McLeod County, Minnesota - Chapter 2: Physical Features of Mcleod County, 1917

May 21, 1855, Col. John H. Stevens, Hon. Martin McLeod, A. J. Bell, D. W. Fields, James H. Mayall, J. V. McKeen, W. S. Chapman, John Johnson, and Hon. Robert Vinton, a party of explorers and investors, debouched from the west side of the great forest called the Big Woods upon a beautiful prairie which stretched out before them, a vast expanse whose surface was diversified by groves, lakes, and streams. This party constituted the advance guard of the great invasion of settlers which made the permanent white settlement of McLeod county,

It cannot, and need not, be denied that these men were, in a4 great sense, speculators, They sought to improve and develop the country and to legitimately derive a profit from their enterprise. At the border of the Big Woods and on the banks of Buffalo Creek, they located and laid out or platted a town which they called Glencoe, a name which, singularly enough, is always historic, from the noted vale in Scotland to the busy and bright little town in Minnesota.

The visit of the adventurous and gallant spirits and the laying out of Glencoe constituted the beginning of the first real white settlement and development of the county which became McLeod county, To the description and further history of this county, the succeeding pages of this volume are devoted.

Position and Natural Description. In a history of McLeod county a description of the geographical and geological features of the country may be given with propriety, and perhaps to advantage. Regarding: its position among the other counties of Minnesota it is to be said that it is situated in the central portion of the south half of the state, and lies between the parallels of north latitude 44 degrees and 40 minutes and

5 degrees, and between longitudes west of Greenwich 94 degrees and 94 degrees and 20 minutes. The 45th parallel) of north latitude, which is substantially the northern boundary of McLeod county, is exactly midway between the equator and

The county, in its extreme length east and west, is 24 miles, It would be exactly 24 miles square had there not been taken a big bite of two townships out of the southeastern part of the county, destroying its symmetry and leaving the two west lines of townships 24 miles long north and south, by 12 miles east and west and the two eastern lines 18 miles north and south by 12 miles east and west. The exact surveyed area of the county is nearly 50714 square miles (some publications give the area as 707 square acres) or 324,771.86 acres, of which 14,2831, acres are listed as covered by water. Thus it will be seen that, owing to the spherical form of the earth, the congressional townships of McLeod county are "long'"' by more than 2,000 acres. As to its surveyed position the county includes all but two townships between and including congressional townships 114 and 117 north of the base line (which runs east and west through Little Rock) and lying between and including range lines 27 and 30 west of the 5th principal meridian which runs north from the mouth of the Arkansas river, both bases being in central Arkansas.

Surface Features. The county lies almost within the basin of the south fork of the Crow river, which flows through the northern half in a general direction from west to east, then, following northeasterly, through the northwestern part of Carver county and the extreme southeastern part of Wright, and still running northeasterly forms the northern boundary of Hennepin county and finally empties into the Mississippi at the village of Dayton. The Crow is composed of two branches which unite near Rockford, Wright county, about 30 miles from the mouth of the main stream. Both branches have their sources among the Kandiyohi lakes; the South Fork, or Crow river proper, heads in Big Kandiyohi lake. The river has long been known. The old-time Sioux called it Wak-pah Kahn-ghe-toka, or River of the Crows, and the Chippewa name was Ahn-dak Sebe, Crow river. Nicollet, on his map (1837) labels the main stream Kah-ke-shon, a Sioux sounding name but untranslatable by the writer, although kah-ke is very like kahn-ghe. He heads both branches correctly in the Kandiyohi lakes, but has no other name for the north branch than "North Fork" and no name at all for the south branch.

