USA > Minnesota > Wright County > History of Wright County, Minnesota > Part 26
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
In the summer of 1857 many of the new settlers raised good erops, some went to work on the railroad, and prosperity fol- lowed. The railroad reached Cokato village July 1, 1869. Sinee then Cokato has been a land of plenty. For many years wheat was raised almost exelusively on what had been wild prairie land. The farmers imported meat and butter from Minneapolis and other places. But the change gradually eame, and the people are now engaged for the most part in diversified farming and dairying.
CHAPTER XIII.
COMING OF THE RAILROADS.
Original Project-Minneapolis & St. Cloud-Land Grant Roads -Bond Issue-Minnesota & Pacific-St. Paul & Pacific-Rail- road Reaches Wright County-St. Paul, Minneapolis & Mani- toba-Great Northern-"Soo Line"-Railroad Tax Fiasco- Minneapolis and Central Minnesota.
Railroad projeets for Wright eounty were set on foot as early as 1847, when Professor Inerease A. Lapham, then a noted Wis- eonsin eivil engineer, outlined a plan of two railroads, one from Lake Superior and the other from St. Paul, which were to meet on the Red River of the North, below where Fergus Falls now is. He made a map and studied the country with care. The three lines erossing Wright county at the present time may be said in a general way to follow the route proposed by Professor Lapham, though nothing eame of his plans at that time.
The Minneapolis & St. Cloud Railroad Company was ineorpo- rated by the legislature of 1855, to build a railroad from Minne- apolis to St. Cloud, also a main line by way of Mille Laes, from St. Paul, in the direction of Lake Superior. It is upon this ehar- ter, which has been kept alive by various territorial and state- legislative aets, that the Great Northern now operates in Min- nesota.
The Land Grant Roads. Before the admission of Minnesota as a state, many railroad companies had been chartered by the territorial legislature. The first recorded effort was by J. W. Selby, of St. Paul, who gave notive of the introduction of a bill on March 2, in the session of 1852, to incorporate the Lake Supe- rior & Mississippi River Railroad Company. It passed in the house but failed in the eouneil. However, it actually became a law March 2, 1853, by aet of a subsequent legislature. The second charter was granted to the Minnesota Western Railroad Company Mareh 3, 1853, and the third to the Lonisiana & Minnesota Rail- road Mareh 5, 1853. Not less than twenty-seven railroad eom-
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
panies, including the Minneapolis & St. Cloud already mentioned, were authorized and chartered from 1853 to 1857. But there was no life in any of them until the land grants were made.
On March 3, 1857, congress granted to the territory of Min- nesota lands amounting to 4,500,000 acres for the construction of a system of railways. This magnificent grant of lands caused the governor in 1857 to eall an extra session of the legislature. An act was approved May 22, 1857, granting to four railroad corporations alternate sections designated by odd numbers, in a strip twelve miles in width, six miles on each side of the roads and their branches.
These railroads were: The Minnesota & Pacific, the Transit, the Root River & Southern Minnesota, and the Minneapolis & Cedar Valley. They became known as the land grant roads. Of these, the Minnesota & Pacific was to cross Wright county. This road was created by the land grant act. The others had been in existenee previously. The four companies were to pay three per cent of their gross earnings in lieu of taxes and assess- ments, and the lands granted by congress were to be exempt from all taxation until sold and conveyaneed by the company. The corporations were generally given ten years to construct their respective roads. The financial embarrassments of 1857 retarded the progress of railroad building and it also became evident that the parties who had obtained the railway charters mentioned had neither the money nor the credit to complete these great highways of internal improvement.
