Houston County, Minnesota - Chapter 1: Minnesota, 1919

Minnesota derives its name from the river named ''Minisota/' by the Dakotas, pronounced "Min-nee-sotah" (Mini, water; sota, turbid or cloudy or poetically, sky colored). To secure the correct pronounciation in English letters, the convention called at Stillwater, in 1848, to secure a territorial organization, instructed their delegates to see that the name of the Territory was written Min-ne-sota.

Minnesota occupies the exact center of North America. The State is bounded on the south by Iowa, on the west by South and North Dakota, on the north by Manitoba and Ontario, and on the east by Wisconsin. It extends from latitude 43 degrees 30 minutes to 49 degrees 24 minutes, and from 89 degrees 29 minutes to 97 degrees 15 minutes west longitude. It is about 400 miles long and from its most eastern to the extreme western point about 354 miles wide.

In area Minnesota is the tenth State of the Union. It contains 84,287 square miles, or about 53,943,379 acres, of which 3,608,012 acres are water. The headwaters of three great river systems are found in its limits, those of streams flowing northward to Hudson Bay, eastward to the Atlantic ocean, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico. About half of this surface, on the south and west, consists of rolling prairie. The rest, embracing the elevated district west and north of Lake Superior, has rich mineral ranges. Throughout most of the timbered sections are fertile valleys and broad trenches of flat and slightly rolling tillable lands.

But few states are so well watered as Minnesota. Its navigable rivers are the Mississippi, the Minnesota, the St. Croix, the Rainy River, the St. Louis, the Red River of the North, and the Red Lake River, all of which, near their sources, have extensive water powers. The smaller streams include the Rum River and Snake River, the Cannon and Zumbro rivers, the Vermillion, Crow, Blue Earth, Des Moines, Cottonwood, Chippewa, Le Sueur, Root, Elk and Sauk rivers. These with their tributaries and a host of lesser streams penetrate every portion of the State.

Within the State there are about ten thousand lakes, the largest of which is Red Lake, in the extreme central northern part of the State. On the same northern slope, in St. Louis county, is the beautiful Vermilion lake, with its tributaries. Bordering on the northeast comer of the State for one hundred and fifty miles, the waters of the great Lake Superior wash its shores. On the southern slope of the State is Itasca lake, the source of the Mississippi, with Cass lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, Leech lake, and other innumerable lakes, all adding volume to the water of the Mississippi, eventually flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. Then we have MiUe Lacs, the source of Rum River, and the picturesque Lake Minnetonka. These are the largest lakes in the State.

The shore of Lake Superior is the lowest land in the State, 602 feet above sea level. The waters of the northeastern part of the State south of the Mesabi iron range flow into Lake Superior, and are carried to the Atlantic ocean. The Mississippi river, having its chief source in Lake Itasca, at 1,466 feet elevation, runs in a southerly direction, leaving the State at 620 feet above sea level.

The Red River of the North, rising in the north, near Itasca lake, at a height of 1,600 feet above the ocean, leaves the State at an elevation of 750 feet. The average elevation of the State is given at about 1,275 feet. The highest elevation is the Misquah hills, in Cook county, 2,230 feet.

Minnesota has an annual mean temperature of 44 degrees, while its mean summer temperature is 70 degrees, the same as that of middle Illinois and Ohio, southern Pennsylvania, etc. Its high latitude gives it correspondingly longer days in summer than states further south, and during the growing season there are two and one-half hours more sunshine than in the latitude of Cincinnati. The winters are not severe. The rainfall in summer is abundant. In every way the climate of Minnesota is ideal.

The great and prosperous commonwealth now known as the State of Minnesota, at one time formed part of three great sovereignties: France, Spain and Great Britain. At different periods sections of it bore the namea of the Northwest Territory, Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan, Iowa and finally "Minnesota."

The economic, political and institutional life of Minnesota can be traced back to the brilliant period of Louis XIV of France and the French conquest of the territory furnishes one of the most fascinating chapters in American history. Whether this was effected by devoted priests under the direction of various religious orders or by intrepid adventurers encouraged in their undertakings by oflScials of the French government, makes little difference. The French were the pioneers in the development of the Northwest fur trade and it was the discovery of potential wealth in the large number of fur bearing animals in the territory that offered a promising field for white adventurous spirits from the settlements along the St. Lawrence River.

Thus it was that in 1655 two of these traders, now indisputibly identified as Medard Chouart, Sieur de Groseilliers and Pierre d'Esprit, Sieur de Radisson, reached Minnesota, having crossed Wisconsin to the Mississippi River and after two years' sojourn returned to Montreal laden with valuable pelts. They were the first white men to visit Minnesota.

Thereafter the possibilities of great wealth in the vast empire beyond the Great Lakes became known and the commercial life of Minnesota may well be said to have commenced in the seventeenth century.