Buffalo creek, the other principal stream of McLeod county, has its source in Buffalo lake, Renville county, and derives its name from that circumstance. It flows, in a general direction, from west to east through the southern part of McLeod, leaving the county in the northeast quarter of section 24, Bergin township, and unites with the Crow nearly a mile east of the Carver county line, and west of New Germany station. In dry seasons Buffalo creek becomes unimposing, unattractive, and unimportant. At Glencoe, 25 miles from its source, it shrinks and subsides to a string of shallow pools and puddles abounding in marsh grass and water weeds. Generally Crow river has a good stage of water. As early at least as 1880 flour mills, run by water power, were located and in operation thereon at Hutchinson, with a dam having a nine foot head; at Koniska, with about seven feet head; at Saint George, with an eight foot head. The stream, in the proper Seasons, is in good condition for rowboating and for pan fishing.

McLeod County's Lakes. This county has long been noted for the number and attractiveness of its lakes and lakelets, They are most plentiful in the northern tier of townships, and notably in the northern part of Hutchinson and Acoma. Only the principal little inland seas of the county need be enumerated,

Cedar lake lies partly in Meeker county but has about three Square miles in Acoma township of McLeod, Belle lake, not far east from Cedar, and also partly in Meeker, is two miles long north and south and a mile at its greatest width. Otter lake, a mile or so west of Hutchinson, is three miles long from north to south, and is of a eross-like shape with the western arm shortened; the Crow river is both an inlet and an outlet of this lake, In Hutchinson township are lakes Byron, Todd, and Hook, each more than a mile in length. Silver, Swan, and Bullhead lakes, in Hale township; Winsted and South lakes, in Winsted township ; King's lake, in Penn; Nobles lake, in Sumter; Lake Barber, in Lynn; Eagle lake and Lake Whitney, in Collins; Round Grove lake in Round Grove township; and Ward's lake, in the same township, but half in Sibley, are each & mile long in most cases north and south, Lakes Marion, in Collins, and Addie, at Brownton, and Baker's lake in Penn township are each about two miles long north and south but are not more than a third of a mile wide - commonly only a quarter - east and west. They, with Otter lake and Barber, form a prolonged series of lakes or lacustrine lands seventeen miles long from north to south,

Minnesota geologist, was on the State Geological Survey of 1879-80 and worked in MeLeod county. He noted (and sa published in the report of the survey) the ice-formed ridge on the north side of the west part of Silver lake, in Hale township. This ridge, according to Mr. Upham, is nearly a quarter of a mile long, from four to six feet high, and is remarkably narrow with steep sides. It is largely composed of gravel and sand but has boulders in it three feet in diameter. Mr. Upham noticed a similar ridge, but only three feet high, southeast of Sumter Station, in the southern portion of Glencoe township. He says that both of these ridges were formed during the great glacial period, ages ago. As applied to Mc- Leod county, this period is described on a following page.

The lakes of McLeod county are as fine and attractive as those of any other county in the state, which is so renowned for the large number and the great beauty of its lake or lacustrine features, Although differing entirely from mountain lakes, with their bluff-buttresses and cliff-bordered shores and other picturesque surroundings, the McLeod lakes are equally engaging, with peculiar charms of their own. Those that are tree-bordered, and especially those that are tree-embowered, are delightful resorts in the warm seasons and charming at nearly all times. They abound, in fish of the best varieties and are frequented by wild fowl of every sort. In the heats of summer their coolness modifies conditions, and they minister to comfort and general welfare of the people in many ways.

Topography. According to the conclusions of the Geological Survey of 1880, as reported by Warren Upham (Reps. Vol. 2, p. 181) the surface contour of McLeod county is nearly everywhere moderately undulating, with long slopes rising in swells from 10 to 25 feet above the sloughs and other depressions. Moreover, in the general outlines of the surface, there is no contrast between the prairies and the timber lands. The level character of the country in most parts is yemarkable. At Glencoe and for several miles to the westward the country is "as flat as a pancake'; there is not a difference of ten feet between the highest and the lowest elevations.