The Bond Issue. The territory of Minnesota was admitted to statehood May 11, 1858. The constitution, ratified and adopted October 13, 1857, provided, in artiele 10, section 2, that "no cor- porations shall be formed under special aets except for municipal purposes," and it was still further provided that "the credit of the state shall never be given nor loaned in the aid of any indi- vidual, association or corporation." Notwithstanding the strong feeling worked up over the talk of getting bonds in the aid of railroads so badly needed in the state, the first act of the legis- lature, which was approved March 9, 1858, before the state was admitted, was to submit an amendment to the constitution, pro- viding for loaning the state's credit to the four land grant roads to the extent of $1,250,000 each, or $5,000,000 in all, provided $100,000 for every ten miles to be graded, and $100,000 for every ten miles when the cars were running regularly. In return it required the roads to pledge the net income to pay the interest on the bonds and to convey the first 240 sections of land from the government grant to the state, and to deposit in first mortgage bonds an amount equal to the loan from the state for security. This occasioned much uneasiness among the most prudent of the citizens in the state; and though public meetings were held
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
denouncing the measure, it was, however, upon being submitted to the people, on the appointed day of a special election, April 15, 1858, earried by a large majority, there being 25,023 in favor to 6,733 against the amendment. Wright county voted almost unani- mously in favor of the proposition, for in the Big Woods railroads were greatly needed. The measure afterward became known as the Five Million Loan Bill. The state bonds were of $1,000 denomination, had twenty-five years to run with interest at seven per cent, the railroad companies to pay the interest, and were to be delivered to the incorporators of the companies when ten miles of the road was graded and ready for the superstructure. Owing to technicalities and severe attacks on their validity, it was extremely difficult to market these bonds. Times were hard and the companies were unable to pay the required interest.
On the assembling of the legislature in 1860 the interest on the state bonds having been defaulted, an amendment to the constitution was adopted and submitted to the people expunging the seetion sanctioned and approved by them, April 15, 1858, reserving only the state's rights. The electors of the state at the general election of November 6, 1860, with unanimity, by a vote of 27,023 to 733, approved of the amendment.
Of subsequent developments, the Minnesota State Manual says : In 1887, a proposition setting aside the proceeds of 500,000 aeres for internal improvement lands in settlement of the repu- diated railroad bonds was by aet of the legislature submitted to a vote at a special election called for June 12, and voted down by the decisive vote of 59,176 against, to 17,324 votes for, the proposition. This vote was largely owing to the fact that the state at that time had almost an entire new population that had come into the state long after the bonds were issued and had no definite knowledge of the history of the original indebtedness.
In 1881 the legislature enacted a law providing for the adjust- ment of these bonds, and designating the judges of the supreme court as a commission to make the settlement. The constitu- tionality of this law was questioned, a writ of injunetion was served, and the final determination of the supreme bench was that the law was uneonstitutional, as also the amendment of 1860, prohibiting any settlement without a vote of the people. This latter aet had previously been determined unconstitutional by the supreme court of the United States. An extra session of the legislature was called in October of the same year, when the final adjustment was authorized by aet of the legislature, on a basis of fifty per eent of the amount nominally due, and, after a careful examination of all the claims presented, the bond question was forever set at rest by the issue of adjustment bonds, to the amount of $4,282,000, to parties entitled to receive them. For the payment of these bonds the proposition of setting aside the pro-
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ceeds of the 500,000 acres of internal improvement lands was again submitted at the general election in 1881, and by a vote of 82,435 votes in favor, and 24,526 votes against, the action of the legislature was ratified.
The Minnesota & Pacific Railroad Company was to construet a railroad from Stillwater by way of St. Paul and St. Anthony to a point between 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, at such a point as the legislature might determine. Breck- enridge was finally selected as the point between Big Stone lake and the Sioux Wood river. The line to Breckenridge would cross Wright county, while the line to St. Cloud would be just across the river from this county. The company was also au- thorized to construct a railroad up the Mississippi valley from Winona to St. Paul, and also from a terminal point between the Big Stone lake and Sioux Wood river to any point on the Mis- souri river north of the fifty-fifth parallel of north latitude. Of the state bonds, this company received its share, having ready for superstructure nearly sixty-three miles of roadbed. This com- pany was organized May 22, 1857, with a capital stock of $5,000,000. It had the power to increase this to cover the full cost of its extension, but was not to consolidate with any railroad company owned or operated ontside of the state without the consent of the Legislature.