In 1679 Daniel Greysolon DuLhut (Duluth), a French officer, explored the region along the shores of Lake Superior and inland to Mille Lacs lake where he held council with the Indians and during the following summer journeyed to the Mississippi River where he met Father Louis Hennepin, a missionary priest. Father Hennepin was on a voyage of discovery also, the object being to trace the source of the Mississippi. He reached the

The spirit of romance and adventure was ever present during this early period of Minnesota's history, and the latter part of the seventeenth century, but the aborigines did not always take kindly to the visitors. It was, therefore, a matter of self preservation that led to the erection by Nicholas Perrot a fort on the shores of Trempealeau Ui 1689 and of a similar means of defense by Pierre LeSueur, French explorer, at the mouth of the Blue Earth River eleven years later.

When France lost her American dependencies in 1763 all that part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi River came under the control of Great Britain and the result was that English trading enterprises began to supersede the French companies.

During the early years of this commercial warfare, there arrived in the territory Jonathan Carver, a native of Connecticut, who was the first **Yankee" to venture into the territory. With characteristic foresight. Carver established friendly relations with the Indians, and it is alleged that in the spring of 1767 he obtained a grant of land from the Sioux which included the present site of the city of St. Paul, but no government recognition of the grant, currently referred to as "Carver's Claim," has ever been discovered.

The battle for supremacy in the fur trade continued to occupy the attention of the French, British and American companies until the Northwest Company was organized in 1783 and which a few years later gained exclusive control of the trading region beyond the Great Lakes. This supremacy it practically maintained until 1816 wBen the American Fur Company came into existence. This latter company has been credited with being conmiercially and politically the greatest single force in the development of the territory of which Minnesota forms a part.

That section of the State west of the Mississippi river had several times prior to 1803 been alternately possessed by Spain and France, but following the "Louisiana Purchase" in that year Minnesota came under the jurisdiction of Missouri territory, and incidently, for the first time became a political division of the Unted States. In 1805 that part east of the Mississippi river, which had been a section of the Northwest Territory, and later of Indiana, was included in Michigan territory.

Geographers and scientific explorers were also taking an active interest in the territory about this time for in 1798 David Thompson traversed and mapped the Red Lake region and the discovery of the source of the Mississippi River at Itasca lake was announced in 1804 by William Morrison.

Two years after the Louisiana Purchase the Federal government sent an expedition into the new acquisition commanded by Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike, who wintered near what is now Little Falls and visited the Indian tradihg posts which had been established at Leech and Cass lakes.

Lieutenant Pike negotiated with the Sioux for the purhcase of a tract of land extending from below the confluence of the Mississippi and St. Peter's (Minnesota) rivers, up the Mississippi to include the Falls of St.

Anthony, extending nine miles on each side of the river. Another tract nine miles square at the mouth of the St. Croix River was included in the cession. In consideration of these grants the Government paid $2,000, the actual payment being made in the distribution of goods to the Indians by Major Forsyth in 1819 and that year Fort St. Anthony, afterward named Fort Snelling, was located on the Mississippi-Minnesota rivers site.

Another Government expedition arrived in the territory in 1820 headed by General Lewis Cass, who then was governor of all the territory between the Detroit River on the east and the Mississippi on the west. This expedition ascended the Mississippi River to Cass Lake, so named by the historian Henry Schoolcraft, who accompanied it and who also named Lake Itasca, discovered by Thompson in 1804. Three years later the country north and west of Fort Snelling was traversed by Major Stephen Long and a military escort.

Italy was represented in this exploration but not officially, for with Major Long was Giocome C. Beltrami, an Italian political exile. Beltrami left Long's expedition at Pembina and traveled alone or with Indian companions past Red Lake and across the western section of the territory and down the Mississippi River to Fort Snelling.

In the early summer of 1823 the first steamboat on the upper Mississippi, the little "Virginia," laden with supplies, picked its way slowly up the river to Fort Snelling, but almost a decade passed after the advent of soldiers at the fort before settlers began to arrive in any number.

Hon. Henry H. Sibley, afterwards the first governor of the State of Minnesota, arrived at St. Peter's (Mendota) in 1834 from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, as resident partner and manager of the American Fur Company, and the Anglo-Saxon influence which had begun to manifest itself in the years following the treaty of Versailles in 1763, by which the territory's allegiance was changed from France to England, began to take more definite shape.

The Sioux and Ojibway Indians, had, up to the beginning of the nineteenth century, held the territory practically undisturbed, but the commercial spirit entered at about this period and the Indians were used to material advantage in many transactions with the fur traders. They received in exchange for peltries, guns, ammunition, blankets, calicoes, knives, tobacco and rum. Under this system of barter the traders were undoubtedly able to reap large profits, the Indians being permitted to obtain desired articles at the trading posts and given credit according to their hunting and trapping ability.

The first actual settlement of the present State of Minnesota followed as a result of treaties negotiated with the Indians by Governor Dodge of Wisconsin at Fort Snelling, and by Joel Poinsette, a special commissioner, at Washington in 1837. By the first of these the Ojibways ceded all their pine lands on the St. Croix and its tributaries, and by the Washington treaty the Dakota Indians ceded their lands east of the Mississippi and all its islands. * Through these treaties the United States Government gained possession of the land between the Mississippi and the St. Croix rivers south of a line drawn through the mouth of the Crow Wing River; and after the ratification of the treaties by Congress in 1838 these lands were opened for settlement.

