Daniel Cameron House

Situated somewhat back from the Mississippi, from which it is separated by a series of sloughs, marshes and lagoons which teem in luxuriant water foliage and flowering plants, and occupying the gently sloping terraces which terminate on the sunny slopes of picturesque hills, the village is free from floods, and still has all the advantages that can be given by nearness to that great thoroughfare. The dike road which joins the mainland to the La Crosse high wagon bridge, guides through La Crescent, aU the road traffic flowing into La Crosse from southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa, and brings from far east and west the tourists, who find here a convenient crossing place.

Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.

To these sweeping terraces came Peter Cameron in 1851, with his dream of a great city. Here, a little later, came the Gillettes, who platted a village. Here in 1856, came the advance guard of the Kentucky Company, whose stockholders likewise had dreams of a great city. Here they platted their future metropolis. Eastern newspapers teemed with its possibilities, great men of the nation vied with each other in buying at fabulous prices lots in this new Utopia. But the wonderful ambitions of the promoters were never realized, and the lot ownership merely remained to harass the tax collectors, and to retard the growth of the town. Indeed it is only in recent years that the titles to the property by resident owners has all been cleared, and now all the land is owned by the La Crescent citizens themselves.

Passage source: History of Houston County, Minnesota, published 1919.

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 La Crescent Township - 2,728 words on its settlement, mills, schools and churches.