St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company. After the interest on the state bonds had been defaulted, and the bonds had been repu- diated, railroad matters in the state lay dormant for some two years. Then a new era of internal improvements commeneed by the state making new grants of the old franchises and lands to other corporations. The first company to get the benefit of the new enactment were persons who had been interested in the Min- nesota & Pacific Railroad Company, which reappeared under the name of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company. Among the incorporators were: Edmund Rice, Dwight Woodbury, Henry T. Welles, Leander Gordon, R. R. Nelson, E. A. C. Hateh, J. E. Thompson, William Lee and Richard Chute. In the aet ineor- porating the company, there was a proviso made by the state that certain portions of the road should be completed by specified dates. The company built a line from St. Paul to St. Anthony, and it was on this line on June 22, 1862, that the "William Crooks," the first locomotive in Minnesota with a train of ears, left St. Paul for St. Anthony. The other engine which was a part of the road's equipment was named the "Edmund Riee." Edmund Rice seeured financial support in England, and the work continued. Slowly but steadily the St. Paul & Pacifie Company laid its rails to the Red River of the North.
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
In 1864 the line was completed to Elk River, thirty-four miles from St. Paul and across the river from Wright county. In that year the corporation was divided into two companies. The line from Elk River to East St. Cloud, seventy-four miles from St. Paul, was completed in 1866. This gave Wright county a rail- road lying only a few miles outside the course of its entire north- ern boundary line.
When the separation was made in 1864, the proposed line from St. Paul to Breckenridge became the "First Division," under the presidency of George L. Becker. The right of way through the Big Woods was cut in the winter of 1866-67. The line was completed to Wayzota, in Hennepin county, twenty-five miles, in 1867 ; to Delano, in Wright eounty, in October, 1868; to Cokato, also in Wright county, in July, 1869; then beyond the county and to Willmar later in the year. Breckenridge, on the Red River of the North, two hundred and seventeen miles from St. Paul, was reached in October, 1871.
During the financial panic of 1873, the St. Paul & Paeific Railroad Company became involved in a difficulty with its bond- holders, and Jessie P. Farley, of Dubuque, Iowa, was appointed receiver of its unfinished lines. It was at this period that James J. Hill came into the limelight.
The St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company. In 1878, James J. Ilill, who had come to St. Paul from Canada in 1856, and had been gradually working his way upward, formed a syndieate consisting of himself, George Stephen (afterward Lord Mount Steven), Donald Smith (afterward Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal), and Norman W. Kittson. The syndicate acquired all the bonds and stock of the bankrupt two divisions of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad, the agreement with the Dutch committee of holders being made March 13, 1878. Foreclosure decrees were entered against the company in May, 1879, and the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company formed with a eapital stock of $15,000,000, and $16,000,000 of first mortgage bonds were issued, there being at that time 565 miles of completed railroad, and 102 miles under construction. The lines of the company were leased on February 1, 1890, for 999 years, to the Great Northern Railway Company, which had been organized in 1889, and had taken over the eharter of the Minneapolis & St. Cloud Railway Company.
In the summer, or autumn, of 1878, a survey was made through the northern part of the county, passing through the villages of Clearwater and Monticello. The people along the route were jubilant in anticipation of its early construction, but the project was abandoned, and their hopes unrealized. Thus matters re- mained until the winter of 1880-81, when another survey was imdertaken, following the general course of the former, and com-
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
monly ealled Rosser survey. Other routes were also surveyed, ineluding one through Buffalo. Propositions were submitted, aid extended from the towns of Monticello and Clearwater, and dur- ing the summer of 1881, the road graded as far as the latter village. Track laying began, from Minneapolis west, early in the season.
This line of railway up the west side of the Mississippi, pass- ing through Wright county, and sometimes known as the Osseo braneh, was constructed by the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company, under the charter of the Minneapolis & North- western Railway Company. It was built as far as Clearwater in January, 1882, and completed to St. Cloud and opened for opera- tion December 17, 1882, the same date as the branch from St. Cloud to Milaca and Ilinckley.
The "Soo" Line. The Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Company-popularly known as the "Soo Line" -was organized and incorporated in the year 1884, under the laws of the State of Wisconsin. During the years 1884-1887, lines were constructed and operated between Minneapolis and Sault Ste. Marie, Mieh., a distance of 494 miles.
A line consisting of 288 miles between Minneapolis, Minn., and Boynton, N. D., was eonstrneted in years 1886-1887.