In the next few years small settlements were created at St. Paul, Mendota, Pembina, Marine and Dakota (Stillwater), at which latter place the "Stillwater Convention" was held August 26, 1848, whereby measures were adopted for separate territorial organization and providing that the pwposed new territory be named Minnesota. Henry H. Sibley was elected delegate to Congress with the result that on March 3, 1849, the bill organizing Minnesota as an independent territory was passed. The territorial government was declared fully organized June 1, 1841, by Hon. Alexander Ramsey of St. Paul, who had been appointed governor.

With the creation of the territory of Minnesota, the domain of which extended to the Missouri River, a change took place in the industrial and commercial life of the people. The region was still mainly Indian country and the magnificent opportunities for development brought about negotiations with the tribal chiefs for approximately 24,000,000 acres of the finest agricultural land in the world by the signing of the famous Traverse des Sioux and the Mendota treaties. The first of these was signed July 23, 1851, in the presence of a large number of Sioux chiefs at a council presided over by Governor Ramsey and at which the United States Government was represented by Hon. Luke Lee, Indian Commissioner; the second was negotiated at Mendota on the fifth of August. By the Traverse des Sioux treaty the chiefs ceded all the lands claimed by the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands of Sioux, east of the Bois des Sioux and Big Stone rivers and Lake Traverse to the Mississippi River, excepting a reservation one hundred miles long by twenty wide, at the upper part of the Minnesota River. The Indians, under the terms of the treaty, were to move within two years to the reservation ; to receive from the Government, after removal, $275,000 to enable them to become established in their new domain, and $30,000 was to be expended in breaking land, establishing mills and providing a manual labor school. They also were to receive an annuity of $68,000 for fifty years payable $40,000 in cash, $10,000 in goods and provisions, a civilization fund of $12,000 and an education fund of $6,000.

By the Mendota treaty, which was signed by sixty-four chiefs of the Med-ay-wakanton and Wah-pay-kee-tay bands of Sioux, all their lands in the territory of Minnesota and Iowa were ceded. In consideration for this the United States was to reserve for them a tract of an average width of ten miles on either side of the Minnesota River between the Yellow Medicine River on the west and the Little Rock River on the east; to pay them $220,000 with which to settle debts and aid in their removal to the reservation ; $30,000 to be used for the erection of structures and opening farms ; an annual civilization fund of $12,000 ; an annual education fund of $6,000 ; to provide $10,000 in goods and provisions annually and to pay $30,000 in cash. The annuities were to continue for fifty years. The treaties were ratified by Congress in June, 1852.

the Government until the fifth of May, 1864, when President Lincoln by proclamation confirmed it. By this treaty 11,000,000 acres of land embraced within the northwestern section of the State in the Red River Valley was added to the already large tracts available for white settlement.

The United States census of 1850 showed that the white population of Minnesota numbered 6,077, but immigration increased rapidly after the negotiations and ratification of the Indian treaties and by 1853 steamboats engaged in the Minnesota River trade carried capacity cargoes and passengers. Villages grew rapidly in the valley of the Minnesota, which was regarded as a veritable Eden and farms appeared in all directions. A period of unprecedented immigration continued from 1853 to 1857, at which time the population of the territory was 150,027. During these years of prosperity Minnesota attracted the best class of men and women from Europe. They were hardy frontiersmen indeed, with slender financial resources, a condition tjrpical always of those who have been in the vanguard of settlement. As a class they were far superior in morality, education and intelligence than the pioneers in many of the older territories. Many were farmers who came west in "Prairie Schooners," with their own stock. Although Southwestern Minnesota gained more from the incoming population than any other section, the unusual success which attended the beginning of the lumber industry had its effect on every branch of trade and a rapid increase in the wealth of the newcomers.

The adventurous spirit, however, of many of the settlers led many of them to locate near the extreme limits of the land grants and in immecUate proximity to Indian settlements. Occasionally the younger Indians on hunting expeditions returned to the ceded lands in the Southwestern section near the Iowa border. One band under the leadership of Inkpaduta, comx)osed of about fifteen lodges, were particularly given to marauding. It was this band which caused the first serious trouble for the whites. In the spring of 1857 a few of these Indians hunting in the vicinity of Rock River killed a dog belonging to a white settler. The owner of the dog assaulted one of the Indians and then gathering a few neighbors went to the Indian camp and disarmed them. In a spirit of revenge the Indians went to the white settlement at Spirit Lake, March 6, 1857, massacred the men and took four women captives, two of whom were later rescued. Other settlements were attacked and altogether forty-two settlers were killed. An expedition was dispatched by Hon. Charles E. Flandrau, the Indian agent, but all escaped across the prairies into the wilds of Dakota territory, except the eldest son of Inkpaduta who was killed in an attempt to capture him.

The prosperity of the years prior to 1857 resulted in a demand for an extensive railroad system and for a state government for the territory; therefore Congress, on February 26, 1857, passed an act authorizing a constitutional convention and also granting a large amount of lands in aid of public schools. In March of the same year. Congress enacted legislation making large grants of lands to railroad companies. But as the year 1857 advanced, financiers began to feel the effects of uncertain conditions in the East. Stringency in the money market was the rule and business was dull.