A tract more uneven and undulating than common lies in the western part of Sumter township, between Lakes Marion and Addie. In Collins township the risings of ground are from 10 to 15 feet above the sloughs; some of these sloughs are of considerable extent and have accumulated beds of peat pronounced by fairly good authorities to be equal to those of

Ireland. In 1871 prairie fires ignited a peat bed in sections 15 and 22, Collins, and burned the deposit to a depth of 18 inches on a tract of 10 acres,

Elevations. The general elevation of McLeod county above the level of the sea is about 1,040 feet. Elevations in the county along the line of the Milwaukee railroad, (H. & D. division) taken when the road was constructed were determined as at the bottom of Buffalo creek, 964 feet; at Glencoe, 1,006 feet; at Sumter, 1,035; Buffalo creck bottom, 1,005; Lake Addie water line, 1,007: Stewart, 1,064. Along the survey of ® proposed railroad line from Minneapolis to Hutchinson, made in November, 1877, by E. 8. Alexander, the following elevations Were found: Winsted lake, 1,087 feet; at Swan lake, 1,047: at Bear creek, 1,048; boundary of Big Woods at edge of the prairie, 1,069; bluff east of Crow river, 1,079; Crow river water edge at low stage, 1,031; Hutchinson, 1,044,

The highest lands in McLeod county is from 1,075 to 1,100 feet above.the sea, and the lowest - where Crow river and Buffalo creek cross the eastern boundary line - is about 950 feet. The average heights of the townships are: Winsted, 1,020 feet; Bergen, 1,000; Helen, 1,000: Hale, 1,060; Rich Valley, 1,025; Glencoe, 1,010; Hutchinson, 1,060; Sumter, 1,025; Penn, 1,025; Acoma, 1,075; Lyon, 1,060; Collins, 1,050; and Round Grove, 1,050; general average of county derived from above,

Soil. Writing in 1880, after a careful survey and analysis made upon the official geological survey, Warren Upham said that what geologists call unmodified glacial drift, or till, forms the almost entire surface of this county. Now, till consists almost entirely of a clay with which boulders, gvavel and sand are more or Jags mixed and intermingled. The first layer from the top of this formation, commonly called the soil, is in Meeod county about one foot in depth, on an average - in many places three feet - and has been gradually formed by the de- Cay of vegetation, srasses, weeds, etc., and blackened by cerain chemical changes and by the prairie fires which in the olden time 80 often swept over the vast savannas of the country. The soil of the timbered tracts is probably better in depth and fertility than that of the originally prairie portions, or more enduring.

Of course since the days of virgin conditions, owing to its continual cultivation and the consequent demands upon it, the Productive qualities of the county's soil have become im- Palred; but among the more intelligent of the farmers the practice has been and is to re-enforce the productive elements where they are in prime condition, and to restore them where they have failed or deteriorated, by the judicious use of fertilizers, crop rotations, ete. The staple crop of the county has been wheat to the growth of which valuable cereal McLeod county conditions are generally favorable. In late years, however, corn has come to the front as one of the crops far in the lead in the matter of general success, Oats, hay, barley, potatoes, and the common vegetables have always been successfully raised.

The Big Woods. Originally timber covered about half of McLeod county on the northeast, and this section was formerly a portion of the great and famous timbered tract known in the olden time as the "Big Woods," the "Chahn-tonka" of the Sioux. This vast extent of tree-covered lands comprised a great grove of hardwood timber which originally extended from Waseca county for about 125 miles to the northwest, or beyond the northern boundary of Todd county. The width varied from 25 to 50 miles, and arms or spurs of the tract extended still farther, eastward and westward. Warren Upham describes the Big Woods tract in its entirety as entering Minnesota from the northeast of St. Vincent, North Dakota, and extending southerly, not only to the southern tier of counties of the state, but into Wisconsin, by way of Ramsey and Washington counties and the towns of Stillwater and Hudson.

