History of Wabasha County, Minnesota, Part 26

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1222

USA > Minnesota > Wabasha County > History of Wabasha County, Minnesota > Part 26

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

Thus a favored corner of Lake City Township was granted, and enjoyed for eight years, all the benefits and privileges that could have been secured through a city charter, while the responsbiilities of incorporation were largely avoided; and all the expense of carrying on the machinery was the sum of two dollars per capita for the township supervisors and town clerk for every day actually expended in the direction of affairs. True, the township officers could be sued, but there was no provision for their contracting any obligations for this specified district as such, and the arrangement all through was one on which Lake City, unincorporated, might well congratulate herself.

The condition of the city, its growth and development as a corporate body, virtually dates from 1864, the year in which, under special legislative enact- ment, the inhabitants of this particular portion of Lake City township began to assume the methods of city governments. Little change requiring note appears to have transpired in that year, and the early part of 1865. The attention of all classes was directed to the great struggle between north and south, to the exclusion of almost all else; and it was not until the nation emerged from the conflict, and her surviving defenders came trooping homeward, that the great heart of the country breathed free, and the life of all industries resumed their natural flow. At this time, midsummer of 1865, the township of Lake City had a population of 1,411; of these from 1,100 to 1,200 were included within the city limits. The citizens of the little mart on the shores of Lake Pepin were aspiring to the direction of so much of the trade of the surrounding country as a liberal policy would enable them to control. They had attempted the creation of a market for grain at this point by providing the best roads possible. They had steadily resisted all seductions to combine against the producer and depress prices, and by this policy had gained the confidence of the wheat- growers in adjacent counties, many of whom brought their surplus grain to Lake City market, the advance in price secured here more than compensating for the remoteness of the market. The season for grain shipments during 1865 lasted 248 days; and in that time there were shipped from this point, of wheat alone, 660,394 bushels; and there was in store 66,000 bushels. Prices ruled for the year about one dollar and five cents on the average, and had it not been for the rapacity of the transportation companies, it was claimed that the aver- age price for the season would have ruled ten cents per bushel higher. The exaction led to attempted combinations on the part of the shippers, out of which new lines of freight-carrying vessels originated; and competition, as far as practicable, restored the balances to something like equity. The tonnage of the vessels passing this point, and receiving and discharging freight at Lake City docks, was computed at 12,631 tons, and the whole number of vessels fifty-three. To these were to be added 129 barges and lighters, with a farther capacity of 19,350 tons.

The increase in population of the town of Lake City for the semi-decade from 1860 to 1865 was 545, an increase of 63 per cent. No separate census returns were kept of population within the village, and how much of the in- crease was in town or how much in country cannot now be ascertained. The substantial improvements in building alone during 1865 aggregated nearly $85,000, about one-third of which was on Washington street. The improve- ments were very largely new structures.

In February, 1866, a board of trade was organized, with which most of the leading men of the city were identified. This organization had, among other objects, that of securing more equitable freight rates for grain and merchan- dise. An anti-monopoly convention had been called, representing the merchants and shippers of the state, to meet at St. Paul and to this convention the Lake City board of trade sent its representatives. The result of the deliberations at St. Paul was the determination to build a line of boats and put them on the river-to be known as the People's line-the people holding and owning the stock. Committees were appointed to secure subscriptions to such stock, and

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President Williamson, of the Lake City board of trade, was appointed solicitor for this section. The organization of the Minnesota Transportation Company was the result of this convention; but as the old monopolies were breaking up, and it was thought that the resulting competition would equalize freight charges, the building of boats was abandoned. The beginning of this year, 1866, was marked by a decided interest in temperance matters on the part of the public at large. A Good Templars' lodge was organized here January 20, and within a week had 100 members. A genuine wave of temperance feeling tided over the county; lectures were common, lodges multiplied, the recruits were numerous, and the interest was well sustained throughout the year.