Local bankers had little money for business loans, having invested heavily in real estate. The crash came August 28» when a telegram reached St. Paul announcing the suspension of several eastern banking institutions. Within a week real estate transactions ceased ; payments became slower, past due accounts began to accumulate ; gold commanded a stiff premium and soon disappeared from general circulation, and money of any kind was scarce. Early in October St. Paul banks suspended specie payments, more banking firms went under and instead of immigration an exodus from the territory had actually begun. Bankers held meetings and unsuccessfully urged Goyemor Samuel Medary to call an extra session of the territorial legislature. The Constitutional convention which had assembled at St. Paul July 13, acting on the instant demands of the people, incorporated into the fundamental laws of the proposed state the constitutional basis for a sounder financial policy, but it was not until after the Civil War that prosperity returned.

The proposed State Constitution adopted at the convention also changed the western boundary of the proposed state, which heretofore had extended to the Missouri River. The Red River of the North, the Boise des Sioux River, Lake Traverse and Big Stone Lakes with a line extending due south to the Iowa border, was the established western limits. The Con8titati0n also provided for the election of State officers at the same time of voting on the adoption of the Constitution. The first State legislature convened December 2, 1857, and continued in session until March 25, 1858, when a recess was taken pending the admission of Minnesota to statehood by Congress. The act of admission was passed May 11, 1858, and the date's first governor, Henry H. Sibley, assumed office May 24. On June 3 the legislature having again assembled, Governor Sibley delivered his inaugural address and the State's lawmaking body continued in session until August 12, 1858. The first legislature worked diligently on financial and railroad legislation. To utilize the Government land grant a scheme was devised aimed to aid companies who might be willing to undertake the construction of railroads. This act came to be known as the "Five Million Loan Bill," under which the credit of the State was loaned to that amount. It was proposed as an amendment to the constitution and was adopted by a large majority. There always was much opposition to the measure, however, and when the State Supreme Court later ruled that the constitutional provision did not require the railroads to give the State a prior lien on their property, the railroad bonds depreciated in value. Eastern financiers refused to buy the bonds and finally the entire scheme collapsed with the foreclosure of the mortgages which the State had taken upon railroad franchises and lands. The result was the abandonment of railroad construction temporarily. The total amount of bonds issued was $2,275,000, and by foreclosing the State acquired about 250 miles of graded road, the franchises and the lands amounting to about five million acres indemnity.

Minnesota struggled desperately, in the period from 1858 to 1863, to overcome the financial disasters of 1857 and to regain the prosperity which, a few years before, had seemed the State's natural heritage. Abundant crops of 1859 and 1860 restocked the granaries, and it was hoped that the difficulties would be overcome. But the presidential campaign served only to develop the disturbing situation throughout the country, followed by the war period, commencing with the President's proclamation, in April, 1861, in which the young State not only contributed her full quota of men for the preservation of the Union, but also was forced to fight for her own existence through one of the worst Indian uprisings ever witnessed in America.

Governor Alexander Ramsey chanced to be at Washington on the twelfth of April, 1861, when news that Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and war, which so long had been a probability, became a reality. He hastened at once to the war department and offered one thousand men from Minnesota, the first tender of troops from any quarter after the fall of the Charlestown fortress. On April 15th President Lincoln's war proclamation was published, and on the 16th Ignatius Donnelly, acting governor, issued a call for the first regiment of volunteers, which was assembled, organized and quartered at Fort Snelling with amazing rapidity, and before Lee surrendered at Appomatox, thus ending the war of the Rebellion, Minnesota had furnished a total of 22,160 troops.

The war, calling so many able-bodied men from the State, left the frontiers almost defenseless and, although the Indians had more or less complaint to make regarding extortions practiced on them by post traders, no serious outbreaks had occurred. They were, however, becoming more and more restless and coming off their reservations at increasing recurring intervals.

A sentiment was growing among the whites that the Indians should adopt modes of civilization, the splendid agricultural lands which they control should not be left idle. Therefore, the head chiefs were induced to go to Washington, in 1858, in charge of Hon. Joseph R. Brown, for the purpose of negotiating for the transfer of the whole, or part, of the twenty*-mile strip on the upper valley of the Minnesota River, which had been reserved for them by the treaties of 1851. The transfer was made and a ten-mile strip on the north side of the river was relinquished to the Government for an agreed price of $140,000. The Government also provided that every head of a family, or single person over 21, adopting civilization, should receive in fee eighty acres of land. When, however, for some cause, the payments were not made and no money was divided, on account of the relinquishment, the more hostile Indians became rebellious. Internal strife arose and was augmented from time to time by the withdrawal of families who were willing to sever tribal relations and accept the civilization fund provided in the earlier treaties. These were, hpwever, annuity Indians and had a right to be heard in councils. They numbered about six thousand two hundred and received an annual cash pa3rment from the Government of about fifteen dollars each. They were treated as wards of the Government and handled little or no actual cash, agencies having been established, around which gathered storekeepers who sold the Indians goods in anticipation of the annual payments.