In 1888, the Soo Line began to braneh out slowly, but grad- ually, and fast became a powerful factor in the development of the Northwest. The mileage of the company in 1890 was 782.
Three years later, in 1893, Portal, N. D., situated on the boun- dary between North Dakota and Canada, was reached, and a junction formed with the Canadian Pacific.
By 1900 the company owned 1,278 miles of road, to which 108 miles were added in 1902, and forty more in 1903. The year following the Winnipeg line was completed, from Glenwood, Minn., to Emerson, Man., a distance of 265 miles. The eonstrue- tion in 1905 was forty miles, largely in North Dakota, and in 1906 it was 149 miles. In 1907 and 1908 the Brooten-Duluth line was completed, being the second of its lines to traverse parts of Stearns county. The next year the entire system of the Wis- eonsin Central Railway, with a mileage of 1,412, was built, and is known as the Chieago Division. At the present time the "Soo" owns or controls 3,887 miles of railroad.
The first line construeted through Minnesota, from the Twin Cities to North Dakota was in operation in Wright county in 1886.
The Brooten-Duluth braneh, begun in 1907, and completed in 1909, gave the eentral and western part of the county an addi- tional ontlet both to the Twin Cities and to Lake Superior. The line was completed from Brooten to the crossing of the Mississippi river, east of Bowlus in Morrison county, in 1907 ; from the eross- ing to Moose Lake, Carlton county, in 1908; and to Duluth in 1909.
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
The road is a consolidation of the Minneapolis & Pacific Rail- way Company, organized under the general laws of Minnesota in 1884, the Minneapolis & St. Croix Railway Company organized in 1885 under the Minnesota general incorporation laws, the Aber- deen, Bismarck & Northwestern Railroad Company organized under the general laws of the Territory of Dakota, the Menominee & Sault Ste. Marie Railway Company organized under the laws of Michigan, and the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie & Atlantic Railway Company organized under the laws of Wisconsin, Sep- tember 12, 1883. The last two companies were consolidated in 1886. William D. Washburn and other capitalists of Minneapolis were the principal financiers of the Minneapolis, Sault Ste. Marie & Atlantic Railway Company.
The "Soo" line has 707.02 miles east of Minneapolis ; 2,214.59 west of Minneapolis ; and a Chicago division (Wiseonsin Central) of 1,017.44 miles, making a total mileage of 3,939.05.
Railroad Tax Fiasco. One of the roads which benefited greatly by the land grants was the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company. By the line located through the southern part of this county, and the one just avoiding its northern border, a large acreage was seenred within the county limits, the grant embrac- ing the odd-numbered sections within a limit of six miles on each side of the lines. This, with the large amount embraced in the lands afterward taken under the homestead law, reduced the area taxable by the county to a mere fraction, and in 1867, through some misinterpretation of the terms of the land grant, an effort was made to tax the railroad lands within the county limits, the same as ordinary non-resident lands. They were, therefore, placed on the assessment rolls, returned, and advertised for sale for non-payment of taxes; but the sale was prevented by an injunction served by the railroad company upon the county andi- tor and treasurer. Litigation followed, the ease coming before the June term of the District court, and resulting in a decision in favor of the company. In this contest, H. R. Bigelow appeared for the railroad, and II. L. Gordon for the county. The case was earried to the Supreme court, by appeal, and the action of the lower tribunal confirmed. It was, on the whole, a most unfor- tunate affair, the most serious aspect of which was not the imme- diate expense incurred in the suits. By returning a large assess- ment on real estate, a corresponding tax was required by the state, which, as it was never collected in the county, was never paid into the state treasury, and the state auditor's books long showed a nominal indebtedness from Wright county.
The Minneapolis & Central Minnesota Railway Company has surveyed a line from Minneapolis, via Champlin, Monticello, Kim- ball Prairie, Fair Haven and Maine Prairie, to St. Cloud. The right of way has been secured for practically the entire distance,
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
and considerable preparatory work has been done at the southern end as far as Champlin. Late in the fall of 1914, work was begun on the section from St. Cloud to Kimball Prairie, and grading pushed as rapidly as possible until freezing weather forced a sus- pension of operations. It is the intention of the company to resume work as early in the spring of 1915 as the frost is suffi- eiently out of the ground to permit the use of serapers, and push it rapidly forward to completion. The line passes through one of the richest and best settled parts of the state, and will be of great advantage to the people along the route. The power used will be gasoline motors, at least for the present, though at a later date electricity may be substituted.
