Byron Howes House

The first bank in Hastings was merely a bank of exchange, and operated by Thorne 6z FoUett, in 1856. In lSo9 Mr. Thorne made it a bank of issue, with a capital of 825,000, called Thome's Bank. On the same day that the bills were issued, Messrs. Follett 6: Eennick issued bills on the Bank of Hastings. The Bank of Hastings is now known as the First National, and Thome's Bank as the Merchants' JSTational.

Passage source: Dakota County, published 1868.

As early as 1S5G, Hon. W. G. LeDuc succeeded in getting a bill passed by tlie Territorial Legislature ojranting a charter for the building of the Hastings, Minnesota Kiver and Red River of the Xorth Railroad. A company was organized under the provisons of tlie charter and the organization maintained up till the time of the breaking out of the war, when all local enterprises were forgotten or lai'd aside to attend to the demands of the country in its hour of peril, and railroads that had been projected but not commenced Avere all at a stand-still. Meantime the Minnesota Central, now Milwaukee, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railroad, was built through nearly the centre of the county, and consequently drew largely from the trade and business of Hastings. The business men of the city were somewhat depressed in spirit on account of the reaction and the cutting oil of the rich agricultural rea'ion which had heretofore been tributary thereto, and resolved to make another effort to put themselves in railroad coniniunication with the outside world, and during the session of the Legislature of 18C)G, Gen. LeDuc, who had just returned from the war, succeeded in getting a renewal of the charter for that road, as well as legislative authority for the city of Hastings to issue bonds to aid in the construction of the road. A memorial to C(r.]gres3 asking a grant of lands for this road was also V'assed by the Legislature. Mr. LeDuc, immediately upon the adjournment of the Legislature, repaired to Washirgton, and with the aid of the Hon. I. Donnelly, member- of Congress from Hastings, sustained by the whole delegation from Minnesota, a grant was obtained of tQii sections per mile. A competent engineer was employed to run a preliminary survey from Big Stone Lake to Hastings. The survey was pushed forward as fast as possible. As the first snows of winter whitened the landscape the last stake was stuck on the banks of the Mississippi. Early the following spring grading was commenced, and as the city had voted to issue bonds to the amount of $100,000 to aid the enterprise, people began to have some confidence in its ultimate success, feeling assured that the road would at least be built as far as Farmington, to connect with the Milwaukee, St. Paul and Minneapolis Railway, and thus give them a railroad connection with the East. AVork was pushed forward as rapidly as funds could 'be jn-oeured, and in 1867 nearly twenty miles of the road was graded.

Passage source: Dakota County, published 1868.

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 Hastings City - 18,078 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.