The discontent continued to increase, however, and the hostile feeling against the whites was in no wise ameliorated by some injustices which

On the seventeenth of August, 1862, four Indians made a threatening attack upon a family in the township of Acton, twelve miles west of Litchfield. They drove the family to a neighbor's house, where, after an altercation, they kiUed three men and two women. They lost no time returning to camp and reporting what had happened. The Indians, after consultation, decided to stand by their fellows, and a general uprising followed by the entire Sioux bands. Their movements were so swift that before effective resistance could be brought about, eight hundred men, women and children were massacred within a few days.

State And national authorities took prompt action, and a detachment of volunteers, under command of General Sibley, aided by some Union troops, met the savages near Wood Lake, on September 23, overwhelmed them and released a large number of women and children, who had been taken captive. The 2,000 Indians captured were given a trial and 303 were found guilty of murder and rape and condemned to death by military court martial. A reprieve by President Lincoln saved all but thirty-eight of the most prominent, who were hanged at Mankato on the 26th of December, 1862. Many of the Indians who escaped capture fled into the Dakotas, but two expeditions were sent after them and, in 1864, the final chapter of the Sioux outbreak was written when the Indians surrendered their ponies and arms to the Government.

Settlers, who had lost property through the Indian raids, were compensated to the amount of $1,370,374 following an investigation by a commission appointed by the Government. This money was taken from the trust fund, which had been created for the Indians under the treaties of 1851, and which amounted, at that time, to $2,520,000. With the pajmients of the claims to settlers by act of Congress, further annuities to the Indians were stopped.

Despite the drain of war upon the male population of the State an increased acreage was sown during this period and, with the beginning of Scandinavian immigration into Minnesota, the outlook appeared brighter for its future.

The close of the Civil War, in 1865, with the return of the soldiers, and with no further outbreaks by Indians, a new era of prosperity loomed. New railroad companies had been granted charters on the road-beds taken in the foreclosure proceedings of 1857, and during the next five years the population increased to 239,760. The Government was making large expenditures for war claims, war bounties, payments to discharged soldiers and the payment of other bills made money plentiful. Agriculture was given a great impetus by the steady influx of immigration from northern European countries and the population steadily increased until, in 1875, Minnesota's population was 597,407. An effort was made, during this era of prosperity, to adjust the matter of the dishonored raiboad bonds, but it was not until 1881, at an extra session of the legislature, that an act was passed authorizing final adjustment on the basis of 50 per cent, payments

The million-population mark was passed by the State between 1880 and 1885. The development of the Dakotas, subsequent to 1885 and the breaking up of virgin soil in that territory, doubled the wheat yield of the Northwest, and the Minnesota farmer turned his attention more to diversified activities, with especial reference to dairying.

From 1885 to 1890 the population continued to increase, the national census in the latter year giving Minnesota credit for 1,302,826 inhabitants, and five years later, in 1895, the State census showed a population of 1,527,619.

In April, 1898, the United States declared war on Spain, and Minnesota, following the example shown in the Civil War, was the first to respond to the call for troops, and furnished four regiments. They were designated the Twelfth, Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth. The first three were mustered into service at St. Paul, May 7, after being mobilized April 29. The Fifteenth Regiment was mustered into service July 18. A total of 5,315 ofiicers and men were furnished by Minnesota. The Twelfth and Thirteenth were mustered out in November, 1898; the Fifteenth, March 27, 1899, and the Fourteenth, October 3, 1899.

At the beginning of the present century Minnesota's population was 1,751,394 ; the State enumeration taken in 1905 showed 1,979,912, and the Federal census showed Minnesota's population to be 2,075,708, and by 1918 it was estimated that this had increased to 2,550,000.

During the four years, from August, 1914, the world has been in a turmoil and, although President Wilson did not declare war on Germany until April 7, 1917, Minnesota troops had been in active service more than a year prior to that date on the Mexican border. The first change from peace to militant activity for the State came with orders, June 18, 1916, for the Minnesota National Guard to go to Llano Grande, Tex. The First, Second and Third Regiments of Infantry and the Second Battalion of Field Artillery were mobilized at Fort Snelling (named Camp Bobleter), June 26. The Third Regiment left for the Texas border July 10 ; the First Regiment July 12; the Second Regiment July 15; the Second Battalion of Field Artillery July 20, and the First Battalion of Artillery Oct. 1, 1916.

After service on the Mexican border the Third Regiment was mustered out, at Fort Snelling, in December, 1916 ; the First Regiment was mustered out March 14, 1917 ; the Second Regiment was mustered out January 24, 1917, and the First Field Artillery Regiment was mustered out February 28, 1917.

When President Wilson issued his war proclamation against the Imperial German government, on Good Friday, April 7, 1917, Minnesota, therefore, was somewhat prepared, as the Minnesota National Guard's service in the Southwest had somewhat prepared them.

The First Minnesota Regiment was called out March 26, 1917, and mustered into service April 7 ; the First Field Artillery was called June 24 and mustered in July 20; and the Second and Third Infantry Regiments were called July 15 and mustered in at the companies' home stations at various dates from July 21 to 29. These three regiments were again sent to the Southwest, but this time were stationed at Camp Cody, near Deming, New Mexico. The First Field Artillery left for Camp Mills, L. I., September 4, 1917, and a few weeks later was sent to France, where it upheld the honor of the State and Nation as the 151st United States Field Artillery.

