referred to the time of the fifth or Elysian moraine. The continuation of this morainic series in Stearns county forms the belt of knolly and hilly till east, south and west of the plain of modified drift in Maine Prairie. The angle made in the glacial
boundary by the confluence of the western and eastern ice-fields was prob- ably at or near the southeast corner of Wakefield, where the most prominent morainie hills in this county are found. On the south margin of the north- eastern ice at this time was apparently accumulated the hilly till of Rock- ville, of the south half of St. Joseph, excepting in sections 31, 30 and 19, and of the southeast part of St. Cloud, the continuance of this series being through northern Haven and Palmer in Sherburne county. The gravel and sand form- ing the plain of Maine Prairie were deposited by the waters that had flowed down from the slopes of the adjacent ice-fields, which converged toward this area.
By the next retreat of the waning ice-sheet its boundary was carried back to the sixth or Waconia moraine, which is represented in southern Stearns county by the drift hills and knolls on the east and north border of Luxem- burg, along the line of Eden Lake and Munson, and thence southwest through Paynesville to Cape Bad Luck in Roseville, Kandiyohi county, accumulated along the north margin of the western ice-lobe. The south line of the ice moving from the northeast and north seems to have extended at this time along the northwest side of the Watab river in St. Wendel and St. Joseph, and thence westward through Collegeville, Farming, St. Martin and Spring Hill, Grove, Getty and Raymond. When the recession from the Elysian moraine began, the outlet of drainage from the confluent ice-fields appears to have been from Cold Spring northeast to the Watab river and St. Joseph, along the valley occupied by modified drift which has been before described.
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
The seareity of limestone in the gravel along this old water-course indieates that the glacial melting was then progressing most rapidly on its north side. At the somewhat later date of the Waconia moraine, the angle of confluence of the iee from the west and northwest with that from the northeast and north seems to have been at Glenwood in Pope county. The glacial floods which there poured down from the converging iee-slopes and thenee flowed south- east along the present course of the north branch of the Crow river to Paynes- ville and then east-northeast to the Sauk valley at Richmond, eroded a broad channel into the till of southwestern Stearns county. The northeast limit of this erosion is the bluff of till 40 to 100 feet high, which rises elose on the northeast side of this river from North Fork to Paynesville, a distance of twenty miles. From these floods were deposited the extensive beds of modi- fied drift which reach from eastern Pope county through the southwest part of Stearns and the northeast of Kandiyohi county to Paynesville and Rieh- mond.
When the ice-sheet again retreated, to the line of the seventh or Dovre moraine, its western lobe was withdrawn from this eonnty, but the iee-fields flowing from the north appear to have extended to the moraine in Broek- way, the northwest part of St. Wendel, Avon, northeastern Albany, Krain, northern Millwood and Melrose, and the northeast corner of Sauk Centre. At this time, also, the modified drift along the upper part of the Sauk river and on the Mississipi in Le Sauk and Broekway was deposited.
Boulders are frequent or often abundant in the morainie aeeumulations of till; but in the smooth, undulating deposits of till they are usually so few that they give no trouble in the cultivation of the land. Numerous pieces of sandstone, up to one or two feet in size, like that outeropping at Hinckley, in Pine county, were noticed in Le Sauk and in Sauk Rapids on the opposite side of the Mississippi.
Material Resources. The agricultural capabilities of this county, and its good supply of timber have already been notieed; also, the occurrence of thin seams of lignite in the Cretaceous strata near Richmond, and the futile ex- plorations for it in workable quantity. Water-powers have been utilized to a considerable extent. Quarrying is a most important industry. The boulders from the drift are used by the farmers for varions purposes. Lime burning and briek making have both been important.
Waterpowers. The following report of the waterpowers as they existed in the county in 1885 is most interesting, though many of these dams and mills are now only memories of the past.
