USA > Minnesota > Wabasha County > History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources > Part 61
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111
There are few cases that can parallel this, and none that have come under our own notice. This existence of eight years in which the inhabitants of a favored corner of Lake City township were privi- leged with all that actual incorporation could confer, relieved of its financial burdens, might well mark an era in their history and be designated by a white stone. Not one substantial benefit that could be secured through a city charter that they did not reap ; not one responsibility, which as a city they must have assumed, that they did not in this manner largely avoid, and that withont working anght but good to them. They could open streets and tax property therefor ; lay sidewalks, grade, condemn property, lease the levees, prescribe fire limits, regulate sale of specified articles, require licenses, construct their own courts of municipal justice, issue their writs, execute them and enforce penalties withont recourse (within certain limits); take the taxes for road purposes and appropriate them where they could do most good-and in every conceivable way exercise all the privileges of an individual or body corporate ; but they were not a body corporate in law, had no existence in fact, could not sne or be sued, could not contract any obligation, could not be forced to meet any ; and all the expense of carrying on this 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
801
LAKE CITY.
obligations for this specified district as such, and the arrangement all through was one on which Lake City, unincorporate, might well congratulate herself. The verdict of one of her citizens-that she fortunately stumbled upon the peculiar legislation which this con- ferred privilege without responsibility, was after all, perhaps, not very wide of the mark. Early in 1867 the question of formally organizing as a city was discussed, and meetings held to consider the question. The matter was finally disposed of in a meeting of the citizens held at Williamson's hall, on the evening of Saturday, January 19, 1867. The objection to the existing order of affairs was urged, on the ground that as now administered, the town authorities lacked the power properly to administer the affairs of a community like this, and corporate powers had become a necessity. To this it was answered that the powers in the hands of the supervisors was ample, and only needed to be exercised. Also that if more legisla- tion was needed it could be obtained, but that it was unadvisable to saddle the town with the burdens of maintaining a corporate exist- ence. The test question, as submitted, was that a city charter be drawn up, and the proposition was negatived by a very decided majority. The meeting instructed the supervisors to rigidly enforce such by-laws and ordinances as were already in existence, and a committee chosen to draw up amendments to the present regula- tions, increasing the power of the town supervisiors so as to include the various subjects afterward specified in the legislative act of March 9, next ensuing. Matters remained in this state so far as the exer- cise of govermental powers was concerned, until the formal incor- poration of the city-although one more attempt to incorporate was made, which led to no definite result. By act of legislature of 1870, it was provided that any community, within any specified district, numbering not less than two thousand souls, and not more than fifteen thousand, might, upon filing with the judge of probate for the county within which such district was located. a petition for incor- poration signed by not less than two-thirds of the legal voters of said district, become thereby incorporated, and it was made the duty of the judges of probate, before whom such petition should come, to order an election for the purpose of filling the various offices set forth in the charter as petitioned for. Such petition so signed by three hundred and twenty-two legal voters residing within a certain described district (substantially the corporate limits of the present city of Lake City), came before A. Z. Putnam,
48
S02
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
judge of probate for the county of Wabasha, on May 15, 1871. The judge gave notice of election to be held July 1, 1871, for the purpose of filling the various offices, and designated the place of holding such elections. Caucuses were held, and a full ticket nominated, but owing to opposition on the part of some, and a general distrust of the legality of such an incor- poration, the polls were never opened, and the election passed. The friends of the measure were not satisfied with this disposition of the case, and C. N. Sterry, Esq., secured the opinion of Hon. Thos. Wilson, of the city of Winona, and also of Messrs. Bigelow, Flan- drau & Clark, of St. Paul, as to the constitutionality or otherwise of the city charter. The opinions in both cases sustained, the action of the citizens as legal, and the incorporation as a valid act. The opinion of the St. Paul attorneys was also to the effect that failure to hold the election in no case vacated or dissolved the corporation. The recourse as contained in the opinion, was to re-petition for a designated day of election, or apply to the legislature to appoint a day. The former was not done, and instead of the latter, an act of incorporation was duly passed at the next session of the legisla- ture in accordance with which Lake City was incorporated as a city, and the long-vexed question finally settled.