CHAPTER XIV.
WRIGHT COUNTY HORTICULTURE.
Original Conditions-Wild Fruit and Nuts-Pioneer Nurserymen -Difficulties Encountered-Progress Made-Some Valuable Advice-Wright County Members of the Minnesota State Hor- ticultural Society-Exhibitions and Prizes-Varieties Best Adapted to This County-Revised by W. H. Eddy.
The larger part of Wright county was originally covered with a vast growth of timber, hard-woods of all varieties common to this region and elimate. This great forest was broken here and there by splendid prairies, natural meadow lands, marshes, lakes and watercourses.
The natural food supply of fruits, nuts, berries and saps was most abundant, and flowers and shrubs kept the landscape bril- liant with color from early spring until late autumn. The shell- bark hickory, the black-walnut, the butternut and the hazelnuts yielded nuts in abundance, the hard-maple produced sap for the making of hundreds of tons of maple sugar, and barks, herbs and roots furnished the Indian with the ingredients for his simple medieines and compounds. Cranberries grew in the marshes in great abundance, and were gathered by the Indians to sell in St. Paul and St. Anthony, long before the white people had settled in this county. The ginseng growing among the trees also proved a welcome source of wealth in the early days.
When the early settlers first came into this county it was be- lieved that no cultivated fruit would ever grow here, and that sueh fruits as the apple, pear and plum, which in the eastern states they had been accustomed to picking in their back yards, would now have to be obtained, if used at all, from far distant points at heavy transportation expense. The weather conditions
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
were such that the raising of fruit in Wright county seemed for- ever out of the question.
The pioneers found here, however, the wild apple, the wild grape, the black currant, the wild plum, the wild strawberry, the smooth and priekly gooseberry, the dwarf June berry, the sand cherry, the choke cherry, the Buffalo berry and the high bush eranberry ; and as the trees were cut off, the red and black rasp- berry, and high bush blackberry inereased in profusion.
The native apple was fortunately a good keeper that could be stored and used for a considerable time into the winter ; the largest and best flavored made passable sauce, and perhaps as fine a jelly as ean be produced from any fruit whatever. The trees were found on the edges of the meadows. The wild grape was as abun- dant then as it is today, and while very small both in bunch and in berry, was found in sufficient quantity to be used largely in marmalades, jellies and home-made wines. The wild plum was undoubtedly the best of the native fruits, some select kinds having a flavor surpassed by few of the stone fruits of any elimate. It was very plentiful among the thiekets at the edge of the timber, and along the water courses generally. It was the first of the native fruits to enter the cultivated lists, and through selection and hybridization it has become the basis of the cultivated varie- ties of the north Mississippi valley. The wild strawberry was abundant in favorable seasons, and while rather soft and difficult to piek, was of such excellent flavor as to be perhaps the highest prized of all the native small fruits. The wild gooseberry, both the smooth and priekly form, was found in considerable abun- dance throughout the country. A few thrifty farmers trans- planted some of these fruits to their gardens.
For many years fruit suitable for eating was considered a lux- ury to be enjoyed only by people of means. Gradually, however, the heavy timber was cleared off, and soil and elimate conditions changed somewhat. But the country was new, mueh wild land unsubdued, and the climate still uneongenial to fruit trees and varieties from other parts of the country not yet adapted. To this must be added that the cultural methods of the east were unsuited for the healthy development of fruit trees in the North- west. New methods of culture had to be developed by our pio- neers. Much time and energy were lost, and accordingly many years passed by before any permanent results were achieved in horticulture in the state. Western horticulture was given a new impetus by the United States Department of Agriculture with the introduction of Russian varieties of apples and other fruits to our country. It was confidently hoped that some varieties might be found among the many thus introduced that could be successfully grown in the Northwestern States. In the meantime, a dozen horticultural pioneers banded together and started the now great
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