In McLeod county the western boundary of the Big Woods originally ran from Cedar lake, in the northwestern corner of the county, southeasterly, by Hutchinson and along the northeast side of the south branch of Crow river to its northeastward bend, in the southwest corner of Rich Valley township; thence, crossing the Crow, it extended two or three miles south; thence deflected about seven miles, first northeasterly and then southeasterly to the northwest part of Helen township, just east of Glencoe; farther south, after crossing Buffalo creek, the border trended southwesterly, so that the wooded area included that part of Glencoe on the southeast side of the creek. West of the line described the timber in McLeod is found only in small groves beside the lakes; the rest of the country, excepting the lakes, is grassland or prairie.

As has been stated, the original (or aboriginal) claimants of the country, the Sioux Indians, called the famous timbered tract 'Chahn-tonka," or the big woods. The tract contained their favorite hunting and trapping grounds. There was a heavy growth of timber, and the trees were oaks, elms, hard and soft maples, cottonwoods, and other varieties, but with only here and there a pine. In McLeod county the trees, including those of the Big Woods, are basswood, soft or silver maple, hard or sugar maple, white and red elm, American aspen or poplar, ironwood, butternut, black oak, white oak, burr oak, cottonwood, box elder, with occasionally box-elder, black cherry, white ash, hackberry, bitternut, choke cherry, and smooth Sumac; red cedars were formerly common about Cedar lake.

In primeval days the recesses of the Big Woods, abounded in all kinds of wild game known to the country. There were bears, Wolves, and occasionally panthers, and lynx, although these great cats were cowardly, and soon after the white man came, when they were hunted and killed for their skins, they Slunk out of the country. Beavers, otters, fishers, minks, and muskrats were plentiful in the streams and about the lakes, While deer - often in great numbers - made their lairs and overts within its thickets and undergrowths, after grazing, m the grags Seasons, out on the prairies.

The Indians did not make many permanent villages and habitations in the Big Woods. Perhaps they were afraid they would frighten away the game. They seemed to prefer to keep the great forest as a sort of breeding ground, pasture land and feneral game preserve for the animals upon which, for the most part, they depended for food and raiment. They chose to make hunting incursions and excursions into the region from a considerable distance rather than to startle and annoy its denizens by their presence and contact.

1 Was, very early, the site of white men's trading posts. While the region was under French and Spanish ownership or dominion, or in 1775 and 1798 there were certainly trading Posts at the present sites of Chaska and Traverse des Sioux. Alexander Henry (the elder) says in his book of "Travels and Adventures" that he sent a delegation of traders and their employes from Mackinaw to the Minnesota as early as in September, 1761. We do not know where these traders were Stationed, but we do know that Peter Pond, a Connecticut man, had a post at Traverse des Sioux in 1774, and that in tween the mouth of the river and Rice creek, in Renville, although the names of the traders and the locations of the posts are not of record. The traders of the northwest company were first in this part of Minnesota, coming into the country the first year of the company's organization, or in 1783. The local Indians went regularly from the Minnesota up into the Big Woods on hunting and trapping excursions always returning with their catch to the traders on the little "river of cloudy water,"

When the white settlers came, the area of the Big Woods in this county was converted into farms with great difficulty and only after the expenditure of much toil and exertion. Fortunately the pioneers that settled on timber tracts were industrious, patient, and determined. Some of them were Germans and perhaps the great expanse of timber reminded them of "der Schwatz Wald," the Black Forest of the Fatherland.

Bears in the Big Woods. The late Wm. L. Quinn, of St. Paul, an Irish-Indian mixed blood, and an educated, intelligent man, born at Fort Snelling, and buried near there, and a noted scout and guide, has left on record the details of a bear fight in the Big Woods, on Buffalo creek, east of the present site of Glencoe, in the fall of 1853. At the time, Mr. Quinn, then a young man of 26, was clerk for Trader Louis Provensalle, at Traverse des Sioux. He and two other mixed bloods, one of whom was George LeBlanc, went up into the Big Woods on a deer hunt. They encamped one night on the banks of the Buffalo, and were awakened during a sound sleep at the noise made by a bear while searching their camp. They drove him away, but he carried off their package of salt pork they had brought along to fry with their fresh venison.

