Lake City, Minnesota

The citizens of that section of Wabasha county lying along tlie shores of Lake Pepin and contiguous to the county of Goodhue on the north, did not aspire to corporate responsibilities, honors and burdens at a very early date. That portion of the county, for years known as the town of Lake City, had been organized as a township for nearly thirteen years before any attempt to incorporate a village or town within its territory was attempted, and it was more than seventeen years from the date of the permanent settlement of the town before any effective attempt at incorporation was made. During those years there had grown up here an intelligent and thriving community of twenty-five hundred souls. Under no government other than that of the township organization, eifected on the admission of the state into the union in 1S5S, a prosperous mercantile and shipping trade had been developed and successfully fostered ; churches had been organized and built ; schools established and well provided with all necessary appliances of buildings and apparatus ; streets had been opened, graded and furnished with sidewalks ; police and sanitary regulations adopted, and in short the whole paraphernalia of village organization introduced and successfully manipulated under that old township organization of May 11, 1S5S, supplemented by some special legislative acts to which specific attention will be necessary in order to arrive at a true understanding of the status of this city, which was only a town ; and of this portion of the town of Lake Citj', which was so much more than a township, as was only too apparent when the city of Lake City was carved out ot the old township of Lake City, which one year thereafter received by legislative enactment the curtailed name of "Lake," as it now is. The state census i-eturns for 1865 give as the population of the town of Lixke City for that year, fourteen hundred and eleven souls. Deducting the population of the township outside of the corner occupied by the afterward city, and making allowance for the increase of population during the year ending March 31, 1865, and it will not be far from the actual figures if we place the population of that section of Lake City township, now included with the incorporated limits of Lake C'itj', at about eleven hundred, in the spring of 18(54. By special legislative enactment, of date March 3, 1864, the supervisors of the town of Lake City were given special powers, which special powers were equivalent in general terms to those usually exercised by the board of trustees of an incorporated village, or the common council of an incorporated city, but these special powers were only made applicable to a particularly specified section of the town of Lake City, to wit : The S.W. J of S.W. J and lots Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 of Sec. 4 ; and the E. i and N.W. i of S.E. J of Sec. 5 ; the E. i of N.W. i and the S. i of N.E. J and lots Nos. 1 and 2 of Sec. 5 ; and the E. i of N.W. J and the N.W. J of N.W. i and lots Nos. 1 and 2 of Sec. 9, all in T. Ill N., of E. 12 W., according to United States survey. This tract, as above described, included very nearly so much of the present city limits as is laid oif in plats and blocks. Or, to describe it otherwise, it included that portion lying between the railroad track and the lake, with the addition of some small territory on the south side of the railway tracks about the depot, and also in the lower part of the village. It was a strip of land lying along Lake Pepin, a distance of a little over one and a half miles in length and extending backward from the lake a distance varying from one-half to three-fourths of a mile. It was this portion of Lake City township, that while still continuing an integral part of that township, was ]jractically cut ofi' from it, by the sjjecial act of March 3, 1864, above referred to. The powers conferred by this act upon the supervisors of the town of Lake City, were to the effect that within the above specified territory, they could enact and enforce ordinances for a variety of purposes, which briefly stated were :

Passage source: History of Wabasha County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc. : Gathered from Matter Furnished by Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township, and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Also a History of Winona County, published 1884.

It was made the duty of the townsliip supervisors to enforce the regulations that should be made in the interest and for the furtherance of tlie above objects, and the manner of procedure in such eases was duly set forth ; all by-laws, regulations or ordinances passed by them for this purpose were declared to have the force of law provided they controvened no existing laws, and severe penalties could be enforced for their violation. The justices of the town of Lake City were given original and exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under the act, and no appeal could be taken in any case where the fine imposed did not exceed twenty dollars. The supervisors of the town of Lake were also empowered to appoint a marshal, and it was made their duty to so appoint within thirty days of the annual town election. Said marshal was required to furnish bond, and given all the authority of constable under the statute of the state, to receive fees for his services, and such other compensation as the supervisors should determine, subject to limitation. The supervisors were also authorized and required to vote a tax upon the taxable property of the district thus governed sufticient to pay the expenses incurred in carrying out the provisions of the act ; that tax was to be by majority vote of the town supervisors, and the town clerk was required to file a copy of record of such vote upon which the tax was to be levied and collected, as all other towr ship taxes were. The assessor of the town of Lake City was also required to make a separate list of the pei-sons and personal property of all residents ot the specified district in the same manner as was required to be done in the case of residents of incorporated towns. The act took effect from and after its passage, and thenceforth the town supervisors of Lake City had a corporation to look alter, which was not incorporated, and the district above described had all the honors and privileges of an incorporated village or city without its liabilities and many of its burdens. The legislature of 1866 made some additional provisions, supplemental to the act of 1S64, by which the special regulation concerning the building of a sidewalk on Washington street became a more general one, and included all the streets of the special district. In addition to this the town supervisors were authorized to direct so much of the poll and road tax, derived from the tax of the special district, as they deemed to be best, to the maintenance of bridges and highways in adjacent townships. This was only in effect to empower the town supervisors to do officially what the public spirit of the citizens, of the village which was not a village, had been doing privately and unofliciall} for a number of years. Of this more specific mention will be made in another place.