In June, 1917, the Conscription Act became effective and all men between the ages of 21 and 31 were registered for military service, and later this was extended to men up to 45. More than a half million Minnesota men were listed as registrants ; and, up to the fall of 1918, nearly 100,000 of Minnesota's best manhood was in the service, either with the Federalized National Guard or in the National Army.

To better enable Minnesota to do its share in the war, the legislature of 1917 passed an act creating the Commission of Public Safety, to be composed of seven members, including the Governor and Attorney General, and appropriated $1,000,000 for its use. This commission had almost unlimited powers and was to continue in existence until three months after the war ended. One of the first acts of this commission was to create the Minnesota Home Guard, comprised of volunteers in practically every city and town in the State, and approximately 20,000 men, from 18 to 52, became members. The commission also adopted and enforced other orders, including the closing of saloons in certain sections of the State and aiding the Gk>vemment in its "work or fight order," as well as establishing standard minimum prices to be charged for commodities. In addition to these activities the State co-operated fully with the National Government in bringing to bear every natural resource, including the output of the mines and forests.

The formation of three new regiments of Minnesota National Guard was also authorized, in the summer of 1918, by the Governor, to aid in home defense.

Toward the end of 1918 Minnesota suffered one of the most serious catastrophes in its history through forest and prairie fires. On the afternoon of October 12, a small blaze, which had been smouldering in the peat bogs of Aitkin County for weeks, fanned by a high wind, suddenly broke forth into a seething, blazing mass and swept across sections of Aitkin, Pine and Carlton counties toward Duluth. The fire, fifty miles in width, destroyed the thriving villages of Moose Lake and Cloquet and nearly 600 men, women and children lost their lives. The property loss reached $30,000,000. The military authorities were sent to the scene and worked for weeks rehabilitating the refugees; the people of the State responded quickly to the call for succor so that before winter set in everything possible was done for the sufferers.

But the terrible calamity was expected to bring good results, for the people were aroused to the necessity of adequate protection in the future, not only of the lives of the settlers in the forest area of Minnesota, but for the safeguarding of the forests themselves.

Another serious disaster befell on the afternoon of Sunday, June 22, when a cyclone struck Fergus Falls, and entailed a heavy destruction of Kfe and property. But with characteristic Minnesota courage the people rallied from this catastrophe, the citizens of the State came to their rescue in every way possible, and an even fairer city is arising on the ruins of the older one.

1635. Jean Nicollet, an explorer from France, who had wintered in the neighborhood of Green Bay, brought to Montreal the first mention of the aborigines of Minnesota.

1659-60. Groseilliers and Radisson wintered among the Sioux of the Mille Lacs region, Minnesota, being its first white explorers. In a previous expedition, four years earlier, they are thought to have come to Prairie Island, west of the main channel of the Mississippi, between Red Wing and Hastings.

1661. Father Rene Menard left Keweenaw, on Lake Superior, to visit the Hurons, then in northern Wisconsin, and was lost near the sources of the Black and Chippewa rivers. His breviary and cassock were said to have been found among the Sioux.

1679. July 2, Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut (Duluth) held a council with the Sioux at their principal settlement on the shore of Mille Lacs. Du Lhut. in June, 1680, by way of the St. Croix River, reached the Mississippi and met Hennepin.

1689. May 8, Nicholas Perrot, at his Fort St. Antoine, on the Wisconsin shore of Lake Pepin, laid formal claim to the surrounding country for France. He built a fort also on the Minnesota shore of this lake, near its outlet.

1700. Le Sueur established Fort L'Huillier, on the Blue Earth River (near the mouth of the Le Sueur), and first supplied the Sioux with firearms.

1766. Captain Jonathan Carver visited St. Anthony Falls and Minnesota River. He claimed to have made a treaty with the Indians the following spring, at a cave afterward called "Carver's Cave," within the present limits of St. Paul, by which he said they ceded to him an immense tract of land, long known as "Carver's Claim," but never recognized by Government.

1796. Laws of the Ordinance of 1787 extended over the Northwest. Territory, including the northeastern third of Minnesota, east of the Mississippi River.

1803. April 30, that part of Minnesota west of the Mississippi, for the preceding forty years in possession of Spain as a part of Louisiana, was ceded to the United States by Napoleon Bonaparte, who had just obtained it from Spain.

1803-04. William Morrison, the first known white man to discover the source of the Mississippi River, visited Elk Lake and explored the streams entering into the lake 'forming the head of the river.

1805. Lieutenant Z. M. Pike visited Minnesota to establish government relations there, and obtained the Fort Snelling reservation from the Dakotas.

1812. The Dakotas, Ojibways and Winnebagos, under the lead of hostile traders, joined the British during the war. Red River colony established by Lord Selkirk.

1819. Minnesota, east of the Mississippi River, became a part of Crawford County, Michigan. Fort St. Anthony (renamed Fort Snelling in 1825), established, and a post at Mendota occupied by troops under command of Colonel Henry Leavenworth. Major L. Taliaferro appointed Indian agent, arriving in the autumn of that year.