The condition of the city, its growth and development as a cor- porate body, virtually dates from the year in which, under special legislative enactment, the inhabitants of this particular portion of Lake City township began to assume the methods of city govern- ments ; and in this view of the case we will speak of Lake City as existing from 1864. Little change requiring note appears to have transpired in 1864, and the early part of 1865. The attention of all classes was directed to the great struggle between national authority and organized rebellion, to the exclusion of almost all else ; and it was not until the nation emerged from the conflict, and her brave defenders came trooping homeward, regiment by regiment, what was left of their decimated ranks, 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 fourteen hundred and eleven ; of these from eleven hundred to twelve hundred 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 sur-
803
LAKE CITY.
rounding country as a liberal policy would enable them to control. They had reached out a liberal hand over the adjacent townships, and attempted the creation of a market for grain at this point by providing the best roads possible, along which the loaded wagons might reach their warehouses and wharves. 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, as far as practicable, brouglit their surplus grain to Lake City market, the advance in price secured here more than compensating for the remoteness of the market. By this means the little city-to-be soon became noted as a profitable market in which to sell cereals, and successfully dis- puted the palm with older and more populous centers of trade. The season for grain shipments during 1865 lasted two hundred and forty-eight 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, as seen by the warehouse receipts - an aggregate of 726,394 bushels of wheat brought to this market in wagons. 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 average price for the season would have ruled ten cents per bushel higher-a difference of seventy-two thousand six hundred and thirty-nine dollars and forty cents in the pockets of the wheat-growers. This ten cents represented the increase above what was claimed to be a fair price for transportation. This 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 dis- charging freight at Lake City docks, was computed at twelve thousand six hundred and thirty-one tons, and the whole number of vessels fifty-three. To these were to be added one hundred and twenty-nine barges and lighters, with a farther capacity of nineteen thousand three hundred and fifty tons. The increase in population of the town of Lake City for the semi-decade from 1860 to 1865 was five hundred and forty-five, an increase of sixty-three per cent. No separate census returns were kept of population within the village, and how much of the increase was in town or how much in country cannot now be ascertained. The substantial improvements in building
804
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
alone during the year aggregated nearly eighty-five thousand dollars, about one-third of which was on Washington street. The improve- ments on the various streets, as shown in round numbers, and these very largely new structures, were :
Franklin street, 8 buildings, valued at. $ 5,000
Washington "
14 27,000
Main
7
5,500
High
8
=
8,500
Oak
16
19,000
Garden
11
10,000
Prairie =
9
4,500
Miscellaneous, 8
5,000
During the year 1866 there was no very marked improvement in the volume of business transacted, neither was any decrease noted. The aggregate of city improvements was nearly the same, the total being eighty-seven thousand six hundred dollars. A board of trade was organized in February, officered as follows : H. F. Williamson, president ; A. B. Doughty, vice-president ; S. B. Munson, Jr., secretary. Directors : A. Tibbitts, J. L. Armstrong and C. F. Rogers. Most of the leading men of the city were identified with this organization, which had, among other objects, that of securing more equitable freight rates for grain and merchandise. An anti- monopoly convention had been called, representing the merchants and shippers of the state, to meet at St. Paul on February 9, 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. Com- mittees were appointed to secure subscriptions to such stock, and President Williamson, of the Lake City board of trade, was appointed solicitor for this section. The organization of the Minnesota Trans- portation 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, with a membership of sixty, and only one week later the number was increased to one hundred. A genuine wave of temperance feeling tided over the county ; lectures were common, lodges multi-
805
LAKE CITY.
plied, the recruits were numerous, and the interest was well sus- tained throughout the year. There was also a proposition made to the citizens by the state conference of Congregational churches looking toward the establishment of a college here under the anspices of that body. The matter was taken in hand by the citizens, meet- ings held of the legal voters of the town of Lake City, and the supervisors were ordered to issue the bonds of the town to the amount of twenty thousand dollars in aid of such an institution. Further conference with the church authorities having the matter in hand elicited the unexpected fact that if the college was established Lake City would have to build the structures, and provide largely for the expenses, the Congregational church throughout the state endors- ing the school and recommending contributions and endowments from the friends of education within that denomination. The matter dropped there. From the ledgers of the merchants doing business in town, it was ascertained that the volume of trade for the year ended Angust 1, 1866, aggregated a little over one and a half millions of dollars. The returns, however, are quite incomplete ; oats, corn, barley, manufactures in general, saloons and some other branches of business are not mentioned. The list, as tabulated, is :
Drygoods.