The next morning the hunters set out and soon came upon - the bear that had alarmed them, and he was a big fellow. They fired a load of buckshot into him and then he charged them, After fighting hard for a minute or so, another bear came to his rescue, tearing into the fight with great ferocity and doing sundry damage to the three hunters. At Jast they succeeded in vanquishing the brutes; then, looking about them, they saw, squatted on a bank, fifty yards away, a female bear, snarling and growling at the scene. All three hunters fired at once and killed the bereaved brute, who was no doubt the consort of one of the big male bears killed in the first encounter. She would have given birth to a cub in a short time. This incident of the killing of the three bears on Buffalo creek by the three mixed bloods was a well known incident to the pioneers of the Traverse des Sioux region. The Story was published by the compiler of this history in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in the spring of 1891.

m. L. Quinn died in St. Paul a few years ago. George Le Blane was a natural son of Trader Provensalle by a Sioux woman, He turned out badly. He lived mostly with his mother's people and was finally killed while fighting with them against the whites in the second battle of New Ulm, Aug. 23, 1862, The third hunter's name is not. remembered.

As late as in May, 1858, the Glencoe Register announced that a Sioux war party, from near Shakopee, on a return from the upper Crow river country, killed two big bears in the Minnesota timber opposite the town of Belle Plaine. One of the bears Was very large and very fat, although it had emerged from the hibernating period only two months before.

Geological Formation and Features. As has been previouslogists call the glacial drift, or the unmodified form of that drift which is called till, It was formed, they say, by the melting of a vast ice-pack which covered the country in the remote ages, his pack or glacier held within its rigid embrace the Sand, gravel, boulders, ete., now composing the till.

hen the pack melted these substances were deposited upon the earth, and themselves became either part of the interior of the earth or of its surface.

Geologist Warren Upham tells us that the formation of the glacial drift took Place in a period of very cold climate by which land-ice Was accumulated to a great depth in this region of North America - practically the same conditions as now exist In Greenland and the Antarctic continent. Before this were great rock deposits which became broken and decomposed. When the glacial period came these rock deposits were plowed up, as it were, by the slowly moving ice and mingled with eroded underlying ledges; and the whole

» these rocks and rock deposits were re- The bed-rock, so to call it, on which & glacial dritt rests is of unequal height over the general is low or sunken there is a depression, : lake; and thus the lakes and mountains are accounted for, line schists, These are igneous rocks, or rocks which have been formed by fire. There are also in the county blocks of whitish or buff-colored limestone, which are aqueous rocks, or rocks formed by the action of water. In times past these blocks or chunks of limestone have been collected and burned into lime. In 1880 Warren Upham noted that J. B, Newcomb, in section 18, Sumter township, was burning lime from blocks three and four feet long, and that on section 18, near J. M. Gilhousen's residence, there was a big block, 12 feet square, sunk from six inches to two feet below the surface. The limestone of the county now are quite scarce.

Shells and trees found deeply buried between glacial deposits, as in a railroad well at Stewart and in two wells at Hutchinson, show that the very cold period of the epoch mentioned was not an unbroken region of ice, but at intervals moved forward and then back; and possibly at times the great mass was nearly entirely melted and then froze up again. ;

The railroad well at Stewart, in the southwest corner of Collins, was built when the Hastings and Dakota branch of the Milwaukee was completed. It was bored by C. E, Whipley, of Minneapolis. He reported that the first 20 feet of the earth was yellowish till, hard to bore because stony; then came dark bluish till for 240 feet; then sand for 5 feet and then the water gushed forth and rose 125 feet in three minutes, finally coming to a level only five feet from the surface. The trunk of a tree, 18 inches in diameter was encountered in the blue till 177 feet from the surface! Shells were also found 100 feet from the surface and bone fragments were seen in the sand and gravel at the bottom,