From the ledgers of the merchants doing business in town, it was ascer- tained that the volume of trade for the year ending August 1, 1866, aggregated a little over one and a half millions of dollars. The returns, however, were quite incomplete. Oats, corn, barley, manufactures in general, saloons, and other branches of business not being mentioned. The price of wheat ruled high during the shipping season, and $15,000 a day was quite frequently paid by the buyers here. The year 1867 was ushered in with a fire which destroyed the livery stables, and some of the stock, of Russell & McNeil.

The questions of supreme importance that engaged the attention of the citizens of Lake City during the year 1867 were those of railroad aid and county-seat removal. The Chicago & St. Paul Railway Company had come to a standstill in their efforts to secure the construction of the road. A prejudice was felt against the road and eastern capitalists would not invest in its bonds ; it was therefore attempted to secure the placing of some of these bonds at home, or at least a sufficient number of them to convince eastern capitalists that the road enjoyed the confidence of the residents of that portion of the state through which it was to pass. A conference between the representatives of the railroad company and leading citizens of Lake City was accordingly held June 26, and after some preliminary investigation into the character of the in- vestment, a motion was made by Judge Stout, recommending the supervisors of the town of Lake to subscribe for first mortgage bonds of the Chicago & St. Paul Railway Company, to the amount of $20,000, on the conditions embodied in the report of the committee that had been previously appointed and whose report was then under consideration. No result was reached, and the old company was reorganized in November, with Hon. W. B. Ogden, of Chicago, at its head. On March 6, 1868, by special act of the state legislature the village of Lake City was authorized to issue its bonds in aid of the construction of the Chicago & St. Paul railway. This act was amended February 2, 1869, the word "town" being substituted for "village," and on the sixth of that month the supervisors of the town passed an ordinance, submitting the question to the legal voters thereof. Due notice was given, and the election was held Tuesday, February 26, 1869, at which a total vote of 437 was polled. The amount of the proposed issue was $75,000, and the poll stood: for issue, 306; against issue, 131.

The sum of $75,000 bearing interest at the rate of 6 per cent per annum, etc., the principal to mature thirty years after the date of such bonds, was voted at the special election held February 23, 1869. The delivery of these bonds was conditioned upon the completion and full operation of the Chicago and St. Paul Railroad between St. Paul and Winona on or before April 1, 1872. On June 29, 1869, the Chicago and St. Paul Railway Company contracted with the Minnesoa Railway Construction Company to build and equip the railway from St. Paul to Winona, and also sold and assigned to the Minnesota Railway Construction Company all gifts, donations, bounties or aid in any form which had been or thereafter might be given to it by any person, corporation, munici- pality or State to aid in the construction of the railway, including the bonds which the town of Lake City had obligated itself to issue and deliver. The road was completed and cars running thereon for the entire distance specified, and the road had become entitled to the delivery of the bonds by January 1,

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY

1872. Aftr this on February 26, 1872, the city of Lake City was incorporated, the territory of which was carved out of the town of Lake City. No provision was made by the act incorporating the city, for the payment of any part of the debts or the assumption of any of the obligations of the town of Lake City, by the city of Lake City, nor is there any general statute of the State adjusting the liabilities of the old town within the new city. A contract, however, was entered into between the city of Lake City and the town of Lake City, through their respective municipal officers, in which it was agreed that of all cash in hand, taxes in hands of county treasurer, uncollected taxes, etc., the city of Lake City should receive 83 per cent. and the town of Lake City 17 per cent. It was further stipulated that all outstanding accounts and claims against the old town of Lake City should be borne in the same proportion by each corpora- tion. It is perhaps necessary to state that this contract never came to the notice of the courts in which the suit that followed with the railroad company was tried. In 1873 the name of the township of Lake City was changed to the township of Lake. After the completion of the road the Minnesota Railway Construction Company presented its bonds to the officers of the town of Lake and the city of Lake City to sign, but they refused to do this, alleging fraud against the company. The Minnesota Railway Construction Company then brought suit by writ of mandamus in the Supreme Court to compel the town of Lake and city of Lake City to issue their joint and several bonds of the character and amount provided for. In this suit Thomas Wilson appeared for city of Lake City, and H. D. Stocker and W. J. Hahn for town of Lake. The defendants in this action alleged in their answer various acts of fraud on the part of the railroad company, the most material of which was that before the ordinance authorizing the holding of an election to ratify the issuing of the bonds was passed, the St. Paul and Chicago Railroad Company, for the purpose of inducing the Supervisors to pass the same, promised the Supervisors that if they would pass the ordinance, the railway company would locate on the private property of said Supervisors, thereby greatly enhancing its value. The city also made the further objection that as it was a new and distinct municipal corporation, since created and erected out of a portion of the original town of Lake City, it therefore was not liable for any of the obligations of the old town. This answer was held sufficient as to the city and the action against it was dismissed. It now remained for the town of Lake to prove the alleged fraud.