$166,000 Flour and feed $ 26,000
Groceries
164,000
Harness.
7,500
Clothing
90,500
Bakery 8,000
Agricultural implements 74,800
Horses sold
65,000
Hardware
51,500
Butchers' produce
20,000
Drugs
15,000
Lumber
60,000
Boots and shoes
47,500
Wheat
765,350
Not scheduled
60,000
The price of wheat ruled high during the shipping season, and fifteen thousand dollars a day was quite frequently paid by the buyers here. The shipments for the season were 652,054 bushels, a decline of 57,544 as compared with the shipments of the previous year. The amount in store at close of navigation was 6,800 bushels. The decreased shipments all over the state were doubtless owing to the partial failure of the crop. The shipments at Red Wing fell off 300,000 bushels from corresponding period of previous year ; Hast- ings showed a decline of 78,000 bushels. In November the price paid here on the streets rose to $1.75, the Milwaukee quotations being from $1.80 to $2.12. The year 1867 was ushered in with a fire, which broke out in the livery stables of Russell & M'Neil, on
806
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
Franklin street. The flames sped so quickly that only a portion of the stock could be saved, and seven horses were burned to death. The total loss, building and contents, was twenty-five hundred dol- lars, on which there was three hundred dollars insurance.
The questions of supreme importance that engaged the attention of the citizens of Lake City during the year 1867 were those of rail- road aid and county-seat removal. The Chicago & St. Paul Rail- way 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 investment 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 twenty thousand dollars, on the conditions embodied in the report of the committee that had been previously appointed and whose report was then under con- sideration. No result was reached, and the old company was reor- ganized in November, with Hon. W. B. Ogden, of Chicago, at its head. On March 6, 1868, by special act of the state legislature the town 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, and on the 6th of that month the super- visors 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 four hundred and thirty-seven was polled. The amount of the proposed issue was seventy-five thousand dollars, and the poll stood : for issue, 306; against issue, 131. The issue of the bonds thus voted and their transfer led to litigation, in which the corporation of Lake City was made defendant and won the suit as against the railway company. Judgment was subsequently recovered against the town of Lake, so much of as was not included in the corporate limits of Lake City, and the matter compromised by the payment of the sum of twenty-five hundred dollars. The history of this litigation will
LAKE CITY. 807
appear in another place. 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 competition for the capital honors became lively. Lake City bid for the removal by pledging her bonds to the extent of twenty thousand dollars 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 ten thousand dollars to the county, as that amount was imperatively 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 twenty thousand dollars 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 installments of four thousand dollars 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 resources of the language were somewhat severely taxed, as well as the upper cases of the printing-offices, in supplying epithets and capitals, and so the day of election came on. The voting was something extra- ordinary, 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, reversing 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.
+
808
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
The city suffered quite a loss on August 30 of this year 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 thousand dollars, upon which there was no insurance. The warehouse was 30×90, valued at five thon- sand dollars, insured for half that amount.
This year marked an era in the history of the United States post- office here, which was made a money-order office September 9.
The price of wheat rose to $1.83 for No. 1 early in October, and for the first four days of the month the sum of $75,000 was paid by the buyers of the city to farmers for wheat. Two weeks later one firm in this city took in one hundred and ten loads, and barges were loaded at the rate of 2,000 bushels per hour. There was a decided falling off in the wheat shipments this year ; only 342,622 bushels were forwarded from this place, and at close of navigation 25,855 bushels remained in store.
The improvements in the way of buildings footed $74,600.