Ward Brothers' saw-mill and grist-mill on the south branch of Two Rivers at Holdingford; head, eight feet, flowing baek nearly two miles. M. Ebnet's saw-mill, in the south part of seetion 25, Krain, on a tributary of Two River lake; head, about fifteen feet. William Ross' saw-mill on Spunk brook in the S. E. 1/4 of seetion 5, Broekway; head, about six feet. J. B. Sartell & Son's grist-mill on Watab river in seetion 21, Le Sauk, having fifteen feet head; and their saw-mill in the same section, a quarter of a mile farther east on this stream near its mouth, having fourteen feet head. St. Joseph flouring mill, having eighteen feet head, and saw-mill, having fourteen feet head, on the
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
south branch of Watab river a quarter of a mile west of St. Joseph village, both owned by Ferdinand Danzel. The Mississippi river at Sauk Rapids, falls twenty-two feet in about a mile. Sauk City flouring mills, owned by F. Arn- old; on the Sauk river close to its mouth, in the southeast corner of Le Sauk ; head, eight feet; canal thirty rods long. Union flouring mill, J. E. Hayward ; on the Sauk river a mile west from the last, in the north edge of St. Cloud; head, ten feet. Roekville flouring mill, O. Tenney; on Mill ereek at Rock- ville, close to its junction with the Sauk river; head, fourteen feet. Cold Spring flouring mill, H. C. Waite; on the Sauk river at Cold Spring; head, eight feet; seven run of stone and three erushers. Hiltner & Proneth's flour- ing mill in the west edge of seetion 31, Oak; head, about twelve feet; canal a third of a mile long; three run of stone. Melrose flouring mill, Edwin Clark ; on the Sauk river at Melrose; head, eleven to thirteen feet ; five run of stone for flour, and one for feed. The mill-pond is a mile long, covering 150 acres. Sauk Centre flouring mill, T. C. MeClure; on the Sauk river at Sauk Centre; head, ten feet ; six run of stone. This dam raises the Little and Big Sauk lakes above their natural level, the latter being four miles long and a half to two- thirds of a mile wide, mostly in Todd county.
Neenah flouring mill, H. Beumer & Co .; on St. Augusta creek in the N. W. 1/4 of section 13, St. Augusta; head, fourteen feet ; three run of stone for flour, and one for feed. There were mills formerly on this creek near its mouth and in th S. W. 1/4 of section 27, St. Augusta. On the Clearwater river, at Clearwater, are three powers, as follows: Thomas Tollington's saw-mill and furniture manufactory ; ten or fifteen rods above the mouth of the river; head, five feet; can only be used when the Mississippi is at its low-water stage. Clearwater flouring mills, C. F. Davis & Co .; a short distance above the last ; head, fifteen feet. Upper dam of C. F. Davis & Co .; one mile above the mouth of the river; known as the Fremont water-power; formerly, but not now, used; head, twelve feet. The mill on the Clearwater river at Fair Haven has about ten feet head. Crow River flouring mill, J. P. Applegreen ; on the north branch of the Crow river in the east edge of the village of Paynesville; head, fourteen feet; three run of stone. Beckley & Phipps' flouring mill; on the same stream one and a half miles below the last, in the west edge of seetion 10, Paynesville; head, eight feet; three run of stone.
Aboriginal Earthworks. Earthworks, like lines of fortifications, three in number, each twenty rods or more in length, several rods apart and extend- ing southeasterly, are situated about a mile north of Sauk Centre, on the southeast side of the Little Sauk lake, which is now united with the Big Sauk lake by the flowage of the Sauk Centre dam.
A natural mound of till, called Fairy Lake mound, rises some fifteen feet above the general level of the surrounding plain of modified drift on the south side of the Sauk river, in the S. W. 14 of the N. E. 1/4 of section 32, Sauk Centre, about three miles northwest from the town. This mound is fifteen rods long and six rods wide, trending from west-northwest to east-southeast. Its outline seen at a distance is like that of a dome-shaped artificial mound ; but, unlike the aboriginal mounds, it is oblong and composed of the unmodi- fied glacial drift.
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
ARCHAEAN ROCKS.
The following notes on the exposed rocks of the townships in Stearns county are, like the rest of this article, a part of the "Geology of Stearns County" by Dr. Warren Upham, a distinguished savant, in the "Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota," published in 1888, and embody- ing research made from the year 1882 to 1885. When this was written the granite industry in Stearns county was in its infancy, and some of the possi- bilities of quarrying which are herein discussed have since been realized. For the development of the granite industry in recent years, the reader is referred to other chapters of this history.
Ashley. The most northwestern rock-outcrops of Stearns county are found in Ashley township, eight miles west of Sauk Centre. They lie close south and southwest of a school-house at the south side of Ashley creek, partly in the S. W. 1/4 of the N. W. 1/4 of section 17, and more in the S. E. 1/4 of the N. E. 1/4 of section 18. This rock has numerous exposures, the largest being about a hundred feet long, upon an area which reaches thirty rods from east-southeast to west-northwest, their height being from one to five feet above the general level. It resembles syenite, but contains much of a light-green mineral (probably epidote), like that found in the rocks out- cropping thirty and forty-five miles farther north, in Todd and Cass counties. This takes the place of hornblende and mica, neither of which can be detected. Joints occur from one to five or ten feet apart. An schistose or laminated structure was observed. Veinlike masses of coarsely crystalline orthoclase, enclosing small amounts of white quartz and of the green mineral, occur in this rock at many places, often extending ten feet or more, and varying from one to several feet in width. These ledges may be quarried for coarse masonry.