In 1876 Nancy Nutt dug a well, 32 feet in depth, on her place, (s. e. 14 see. 35 north tp.) about four miles east of Hutchinson. In the gray sand at the bottom, abundant specimens of gasteropod shells were found. The gasteropods, or snail-like animals that inhabited these shells existed long ages ago. They were called for the Greek words gastros, meaning a stomach, and pod, meaning a foot - or stomach foot, because they crawled on their stomachs or bellies, using them as feet. The snails are typical gasteropods and their "feet," as they may be called, are broad and dise-like. Gasteropod shells are usually spiral, or rather of an elongated conic form wound round in a spiral coil. The shells found at the bottom of Mrs. Nutt's well were startlingly like those of the big water snails found at the present day.

In South Hutchinson, (n. e. see, 2) S. D. Ross dug a well only 4 quarter of a mile from Mrs. Nutt's, and at the same depth as hers, found water sand, and plenty of gasteropod shells.

Plenty of Well Water to be Had. McLeod county seems to Overlay a great subterranean sea of fresh water pure and food. It is reached at varying distances, from 20 to 80 feet. In Winsted township, northeast corner of the county, on section 21, Martin Krueger, dug a well only 18 feet and got six feet of water. In Helen, southeast corner of the county, on Section 29, Fred Walter dug 40 feet and got 15 feet of water. Both of these wells were dug forty years ago. About the Same time Nils Haldorsen, on section 28, Bergen township, dug 47 feet and obtained 37 feet of water, §. E. Martin's well, on section 1, Collins, is 70 feet with 11 of water. In the quick- Sand at the bottom a piece of well-preserved wood an inch wide and three inches long was found.

ut a cistern was attempted only ten feet from this deep well, and go much water was struck at barely eight feet that the excavation could not be bricked up. Elsewhere in Glencoe C.

» Zavoral, of Hutchinson South (n. w, sec. 2) dug 32 feet and water rose from sand at the bottom seven feet in the first hour and 15 feet in ten hours,

In Collins (sec. 12) G, A. Hewitt dug a well only ten feet deep and Sot plenty of water; but when it had stood for some ours the Surface was covered with an oily scum which Smelled like kerosene, and Hewitt, for a time, had hopes of an Oil well, He Could not use this water, but 25 feet away, in another were 90 feet in depth, he found plenty that was pure and Sweet,

Water-Power Sites. Thirty or more years ago there were four sites on the Crow river in McLeod county where the Water power of the stream Was utilized to drive the machinery of flour mills, There was plenty of water in the river then to turn mills at Hutchinson, Koniska, and St. George - the latter long after the building of the Milwaukee railroad, which left them to the northward, too far to be under its good influence. The dams fell into decay and every material feature of the establishment will soon pass into oblivion. The only water mill in the county now is at Hutchinson, and is owned and operated by the Hutchinson Milling Company. The dam is a fine one and a sufficient capacity to maintain a working head of water all the year round.

A dam was built across Buffalo creek, at Glencoe in 1858, and a water-power flouring mill built at the site. There was plenty of water in the stream then, and for years thereafter. Eventually, however, with the plowing and loosening of the soil, and the consequent absorption of the rainfall and snowfall, these precipitations did not run off the surface into the streams as readily and in such volume as aforetime ; therefore, there was not as much water in Buffalo creek as when the mill was built, and in time the water power could not be depended upon to drive the wheels and it was abandoned. The dam is still maintained, but latterly it has been used only in winter as a skating pond and as an ice field to fill the storehouses from. In pioneer days a thick, tough, and almost waterproof sod covered the prairies. This was the effect of the rank grass and weed growth whose myriads of roots, tough as wires, held the earth compactly together. The water ran from such a surface as from a roof and kept the streams well filled.