With the year 1868 the town reached its first decade as an or- ganized 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 one hundred and thirty- four votes in 1858, to five hundred and twelve in 1868. The area of the township, exclusive of town lots, in acres, 17,4087 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-est te 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. While the vote of Lake City in 1868 had increased to almost four times that cast in 1858, the vote of the county at large had increased to a little less than three times the vote cast at the general election of ten years ago. Chester, Elgin, Gillford, Richland, Highland, Plain- view and Zumbro, all showing a larger rate of increase than Lake City, the balance of the township a much smaller ratio. 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. Total wheat shipments were 502,288 bushels, and about 4,000
809
LAKE CITY.
bushels of barley. A census taken in this year by Abner Tibbetts, the assessor, gave 3,031 as the population of the town of Lake City, an estimate a little higher than the United States census returns of two years later seemed to warrant. The amount expended in building improvements for the year was about $28,000 in excess of that of 1867, the total amount for 1868 being $102,750. The inhabitants of the city were forcibly reminded in the beginning of this year that they were not quite out of the woods, by the advent of an immense wild-cat, which crossed the lake on the evening of January 11, and raided the chicken-house of David Lalaw, near the lake, and piled his poultry in a heap, after sucking their blood. On being discov- ered, he went out through the sash, and, taking refuge in Willis' warehouse, was shot. He was described as of immense size, almost as large as a wolf. These "varmints" were quite common in the Wisconsin woods across the lake, but their advent in the streets of Lake City was something unusual. During the year 1869 the ques- tion of voting aid to the reorganized St. Paul and Chicago Railway Company was the all-absorbing theme. Of this mention has already been made. On July 9 a tornado, the first ever seen in Wabasha county within historic periods, struck the county, inflicting considerable damage in Mount Pleasant township, where three dwellings were destroyed, some stock killed, bnt no persons injured, with the exception of L. C. Carson's little girl, who was carried abont one hundred and fifty feet and considerably bruised. The storm seemed to be identical in character with those that have re- cently devastated portions of this and Olmsted counties, and its descent into Lake Pepin and passage across, about one mile below town, are described as· peculiarly grand and terrible. It appears to have formed on the highland between Read's Landing and the West Albany roads, and swept over the bluff back of Morrison Lake, near the O'Hara House, and descended to Lake Pepin. Its path was nearly three hundred yards wide, and where it descended the steep bluff, brush and sapling were scooped out by the roots and scarifications made in the soil. Trees, fences, telegraph-poles, and whatever came in its path as it swept toward the lake, was carried into the air and hurled in all directions, its progress being accompanied by a tremendous roar that drowned the noise of the hoarse thunder then reverberating through the air. As it approached the lake, so says an eye-witness, it appeared a funnel-shaped cloud whirling about one hundred yards above the surface of the water, diagonally
810
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
inclining toward the water. It gradually assumed an upright posi- tion, descending in its course until it commenced drawing up the waters of the lake, which rose to meet it. It was about fifteen minutes in passing over the lake, and the waters for nearly three hundred yards diameter were in a state of agitation impossible to describe. The water was mixed with the dust and débris carried from the shore, and there was a strange play of light within the cloud, which gave it the appearance of a lake on fire. When it reached the Wisconsin shore it had greatly diminished in breadth, but swept the waters out on the beach in a column thirty to forty yards wide and twenty feet above the ordinary lake level. As it rose, the bluff side, to pass over into the valley beyond, the trees that it lifted were plainly seen from the watchers on the shore at this point sailing away in the whirling death-dance of the tornado. Its force was so great that whole oak-trees, thirty inches in diameter, were twisted completely off, their stumps remaining to tell how powerful must have been the force excited. The storm crossed the lake about six o'clock in the evening, and when about midway the lake, the sun broke through the dun-colored clouds in the west, and a beautiful rainbow crowned the head of the tornado and rode upon it as upon the wings of the wind over to the Wisconsin shore,- Nature's presentation of "beauty and the beast " on a gorgeous scale, within the beautiful amphitheater of bluff-crowned Pepin.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.