Sauk Centre. Exposures of rock are found at the southwest side of the railroad from an eighth to a fourth of a mile southeast from Sauk Centre station. The largest outcrop is about fifty rods from the depot, and a hundred feet southwest of the railroad, covering an area about six rods long from the northwest to southeast by two to three rods wide, and rising only one to two and a half feet above the general surface. This ledge has several distinct varieties of rock. The greater part is a reddish feldspathic gneiss, laminated from northeast to southwest, or a similar syenite where lamination is absent. Masses a few feet in extent, not definitely separated from the foregoing, are very coarsely crystalline, flesh-colored feldspar and quartz; the latter con- stitutes about one-fourth part; and both occur in crystalline masses one to two inches long. Portions of this gneiss and syenite are porphyritic with feldspar crystals up to a half inch, or rarely an inch, in diameter.
The most southern part of this ledge, extending thirty feet from east to west, and ten feet wide, divided from the last by a width of about two rods which is covered with drift, is a very hard and compact, dark, granular rock, perhaps to be called syenite, in which the most abundant mineral is apparently hornblende. A small space of this, about eight feet long and four feet wide, shows a vertically laminated structure, curving from a south to a southeast
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
course. Glacial striae, clearly seen on the west part of this southern outcrop, bear S. 40 degrees E.
Eight rods west from the last is another exposure of the same hard, dark rock, about two rods in extent, not rising above the general level. About fifteen rods west-northwest from the large ontcrop first described, another of similar rock is found, being mainly gneiss, laminated from northeast to sonthwest. This ledge is about fifty feet long from west-northwest to east- southeast, and rises from one to one and a half feet above the general surface. Again, some twenty-five rods southeast from the first described exposure, excavations at each side of the railroad, five to fifteen feet below the track, show the dark, tough hornblendic rock, like its two exposures farther west, except that here it is more intersected by joints, which are from one to six feet apart. On the southwest side of the railroad this rock is uncovered for a length of a hundred feet; but on the northeast side only two or three small knobs are visible. None of the outcrops are suitable for quarrying.
Melrose. The next exposure of the bed-rock is eight miles east-north- east from the last, at Clark's mill, in Melrose. This mill, situated on the south side of Sank river about ten rods west of the bridge, is founded on a ledge of very hard, coarse, red syenite, which also extends some twenty-five feet from the mill, half-way across the waste-way of the dam.
In the west part of Melrose village, a third or half of a mile west from this mill, and on the level plain of valley drift, rock has been encountered in attempts to dig wells. Its depth below the surface is about six feet, and it has an extent of a hundred feet or more. A well blasted into this rock supplied the stone for the foundation of the Methodist church near by. It is a dark, unlaminated, rather coarsely crystalline hornblendic rock, different from any other found in this district.
Wakefield. Several outcrops of very hard, dark dioryte, and of coarse syenite occur within a radius of a fourth of a mile about the corner of scctions 19, 20, 29 and 30, Wakefield. This is on the north side of the Sank river, two miles cast of Richmond, and about twenty miles southeast from Melrose. One of these knobs rises forty feet above the general level. The abutments of the Richmond bridge were quarried at this locality.
About one and a half miles farther east, near the centre of section 21, a small outcrop of coarse syenite occurs in and close south of the road, its length being four rods and its height three or four feet. It is intersected by joints at intervals of two to six feet.
At Cold Spring, one and three-fourths miles farther east, a fine-grained, reddish, much jointed syenite has abundant outcrops, underlying the mill and dam, and covering an area on both sides of the Sank river equal to a quarter of a mile square, with its highest points 20 to 25 feet above the river. It has been somewhat quarried for local nse in foundations, walls, etc.
Rockville. Four miles farther east, massive outcrops of coarse-grained, gray granite, containing black mica, which weathers to yellow, occur near Rockville. The most prominent mass of this rock is at the east side of Mill creek, a quarter of a mile south of Rockville mill, forming a knob forty or fifty rods in length and breadth, and fifty feet high. This rock is very free
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HISTORY OF STEARNS COUNTY
from joints or seams, being sometimes unbroken for thirty or forty feet. Otherwise it appears to be well adapted for quarrying, to supply stone for heavy masonry, as bridge piers and abutments. Two other exposures of this roek are found a quarter of a mile northeast from this mill. The most southerly of these, situated east of the road, covers some thirty rods square, and rises about forty feet above the river; and the second, less than an eighth of a mile farther north, crossed by the road and lying mostly between the road and the river, covers an area of 30 by 20 rods in extent and rises 20 to 30 feet above the river. Both consist of massive, rounded ledges, with few seams or joints, which are often twenty to thirty feet apart.
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