1820. Comer stone of Fort St. Anthony, later called Fort Snelling, laid September 10. Governor Cass visits Minnesota and makes a treaty of peace between the Sioux and Ojibways at Fort St. Anthony, Aug. 1. Colonel Josiah Snelling appointed to the command of the latter post.

1823. The first steamboat in Minnesota arrived at Mendota, May 10, Beltrami being a passenger. Major Stephen H. Long explored the Minnesota River, the Red River Valley, and the northern frontier. Beltrami explored sources of the Mississippi.

1836. The territory of Wisconsin organized, embracing the part of Minnesota east of the Mississippi, the part on the west being attached to Iowa. Nicollet visited Minnesota.

1837. Governor Dodge of Wisconsin made a treaty at Fort Snelling, with the Ojibways, by which the latter ceded all their pine lands on the St Croix and its tributaries; a treaty was also effected at Washington with a deputation of Dakotas for their lands east of the Mississippi. These treaties led the way to the first actual settlements within the area of Minnesota.

1838. The treaty ratified by Congress. Franklin Steele makes a claim at St. Anthony Falls. Pierre Parrant makes a claim and builds a shanty on the present site of St. Paul.

1847. The Wisconsin constitutional convention meets. The town of St. Paul surveyed, platted and recorded in St. Croix County register of deeds' office. First improvement of the water power at the Falls of St. Anthony.

1848. May 29, Wisconsin admitted, leaving the area of Minnesota without a government. August 26, the "Stillwater convention" held, taking measures for a separate territorial organization, and asking that the new Territory be named Minnesota. October 30, H. H. Sibley elected delegate to Congress.

1849. January 15, H. H. Sibley admitted to a seat. March 3, the bill organizing Minnesota passed. March 19, its territorial officers appointed. June 1, Governor Ramsey declared, by proclamation, the Territory organized. September 3, the first territorial legislature assembled.

1851. Location of the capital, university, and penitentiary; another flood. July 23, treaty of Traverse des Sioux completed and August 5 the treaty of Mendota, opening the territory west of the Mississippi to settlers.

1854. Celebration of the opening of the Rock Island raibroad, the first road to the Mississippi River, by a mammoth excursion, reaching St. Paul June 8. Large immigration this season and the three succeeding ones, and the real estate mania commences.

1857. Enabling act passes Congress February 26. Gov. Samuel Medary (appointed by Buchanan) , arrives on April 22. Legislature passes a bill to remove the capital to St. Peter, but it fails to accomplish the object. Ink-pa-du-ta massacre, April. Land grant passes Congress. April 27, extra session of the legislature to apportion Iimd grant. July 13, constitutional convention assembles. Real estate speculation reaches its height, and is checked by the financial panic, August 27. Great revulsions and hard times. Census shows 150,037 population. October 13, constitution adopted and State officers elected.

1858. State loan of $250,000 negotiated. Five million loan bill passed by the legislature, March 9; ratified by vote of people, April 15. Great stringency in money market. State admitted May 11. State officers sworn in. May 24.

1859. Hard times continue to intensify. "Wright County War." "Glencoe" and "Owatonna" money issued. Work on the land grant roads ceases. Collapse of the five million scheme. First export of grain this fall. Hard political struggle; the Republicans triumph.

1861. April 15, President's proclamation for troops received ; the first regiment recruits at once; June 22, it embarks at Fort Snelling for the seat of war.

1862. Call for 600,000 men. July 2, first raiboad in Minnesota in operation, between St. Paul and Minneapolis. August 17, massacre at Acton; August 18, outbreak at Lower Sioux Agency, eight miles east of Redwood Falls; 19, New Ulm attacked; 20, Fort Ridgely attacked; 25, second attack on New Ulm ; 30, Fort Abercrombie besieged ; September 2, the bloody attack at Birch Coulee. September 23, battle of Wood Lake ; 26, captives surrendered at Camp Release; military commission tries 321 Indians for murder, rape, etc.; 303 condemned to die. December 26, 38 hung at Mankato.

1863. General Sibley's expedition to the Missouri River; July 3, Little Crow killed; July 24, battle of Big Mound; July 26, battle of Dead Buffalo Lake; July 28, battle of Stony Lake.

1865. Peace returns. Minnesota regiments return and are disbanded. In all 22,016 troops furnished by the State. Census shows 250,099 inhabitants.

1873. January 7, 8 and 9, polar wave sweeps over the State; seventy persons perish. September, the Jay Cooke failure creates another panic. Grasshopper raid begins and continues five seasons.

1880. November 15, portion of the hospital for the insane at St. Peter destroyed by fire; eighteen inmates burned to death, seven died subsequently of injuries and fright, and six missing; total loss, $150,000.

1886. April 14, a tornado strikes the cities of St. Cloud and Sauk Rapids, demolishing scores of buildings and killing about seventy people.

1889. The legislature enacts the Australian system of voting in cities of 10,000 and over. The first electric street railway started in the State at Stillwater.

