N past geologic ages the Falls of Saint Anthony have receded from some point in the valley of the Great River near the Iowa line, to where they now are, almost exactly under the forty-fifth parallel of north latitude. Over them pour the waters collected from a drainage area of some forty-five thousand square miles. The energy attributable to this change of level in the river-bed, here twelve hundred feet wide, is estimated to be, at a good stage of water, one hundred and twenty thousand horse-power. The greater part of this power has been intercepted and put to work by means of a low wooden dam on a rock foundation. Much of it is still running to waste. The adjacent lands form, in soil and topography, an ideal site for a modern city. The first explorer who laid a business eye on the situation knew that a city would be built here and what would be the character of that city.

In 1805, Lieutenant Z. W. Pike was sent by the United States government to explore the new northwestern region just acquired as part of the Louisiana purchase. With a prescience creditable to his intelligence, that officer bargained with the Sioux and obtained a grant of lands extending from the junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers near and below Fort Snelling, nine miles wide on either side of the former stream, to a point above the Falls of Saint Anthony. His main idea was, no doubt, to secure a suitable and ample site for a military post. It may have been in his mind, also, that the great water-power would be good property for the United States to own. It did remain the property of the government for more than twenty years, and in 1821 a small saw and grist mill was built on the west side, for the use of the garrison of Fort Snelling, which meantime had been built.

In accordance with our established national land policy, this great productive agency was at length left to be appropriated by those enterprising citizens who had the foresight to appreciate its value and the good fortune to be on the ground at the happy moment. On July 29, 1837, a treaty was signed at Fort Snelling with the Chippeways, who conveyed to the United States the land lying between the Saint Croix and Mississippi rivers. This treaty, when ratified by the Senate in the following summer, had the effect to open to settlement the lands lying on the east bank of the latter stream. There is a tradition, doubtless having a foundation in fact, that in June, 1838, after receipt of private intelligence, but before arrival of the official notice of the ratification of the treaty, Franklin Steele, a young Pennsylvanian, who had lately become sutler of the post at Fort Snelling, started at a very early morning hour to make a claim abreast of the Falls of Saint Anthony. Steele and his party crossed the river and travelled up the east bank. A Captain Scott of the army, an officer of the garrison, chose the same day and an early hour for an identical purpose. He, however, journeyed by the west bank and, although the

No

distance up and down stream sufficient to command the power of the falls and the rapids from the east bank to mid-channel. It was ten years before the claims of Steele and others who soon followed him, sanctioned by the free-masonry of early settlers, and more than once rescued from claimjumpers, was merged into a solid title by purchase of the United States. In 1848 Mr. Steele built the first sawmill, and the next year he had the town-site of Saint Anthony laid out by William L. Marshall, afterwards governor of Minnesota. other name for the coming city than that given by Father Hennepin to the great water-fall in 1680 seems to have been thought of. The new town grew wondrously, but unfortunately great areas of the adjacent lands were bought up by nonresident speculators. Would-be settlers pouring in found it impossible to buy lots or farms at reasonable prices. These, and many settled pioneers as well, looked with longing eyes over upon the beautiful, parklike, rolling prairie which sloped up from the west bank of the river. Those lovely acres were government reserve, and the garrison at Fort Snelling had at different

distance is not greater, arrived only in time to find Mr. Steele's shanty built, his corn planted, and to be invited to breakfast by his early-rising competitor.

The claim thus made extended for a

times been called upon to oust adventurous squatters. In the same notable year of 1849, Colonel John H. Stevens, born in Canada of American parents, coming to the territory just established from service

The Old Government Flour Mill.

in the Mexican war, and the Hon. Robert Smith, a member of Congress from Illinois, obtained from the Secretary of War, by some mighty magic not well understood now, permits to take up farms of 160 acres each out of the reservation on the west bank. It may be supposed from subsequent developments that Mr. Steele had some interest in these grants. Drawing a division line from a point near the crest of the falls, the pioneers named ran their longitudes respectively up and down stream far enough to establish a claim to all the water-power in the west half of the main channel.