For this purpose H. D. Stocker, Esq., went to California and there obtained depositions from the old Supervisors of the town fully sustaining the position of defendants. These depositions were placed on file and coming to the notice of plaintiff's counsel induced them to offer to compromise the suit which was accordingly done and a judgment by agreement of $2,500 was entered in the District Court of Wabasha county against town of Lake. A controversy now arose between the city and town, in relation to the payment of this judgment and the expenses of the suit. Under the contract entered into by these two corporations in 1872, the substance of which is given above, the cash on hand, taxes in hands of county treasurer, uncollected taxes, etc., belonging to the old town of Lake were divided in the ratios set forth in the contract, and all liabilities, debts, and obligations of said town had also been borne in like ratio. The expenses incurred in this suit together with the above mentioned judgment amounted to about $9,200. The town of Lake claimed that the whole of this amount came under the operation of the contract of 1872 and that the city of Lake City was accordingly bound to pay 83 per cent of it. Considerable dis- cussion ensued and at a meeting of the city council upon August 28, 1882, the report of a committee appointed to investigate said claims advising the payment of 83 per cent of the judgment, viz .: $2,100 to the town of Lake in consideration of a full release by the town of all further claims against the city was unani- mously adopted. The city authorities holding that expenses of the suit incurred by the town amounting to about $4,000 were voluntarily incurred by it and

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constituted a private debt of the town of Lake for which the city was not responsible under the contract. The town, however, did not accept the $2,100 in the form it was offered, and the matter for some time remained unsettled. It was, however, finally adjusted by the payment of a part of the sum mentioned and the vexatious matter was thus brought to an end.

The county-seat question was one equally tedious of settlement, and much more provocative of animosity and sectional bitterness. On March 7 of this year, 1867, an act legislative was passed, submitting to the voters of the county the question of the removal of the county-seat from its then location, Wabasha, to Lake City. The act was passed upon a petition of the citizens, and competi- tion for the capital honors became lively. Lake City bid for the removal by pledging her bonds to the extent of $20,000 for the erection of suitable county buildings in case the county seat was located here. It was urged that this would be a saving of at least $10,000 to the county, as that amount was im- peratively needed to provide a jail at Wabasha, and the matter of issuing county bonds for that amount had already been under consideration by the county commissioners. The legality of the issue of $20,000 in bonds, as proposed by Lake City, was submitted to the attorney-general Hon. W. Colville, who affirmed the legality of the issue. The bonds were duly issued and deposited with the county treasurer as the property of the county in case the removal should be effected. These bonds were to bear interest at the rate of ten per cent annually, and were made payable in five yearly installmnts of $4,000 each. The press of the rival cities waxed heated in the contest which ensued, and no means were left untried to secure a possible victory. The balloting was something extraor- dinary, and the immense number of 9,480 votes were polled in a county not exceeding 13,500 population all told. The contest was carried into the courts and a hearing had before Judge Barber, of the third judicial district. Case was adjourned for months to take testimony, Judge Mitchell, of Winona, acting as referee, together with Counsellor Benedict, of Rochester. The conclusion finally was that 2,531 legal votes had been cast, of which number 1,457 had been cast in favor of Lake City, and 1,074 in favor of Wabasha. The case was carried to the supreme court and a decision rendered in January, 1871, revers- ing the judgment of the district court, on the ground that it requires a majority of the legal voters of the county and not a majority of the votes cast to effect the removal of the county seat, and in this manner the matter was disposed of three years and a half after the vote was taken.

