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Courtesy of Bob Perry Charles Gibson discovered Lake Minnetonka while seeking relief from the steamy summers of St. Louis. Charles Gibson’s Lake Minnetonka Summers by Barbara McHenry Sykora he beginning of the tourism in- Gibson in Minnesota dustry at Lake Minnetonka can Charles Gibson first traveled to the Falls be traced directly to the growth of St. Anthony and Minneapolis in 1854 Tand economic climate of Minnesota. for a few days’ visit. He wrote later, “We In 1849, President Zachery Taylor ap- stopped at a frame tavern kept by Mr. pointed Alexander Ramsey governor of Bushnell, opposite the Island and in the the new Minnesota Territory. The total village of St. Anthony. Minneapolis was population of the area was 4,780, and the then a part of the Military Reservation of first public school opened in Hennepin Fort Snelling. The officers allowed parties County that year. Western Hennepin to stake off claims, but there was no law County did not receive regular postal for it. Not a biscuit in Minnesota but was Gibson service until 1850. Settlers were depen- made out of St. Louis flour, brought up the dent upon supplies brought from great river on steamboats. In the evening there distances. In the biggest town, St. An- was quite a discussion among the guests as discovered thony, the population was less than 300. to whether wheat could be raised that far The only way to reach Minneapolis was north. One man said he had seen potatoes Lake by riverboat, then stagecoach. In 1851, growing forty miles north of this place. He Gov. Alexander Ramsey negotiated two was considered a blatherskite.”3 treaties with the Sioux and secured 2 mil- Many of Gibson’s close friends and Minnetonka’s lion acres of land west of the Mississippi business associates from St. Louis also River, including the Lake Minnetonka made a trip to Minnesota, one known more area. The lake was first surveyed by Min- as the Grand Excursion. The Rock Is- nesota Territory in 1854. The survey team land Railroad Company invited 1,200 wrote that the area was heavily timbered, citizens from the east and middle states moderate the water clear and deep with a great va- to celebrate the completion of the first riety of fish.1 railroad to reach the Mississippi River. summer Lake Minnetonka “pioneer” Charles The group of travelers included writers, Gibson played many roles, including business leaders, and politicians includ- those of husband, father of eight, lawyer, ing Millard Fillmore, the 13th president climate. and landholder. He was a businessman, of the United States. The trip, at the rail- hotelier, and man interested in politics. road’s expense, began on June 5, 1854, in As he once said in an interview, the only Chicago by train to Rock Island, Illinois, way to do anything in this world was to and continued by steamboat on the Mis- be ready “when the spirit troubles the sissippi River to St. Paul and St. Anthony. waters.” In other words, when the current The guests arrived in St. Paul on June 8, is going your way, take advantage of it. 1854. Minnesota’s Territorial governor A 19th-century opportunist, Gibson Willis A. Gorman held a ball in honor of turned his self-interests to advantage. the president. Gorman spoke to Fillmore In an effort to escape the summer heat about the soil, climate, the advantages of of St. Louis, he discovered Lake Min- Minnesota and the railroad connection netonka’s more moderate summer climate that would bring settlers and tourists to and subsequently made an annual journey Minnesota. With a powerful and influen- to Minnesota for almost 50 years. He tial audience listening to Gorman’s speech loved his summers at the lake, and he that evening, he felt many would go home used his wealth and enterprise to improve with “enlarged ideas of the future great- the area.2 ness of Minnesota.”4 HENNEPIN 19 HISTORY Gibson spent several summers in Wis- consin and one in Colorado, but Minne- sota became his favorite place for escaping the hot, humid summers of St. Louis. He was not afraid of travel. Born in Christans- burg, Virginia, in 1825, Charles was the youngest of five, and in 1836, when he was 11, his family moved west to central Missouri, bringing with them a family of Africans to work on his parents’ farm. He left his family at 18 to study for the bar under Josiah Spalding and Edward Bates in St. Louis, and he passed the exam in 1846. He met Virginia C. Gamble at Ed- ward Bates’s home in 1849; they married in May 1851 and raised their family in St. Louis. A successful land-contract at- torney, Charles was influential in keeping Missouri in the Union during the Civil