Passage source: History of Wabasha County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc. : Gathered from Matter Furnished by Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township, and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Also a History of Winona County, published 1884.

There are few cases that can parallel this, and none that have come under our own notice. This existence of eight years in which the inhabitants of a favored corner of Lake City township were privileged with all that actual incorporation could confer, relieved of its financial burdens, might well mark an era in their history and be designated bj' a white stone. Not one substantial beuefit that could be secured through a city charter that they did not reap ; not one responsibility, which as a city they must have assumed, that tiiey did not in this manner largely avoid, and that without working aught but good to them. They could open streets and tax property therefor ; lay sidewalks, grade, condemn property, lease the levees, prescribe fire limits, regulate sale of specified articles, I'equire licenses, construct their own courts of municipal justice, issue their writs, execute them and enforce penalties without recourse (within certain limits); take the taxes for road purposes and appropriate them where they could do most good - and in every conceivable way exercise all the pi-ivileges of an indi\-idual or body corporate ; but thej' were not a body corporate in law, had no existence in fact, could not sue or be sued, could not contract any obligation, could not be forced to meet any ; and all the expense of carrying on this machinery was the sum of two dollars per capita for the township supervisors and town clerk for every day actually ex]iended in the direction of aftairs. True the township officers could be sued, but there was no provision for their contracting any obligations for this specified district as such, and tlie ari-angement all tlirough was one on which Lake City, unincorporate, might well congratulate herself. The verdict of one of her citizens - that she fortunately stumbled upon the peculiar legislation which this conferred privilege without responsibility, was after all, perhaps, not very wide of the mark. Early iu 1867 the question of formally organizing as a city was discussed, and meetings held to consider the question. The matter was finally disposed of in a meeting of the citizens held at Williamson's hall, on the evening of Saturday, January 19, 1867. The objection to the existing order of affairs was urged, on the ground that as now administered, the town authorities lacked the power properly to administer the affairs of a community like this, and corporate powers had become a necessity. To this it was answered that tlie powers in the hands of the supervisors was ample, and only needed to be exercised. Also that if more legislation was needed it could be obtained, but that it was unadvisable to saddle the town with the burdens of maintaining a corporate existence. The test question, as submitted, was that a city charter be drawn up, and the proposition was negatived by a very decided majority. The meeting instructed the supervisors to rigidly enforce such by-laws and ordinances as were already in existence, and a committee chosen to draw up amendments to the present regulations, increasing the power of the town supervisiors so as to include the various subjects aftei-ward specified in the legislative act of March 9, next ensuing. Matters remained in this state so far as the exercise of govermental powers was concerned, until the formal incorporation of the city - although one more attempt to incorporate was made, which led to no definite result. By act of legislature of 1870, it was provided that any community, within any specified distiict, numbering not less than two thousand souls, and not more than fifteen thousand, might, upon filing with the judge of probate for the county witliin which such district was located, a petition for incorporation signed by not less than two-thirds of the legal voters of said district, become thereby incorporated, and it was made the duty of the judges of probate, before whom such petition should come, to order an election for the purpose of filling the various offices set forth in the charter as petitioned for. Such petition so signed by three hundred and twenty-two legal voters residing within a certain described district (substantially the corporate limits of the present city of Lake City), came before A. Z. Putnam, judge of probate for the county of Wabasha, on May 15, 1871. The judge gave notice of election to be held July 1, 1871, for the purpose of filling the various offices, and designated the place of holding such elections. Caucuses were held, and a full ticket nominated, but owing to opposition on the part of some, and a general distrust of the legality of such an incorporation, the polls were never opened, and the election passed. The friends of the measure were not satisfied with this disposition of the case, and C. N. Sterry, Esq., secured the opinion of Hon. Thos. "Wilson, of the city of Winona, and also of Messrs. Bigelow, Flandrau & Clark, of St. Paul, as to the constitutionality or otherwise of the city charter. The opinions in both cases sustained, the action of the citizens as legal, and the incorporation as a valid act. The opinion of the St. Paul attorneys was also to the effect that failure to hold the election in no case vacated or dissolved the corporation. The recourse as contained in tlie opinion, was to re-petition for a designated day of election, or apply to the legislature to appoint a day. The former was not done, and instead of the latter, an act of incorporation was duly passed at the next session of the legislature in accordance with which Lake City was incorporated as a city, and the long-vexed question finally settled.

Passage source: History of Wabasha County : Together with Biographical Matter, Statistics, Etc. : Gathered from Matter Furnished by Interviews with Old Settlers, County, Township, and Other Records, and Extracts from Files of Papers, Pamphlets, and Such Other Sources As Have Been Available : Also a History of Winona County, published 1884.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Lake City City - it names this place 73 more 73 times.