The city suffered quite a loss on August 30 of this year, 1867, by the destruction of the planing-mill of J. W. Harding, which, with the warehouse of Amsbry & Fletcher, was totally destroyed by fire. The planing-mill was quite an extensive establishment, and the loss was probably not less than ten thou- sand dollars, upon which there was no insurance. The Lake City postoffice was made a money-order office September 9.

With the year 1868 the town reached its first decade as an organized part of the governmental system of the state. A comparison of the votes cast at the opening and also at the close of this period of ten years, shows that the increase was from 134 votes in 1858, to 512 in 1868. The area of the township, exclusive of town lots, in acres, 17,4085/12 acres, which was valued at $100,602, or about $5.77 per acre. The aggregate value of town lots in 1868, including buildings thereon, was $180,639, making a total real estate valuation for the town of Lake City of $290,241. The total value of the personal property of the town was rated at $149,374, a little more than one-seventh of all the personal property of the county, which was returned at $1,005,856, about $75,500 less than the real property as scheduled by assessor. There was a decided increase in the amount of grain shipments from Lake City during this year as compared with 1867, but prices did not rule so high. A census taken in this year by Abner Tibbetts, the assessor, gave 3,031 as the population of the town of

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Lake City, an estimate a little higher than the United States census returns of two years later seemed to warrant.

On July 9, 1869, a tornado, the first ever seen in Wabasha county within historic periods, struck the county, inflicting considerable damage in Mt. Pleasant Township, where three dwellings were destroyed and some stock killed, but no persons injured, with the exception of L. C. Carson's little girl, who was carried about 150 feet and considerably bruised.

During the year 1869 the question of voting aid to the reorganized St. Paul & Chicago Railway Co. was the all-absorbing theme. The city continued to show a gratifying increase in trade and improvements. The amount expended in buildings was $109,000. The shipments of grain were much in excess of previous years; barley began to assume importance as an item of freight, and flour shipments largely increased also. The total grain business of the season amounted to about 850,000 bushels.

The year 1870 was that in which the United States census was taken, and the returns as filed by the enumerator gave the town of Lake City a total population of 2,608, of whom 2,117 were within what may be denominated the limits of the city. This was somewhat less than was expected, as from the assessor's returns of 1868 it was confidently believed that the population would not fall below three thousand.

The winter of 1869-70 a rivalry arose among the various drivers along the stage-route from La Crosse northward as to the quickest possible time between the terminus of the railroad, La Crosse, and Lake City. On Wednesday, February 9, one of the up-stages left La Crosse at 7:15 a. m., and making stop- pages aggregating fifty-eight minutes at Winona, Minneiska and Wabasha, reached Lake City at 4:38 p. m., making the distance of eighty-eight miles in nine hours and twenty-three minutes, or, deducting stoppages, in eight hours and twenty-five minutes. It was not aly ys, however, that the drivers were so fortunate. The south-bound stage on December 28 went through the ice about three miles above Read's Landing, drowning the wheel horses and losing express, mails and freight. Two passengers on board escaped, one dry-shod, one with an ice-bath in Pepin. The mails, express and freight, with the coach, were hooked up by a party of volunteers from Read's Landing, and the horses only were a total loss.

This year, 1870, witnessed the organization of the First National bank, and the completion of the Methodist Episcopal church so far as to enable the society to occupy the basement, which they did, on December 18. The expenditures for buildings during the year footed up $88,125. It is within bounds to say that of wheat (and the equivalent in flour), barley, oats and corn, the actual shipments from the wharves here were in excess of 1,300,000 bushels, the wheat shipped alone amounting to 861,000 bushels. On June 3, 1871, the Patrons of Husbandry organized a grange in Lake City, and steps were taken to consolidate the work of the grange throughout the county, so as to secure some practical results.