War, and Abraham Lincoln appointed mittee in 1870, traveling to Florida and him solicitor of the United States for the Louisiana to witness ballot counts in Court of Claims (solicitor general) in both states. He also traveled to Wash- Washington, D.C., in 1861. ington, hoping to be chosen ambassador Always interested in politics, he rep- to Germany during both for President resented the Democratic National Com- Grover Cleveland’s administrations, only Photos this page courtesy of Western Historical Manuscripts Collection, University of Missouri Charles Gibson married Vic- tor C. Gamble (above) in May 1851. The Gibsons lived in the home (right) in St. Louis. HENNEPIN 20 HISTORY Courtesy of Bob Perry An early view of Northome: note the child on the lawn. to be disappointed twice. He also trav- ing the heated term which annually blisters eled to Europe, once to accept knight- [St. Louis].”6 hood from the King of Prussia after he Charles and his wife, Virginia, brought successfully represented members of the their eight children—Louisa, Victor, Ar- German court. He was proud of the rela- chie, Preston, Charles T., Lizzie, Gerolt, tionships he built with the German and and Easton—to camp on their heavily Austrian royalty.5 timbered property. In August 1876, Gib- Prairie chickens and pheasants were son had a landing built at which the boat plentiful within what are now the city Mary could pick up his workmen. A large limits of Minneapolis. In 1860 and 1861, cabin was built for shelter; underbrush Gibson visited Minneapolis again, stay- was cleaned from the site, which they ing at the Hotel Nicollet. He said he was reached via a winding walk through the taken with the city and that if he were not trees. He wrote: “No occupation was more so solidly tied to St. Louis he would move pleasing than to cut out the finest views permanently to Minneapolis. He loved of lake and forest from dense masses of Cedar, Calhoun, and Harriet Lakes as they timber, as a sculptor chisels his state from were always full of fish. After several visits, crude marble.” the Gibson family decided to purchase Above the front door of the Gibsons’ land and build a summer home. In 1870 new summer home, its name, Northome, Gibson bought 140 acres on Lake Min- appeared in stained glass. “It has always netonka between Carson’s and Robinson’s been a matter of surprise to me that in giv- Bay as “a refuge for himself and family dur- ing names to their places no one has ever HENNEPIN 21 HISTORY Courtesy of Bob Perry The Gibson children before the youngest was born (l-r): Victor, Preston, Charles, baby Gerolt, Louisa, Archie, and Elizabeth called it a home. They call it ‘Sweetwater attic, and verandas on two floors. Cauvet Cottage’ or ‘Clover Dale’ or some such and Company furnished plans for the romantic name as that, but this is the only plumbing. A local builder from Excelsior, country seat within my knowledge that is R. B. McGrath, and 12 carpenters built called, as it properly should be, a home,” the house at a cost of $3,000. It had all Charles wrote. He considered himself a pi- the conveniences of the time including a oneer in building one of the first great and nearby icehouse. The house was spacious, beautiful homes on Lake Minnetonka.7 with high, airy rooms and broad verandas. From the front door of the Gibson The Gibsons had one of the loveliest spots cottage, one could look straight into the on Lake Minnetonka; its lawns adjoined mouth of Crystal Bay, five miles across the the Hotel Saint Louis. In 1884, Charles lake. From the window at the side of the rehired R. B. McGrath to add bay win- front parlor one could see Wayzata Bay, dows to the home. On May 18, 1884, while the window on the left gave a full Northwestern Tourist listed it as the most view of Carson Bay. The construction was expensive home on Lake Minnetonka, finished in 1877 from plans made by well- at $10,000.8 known Minneapolis architects Long & Charles Gibson enjoyed life on the lake. Haglin. The completed plan was a gothic He loved to entertain, and he loved being house 40 by 70 feet, with two stories, an first. His family spent many summers at HENNEPIN 22 HISTORY Northome and enjoyed entertaining there. boats. A naphtha launch gave the wealthy The society pages of local newspapers of- a way to zip around the lake without hiring ten noted the Gibsons as attending a party, an operator. The June 29, 1889, Minne- visiting a friend (usually someone socially apolis Tribune predicted that the naphtha or politically important), or entertaining launch would revolutionize navigation at the Hotel Saint Louis (after 1879).

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