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Railroads and the Minneapolis Milling District

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Railroads and the Minneapolis Milling District “Temples of Mammon and Hives of Industry” RailRoaDs and the Minneapolis Milling District Don l. HofsoMMeR hen we consider that young, vigorous city of Minneapolis and machinery and where railroad- “ it is but a few short years and a broad outback and burgeoning ers had toiled ardently to meet the Wsince the birds of the air market for local products.1 needs of shippers and travelers alike. and the beasts of the prairies were More than a century-and-a- Only an interpretive museum stands monarchs of all they surveyed in and quarter later, only an industrial to celebrate the area’s industrial around the Falls of St. Anthony,” archaeologist or a patient re- past; the Stone Arch Bridge, the marveled a local writer in 1867, “we searcher could detect traces of this former Milwaukee Road passenger can safely say that we live in an age of well-muscled, constantly frenetic depot (now a hotel) and a portion improvement.” Raw wilderness had manufacturing and transportation of its freight depot (a coffeehouse) indeed been transformed in the twin- hub. The west bank milling district provide the sole reminders of the age kling of an historical eye. The hum by the twenty-first century was of railways. The opening of the $125 and clatter from mills, factories, and once again utterly transformed— million Guthrie Theater in June machine shops along the west bank apartment structures, condomini- 2006 seemed an apt denouement. of the Mississippi River was punctu- ums, and office buildings standing The transformation was complete.2 ated day and night by the whistles where swarms of men had turned and bells of locomotives that repre- out prodigious volumes of lumber, sented the critical link between the flour, woolen goods, iron products, as early as 1821, the U.s. army had recognized that the Falls of St. Bustling Minneapolis milling district at the Falls of St. Anthony, about 1890 Anthony, a thundering 16-foot cata- ract on the Mississippi, would be a ready and convenient power source. In that year, the post commander at Fort Snelling ordered construction of both gristmills and sawmills on the west bank. In 1838 Franklin Steele staked a large claim on the east side, and a decade later he completed a dam and sawmill. Before the year was out, the half-million board feet of lumber produced there failed to meet the insatiable demand. In 1855 the fledgling community of St. An- thony was incorporated with a popu- lation of perhaps 3,000. Across the way, investors exploited water power, too, and a small settlement of homes, stores, schools, and churches dotted Don L. Hofsommer, professor of his- tory at St. Cloud State University, has published widely in the field of railroad history. Among his recent titles are The Tootin’ Louie: A History of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Rail- way and Minneapolis and the Age of Railways. Summer 2009 249 the landscape. About 1,500 persons water, which was limited in most on the east bank of the Mississippi in lived there when Minneapolis was areas and totally absent in others. Illinois, and they or their surrogates platted in 1855 and a suspension But St. Paul had the Mississippi and had already breached the rolling bridge over the river connected the its tributaries. A total of 630 vessels prairies of Iowa—or were about to. two young communities.3 called there in 1864 during a 210-day Farther north, two predecessors of Downstream stood St. Paul, the shipping season.6 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul region’s premier urban center and However useful and important, (CM&StP or Milwaukee Road) had the head of navigation on the Mis- nature’s highways were inadequate to moved west from Milwaukee to the sissippi. Trade centered there, and it demand. Dog sleighs in 1849 deliv- Mississippi—one to Prairie du Chien, was Minnesota’s territorial and then ered mail to St. Paul from Prairie du the other to La Crosse. All of these state capital. In 1850 its population Chien, Wisconsin, and a crude stage represented bold urban economic had been a mere 850, but the city road also linked those two communi- impulses of leaders in Chicago and grew to 4,040 in 1855 and to an im- ties, if by a most indirect route. An- Milwaukee, and each road, in time, pressive 10,600 in 1860.4 other coarse road connected St. Paul would figure in the railroad affairs of Minnesota.8 Yet none of these early players During the 1850s the United states evinced any immediate interest in Minnesota, occupying themselves experienced a veritable explosion in the well-settled areas of Illinois, of railroad construction. Wisconsin, and Iowa. Railroad ven- tures were, after all, capital and labor intensive: expensive undertakings St. Paul’s early fortunes were with Stillwater, and a third reached fraught with monumental financial tied to navigation. Steamboats on out to the neighboring village of St. risk. No need to add danger by build- the upper Mississippi dated from Anthony. And, of course, ox carts had ing ahead of justifiable demand. 