The barrier thus broken down, or at least weakened, dwellers in Saint Anthony began, in considerable numbers, as early as 1850, to swarm out upon the lands lying back of the claims mentioned. The local historians give a catalogue of these adventurers and their holdings. There are still floating suggestions of understandings with garrison commanders, under which squatters, for suitable considerations, were not to be disturbed; but these lack confirmation. Late in the fall of 1853 the military reservation was reduced to six thousand acres, thus liberating a great area of desirable lands to legitimate occupancy. Accordingly there was, in the early months of the next year, a large accession of new neighbors to the colony of squatters whose dwellings dotted the prairie within sight of the falls. A sawmill was built that year on the west side, and nine stores were opened.

The townsite was laid

out, also by Governor Marshall, and the first suspension bridge, to be completed the year following, was begun.

After an anxious and somewhat stormy period of delay and negotiation, Congress, in 1855, passed an act recognizing the claims of the settlers on the west side and allowing them to "prove up" without the formalities of a public sale, at which they might have been outbidden by the land speculators, whose tracks had been observed with apprehension in the neighborhood. The town-site and the adjacent lands having thus passed legally into private hands, early in 1855 there began that phenomenal development of the new city which in its magnitude and continuity has ever since outrun every expectation. Mills, stores, shops, factories, schools, churches, sprang up as if by magic; and the end is not yet.

The present account is not intended to follow the growth of the city in detail, but must be restricted to a limited range of particulars of greatest general interest. The name Minneapolis, according to authority believed to be conclusive, is shortened from Minnehapolis, an evident compound of Minnehaha (a word coined by white men out of Dakota elements) and Greek polis (city). The more current account giving the composition minne (Dakota for water), and polis is a plausible but unhistorical afterthought. The government up to 1858 was that of an ordinary town, giving way in that year to a special town government with a council, by authority of the first state legislature. This authority was recalled, upon petition of the citizens, in 1864, and the municipality remitted to its primitive town government, as being less expensive. It was not till 1867 that the town was by special charter transformed

into a city, with all that the name implies. Saint Anthony had rejoiced in the name and powers of a city since 1855, but handicapped by the burden already mentioned, had long since lost her lead in the race. In 1872 she surrendered her municipal independence and her historic name, and was merged into the united city of Minneapolis. Long before the fusion was accomplished it had become settled that the old city had no hope of holding the first place, and it was felt that no good reason existed for separate political status after the union of business interests. Besides, there would be some chance for east-side Republicanism. The following figures from census reports show the relative development of the two cities:

remarked upon had, when settlement was first made, reached within a thousand feet or thereabout of the upper edge or skirt of the Trenton limestone forming the riverbed above the brink. In the summer of 1869, laborers employed in tunnelling for a "tail-race," starting below the falls in the soft Saint Peter sandstone beneath the Trenton, were suddenly driven out by an inrush of water at the heading. This water, it was soon found, had got under the limestone at its upper edge and made its way in seams in the underlying sandstone. In a few hours an enormous volume was pouring through this enlarging water-way, and the prospect was that the whole Mississippi would soon be flowing down a run of rapids

Reverting to

Falls of Saint Anthony and the waterpower furnished by them, it needs to be said that in 1856 the rights of the original occupiers and proprietors were acquired by two corporations: the Minneapolis Mill Company owning on the west bank, the Saint Anthony Falls Water-power Company controlling the east channels. These corporations are still in existence, and it is to be hoped that they at length derive revenue from their property. There was a period during which they were subjected to great expenses, with a prospect of total destruction of value. This period was one of such tragical interest to Minneapolis, that the tale of it must be told, even at the risk of overrunning limits. The long process of recession of the falls already

Great Northern Railway Viaduct.

instead of plunging over the crest of the limestone, as during unknown ages past. The difference of level between the upper and lower reaches of the river would, of course, not have been obliterated, and the power would not have been annihilated; but it would have been available only to those up-stream abutters, on whose lands dams and races could have been built. It was therefore a matter of life and death to