1890. United States census shows a population of 1,301,826. July 13, an excursion steamboat retumin^r from Lake City encampment foundered on Lake Pepin, and 100 people were drowned. July 13, a tornado swept

1891. June 15, a series of tornadoes started in Jackson County, near the town of Jackson, traversing Martin, Faribault, Freeborn, Mower and Fillmore counties, on a line nearly parallel with, but from five to fifteen miles north of the Southern Minnesota division of the Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, doing a large amount of damage to farms and farm buildings, and causing death to about fifty people along the track of the storm.

1893. The legislature authorizes the appointment of a capitol commission to select a site for a new capitol, and providing a tax of two-tenths of a mill for ten years to pay for the site and the erection of a building. A great financial crisis causes the failure of several banks and many mercantile and manufacturing establishments in the larger cities of the State.

1894. September 1, forest fires start in the neighborhood of Hinckley, in Pine County, carrying death and destruction over nearly four hundred square miles of territory, destroying the towns of Hinckley and Sandstone, causing the death of four hundred and seventeen people, rendering homeless and destitute twenty-two hundred men, women and children, and entailing a property loss of about one million dollars.

1896. The Red Lake Indian reservation was diminished to about a quarter part of its former area, and on May 15 a large tract of agricultural and timber lands formerly belonging to that reservation was opened for settlement.

1898. July 27, the comer stone of the new capitol was laid. Minnesota supplied four regiments for service in the Spanish War, being the first State, May 7, to respond to the President's caU. October 5, the Pillager Indians attacked United States troops near Sugar Point, Leech Lake.

1899. Semi-centennial of the Territory and State celebrated by the old Settlers' Association, June 1, and by the Historical Society, November 15.

1901. In the Pan-American Exposition, at Buffalo, N. Y., the superior exhibits of wheat, flour, and dairy products of Minnesota caused her to be called ''the Bread and Butter State."

1902. August 23, the fortieth anniversary of the Sioux War celebrated at New Ulm. Monuments and tablets erected there and at other places in the Minnesota Valley.

1903. Tide of immigration into Minnesota, particularly in northern and western sections. April 22, death of Alexander Ramsey, first territorial governor, later governor of the State, United States senator, and secretary of war.

1904. Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Minnesota exhibits win many first prizes for flour, butter, fruits, iron ores, work of pupils in schools, etc.

1906. September 3, Live Stock Amphitheater on the State Fair ground dedicated, with address by James J. Hill. Attendance at the Fair on that day, 93,199; during the week, 295,000.

1907. Folwell Hall, the new main building for the College of Science, Literature and Arts, of the University of Minnesota, completed at cost of $410,000 for the building and its equipment. The total number of students of this university enrolled in all departments for the year was 4,145.

1908. The fiftieth anniversary of the admission of Minnesota to statehood was celebrated in connection with the State Fair, its attendance during the week being 326,753.

1909. Death of Gov. John A. Johnson after an operation at Rochester, Minn., Sept. 21, 1909. Lieut. Gov. Adolph O. Eberhart sworn in as Governor by Chief Justice Start, in the Supreme Court retiring room, at 11 o'clock the same day.

1910. Population of Minnesota, shown by the national census, 2,075,708. Death of State Treasurer Clarence C. Dinehart June 8. E. S. Pettijohn appointed to succeed, June 11. Forest fires in northern Minnesota during the second and third week in October result in death to about thirty people and the destruction of about $20,000,000 of property. Spooner and Baudette wiped out.

1911. The legislature ratified the proposed amendment to the United States Constitution for election of U. S. senators by popular vote, October 18. George E. Vincent was inaugurated president of the University of Minnesota.

1912. The legislature in special session enacted a new primary election law and "corrupt practices" act. October 19, the statue of Governor Johnson on the capitol ground was unveiled.

1913. February 5, former Governor Hubbard died in Minneapolis. June 16-20, the American Medical Association held in Minneapolis its sixty-fourth annual session.

1914. The total mileage of main line railways operated in this State was 9,002 miles, on June 30, an increase of 54 miles from the mileage of 1913. July 4-11, the National Education Association held its annual convention in St. Paul.

1915. In November, the last bonds of indebtedness of the State resulting from the Five Million Loan Bill for railroad building, enacted in 1858, were paid and burned. December 30, (Jovernor Hammond died of apoplexy in Clinton, La.; and on the same day Lieutenant Governor Bdmquist took the oath of ofiice as his successor.

1916. In February, iron and steel manufacture and production of Portland cement, each on a very large scale, were begun at Duluth. May 29, James J. Hill, railway builder, organizer of the Great Northern Railway

1917. April 6, the United States entered the World War, which began in the last days of July, 1914. During nineteen months until the war closed, Minnesota gave over 80,000 men in the army service, 13,000 in the navy, and 6,000 in the marine corps, an aggregate of over 100,000 troops. July 1, Marion LeRoy Burton began presidency of the State University.

1918. May 11, dedication of the building of the Minnesota Historical Society, erected by the State at a cost of $500,000. September 25, Archbishop John Ireland died. Oct. 12-13, forest fires after a long drought, driven by a great wind, spread over a large area in Carlton County and the south part of St. Louis County, inflicting loss of more than 1,000 lives of agricultural settlers and residents in many villages with destruction of property exceeding $30,000,000. November 11, signature of an armistice terminated the World War and opened a new era of reconstruction. The people of Minnesota own 222,222 automobiles.