This year was rendered memorable by the completion of the railway to this place, and the arrival of the long-expected locomotive. The tracklayers crossed the county-line from the north on Tuesday, July 11, and by nightfall the rails were laid half-way through town. On July 25, regular trains were put on between Lake City and St. Paul, and the road at the south was rapidly extending itself up the river. Work on the depot here was being rapidly pushed, the only regret on the part of the people being that its location was so far from the business portion of the city. The first through train for Winona came down on Wednesday, September 6; the following day regular trips commenced over the road, and it was no longer possible to say the upper river towns were out of the world six months of the year. On Friday, October 13, the United States mails were brought in on the trains, and so closed the old era of stages and steamboats as mail transports for Lake City. The new order of things was

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brought about by the personal attention of Congressman Averill, who gave a day of his time in Washington to matters and secured the benefits of railway mails without the usual delay. During the same year the public library was organized and a free reading room in Richardson's block, on Center street, being opened about the middle of November.

Elevators were erected during the fall and winter along the railroad track, and a decided impetus was given to business, already flourishing, by the advent of railway communication. Other things seemed also to have come in with the railway, which were not so acceptable. As previously mentioned, Lake City wheat buyers had long before established the policy of paying as high prices for grain as the market would possibly justify. In order, therefore, to compete with the buyers in this market, shippers at other points were obliged reluctantly to follow their lead. At last the speculators concluded to manipulate the market at this point. All the large wheat-buying houses were interested in the scheme, and also the Davidson and the Diamond Jo line of steamers. An arrangement was effected with the Lake City warehousemen by which a uniform price of twenty-five cents below the Milwaukee quotations should be pooled. The monopoly extended wherever the river and railway lines extended, and as the freight was only twelve cents, commissions one cent, elevator charges one cent, and cost of buying three cents-at which there was a good profit-the cost of wheat here was justly within 17 cents of the Milwaukee quotations, a clear gain beyond legitimate trade profits of eight cents per bushel, or a dead loss of that amount to the wheat raisers of the state. Controlling as they did the whole wheat purchases of the market, the transportation lines forbid all ware- housemen from paying more than the dictated price, from buying any wheat or shipping on his own account, or from receiving into the warehouse grain which had been purchased above the stipulated price. The large wheat merchants of the centralized markets and the transportation companies enforced, or attempted to enforce, their measures, by making noncompliance a ground of expulsion from the market, and set their own spies, with power to enter a warehouseman's office and examine his books, as a special police to enforce these regulations. The reputable wheat merchants of the city had entered very reluctantly into the arrangement at the outset, and only acquiesced under protest, to see how matters would turn out, not clearly seeing the depth of the business to which they were asked to commit themselves. As soon as they understood the true inwardness of the matter the merchants and press of the city opened upon the combination, and an agitation was begun by which the ring was completely "busted," and a return to honorable competition effected. The "ring" lasted about three weeks.

The improvements for the year 1871 were largely in excess of all previous years, and some of them of a very costly and substantial character. Their value aggregated $150,000. One of the most important public improvements was the widening of Pearl street, now Lyon avenue, from a width of seventy to that of ninety feet. This work was the liberal donation of W. H. Lyon, of New York, who had extensive property interests in the city, and has always been liberal in devising for the little city by the lake. What property he did not own he purchased from High street to the lake, and setting the buildings back the required distance, opened a street ninety feet in width. Purchasing some blocks about the depot, also, he meditated the widening of the entire street from the lake to the city limits, but was temporarily prevented by the owners of some property along the streets. The city, however, in 1873, took the matter in hand, condemned the lots that jutted out into the street (of which there were only three), and gave the city a beautiful avenue of the uniform width of ninety feet throughout its entire length.

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History of Wabasha County, Minnesota, Part 26

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn Publication date: 1920 Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper Number of Pages: 1222

Author: Curtiss-Wedge, Franklyn. cn
Publication date: 1920
Publisher: Winona, Minn. : H.C. Cooper
Number of Pages: 1222