1823 when the Virginia landed at been freighting to the Red River of So Minnesotans were left to Fort Snelling; in 1844, no fewer than the North since the mid-1840s.7 wring their hands. Statehood in 1858, 41 vessels made the trip, and three None of this was adequate to ful- a growing population, and a gener- years later regular packet service fill transportation needs. Railroads ous grant of land for use in fostering began to the awakening commu- were the answer. Increasingly, public railroads were offset by the Panic nity of St. Paul. Shortly thereafter, leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs of 1857 and rumblings of civil war. service inched up the Minnesota embraced ribbons of rail as trans- By 1861 a stage line accommodated River to Shakopee and eventually to portation salvation. Steamcars, they passengers and mail on a daily turn Mankato, New Ulm, and even occa- perceived, would provide a reliable, between Minneapolis and St. Paul, sionally to Redwood.5 low-cost, high-speed means of mov- and the Milwaukee and Chicago There was no question that the ing passengers, mail, and express. railroads urged patrons to utilize steamboat was a salient element Further, rails alone could provide all- steamboats to La Crosse, Prairie du in what historian George Rogers season transport of freight—lumber, Chien, or Dunleith (Illinois, across Taylor identified as the “transporta- fuel, and grain, for example—in a from Dubuque) for rail connections tion revolution” that gripped the way that would not consume the eastward. The Dunleith Line, for nation between 1815 and 1860. Yet, value of commodities in carriage example, provided nightly 24-hour like all waterborne commerce, the charges. service from St. Paul to Dunleith, steamboat was subject in northern During the 1850s the United where passengers could board Il- climes to the “ice king,” which closed States experienced a veritable ex- linois Central trains. Railroad agents streams and lakes for months each plosion of railroad construction—a and forwarding and commission year. Moreover, there was an obvious total of 21,605 miles of new line put merchants solicited freight over the disadvantage irrespective of locale: in service. By the end of the decade, same water-rail routes. But, as al- vessels were restricted to navigable several Chicago-based roads stood ways, travel and shipping on inland 250 Minnesota History waterways was seasonal. “The unex- pected withdrawal of the boats” in November 1863 “left several St. Paul passengers at Dubuque” when the river froze up. Some of them bought horses for the remainder of the trip, a local newspaper drearily reported, “and are now journeying northward by their own conveyance.” 9 The railroad era did, of course, finally arrive in Minnesota. After fits and starts, the St. Paul & Pacific recruited adequate capital, and on June 28, 1862, the resplendent Wil- liam Crooks steamed away from a crude depot in St. Paul. With a few cars in tow, it was bound for end-of- The resplendent William Crooks, 1864, billed by photographer track about ten miles to the north- Moses Tuttle as “the first engine in the state” west—an open bit of prairie on the east bank of the Mississippi River, the late years of the Civil War. “The neering obstacles between Mendota just short of the falls at St. Anthony. endless water power here is being and Minneapolis gave pause to pro- A year later, the company advertised steadily developed,” wrote a local moters, however, and they wondered three trains daily (except Sunday) in journalist as early as 1861, “giving em- openly if St. Paul might not be a each direction.10 ployment to large bodies of mechan- better choice for the road’s northern There was predictable rejoicing ics and laborers.” But, he moaned, terminus. Minneapolis held its in St. Anthony and especially, St. this natural gift was “comparatively breath, nervous in the extreme, as Paul, but the mood in Minneapolis unavailable and unproductive . for the company built a pier and ware- was subdued. The road started and want of railroad transportation and house at the mouth of the Minnesota was headquartered at St. Paul, and communication.” 12 River and advertised for bids on a “Pacific” in the corporate title urged Not surprisingly, then, Min- line from Mendota to St. Paul. On that the enterprise would not long neapolis attached huge importance August 8, 1864, the steamboat Enter- tarry at St. Anthony before heading to schemes to implement a rail line prise delivered MC’s first locomotive westward. Minneapolitans had either reaching southward to the Iowa as well as “iron for the road” to Men- to walk over the suspension bridge border—one that did not favor or dota.
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