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TERRITORIAL VIEWS Remnants of the

Built Environment SCOTT ANFINSON

One hundred and fifty years of change have left little of that would be recog- nizable to a territorial-era pio- neer or Native American. The great pine forests have been cut, the tallgrass prairies are agricul- tural fields, and the Big Woods exists only in small patches. St. Anthony Falls, once regarded as “a landmark in the wilder- ness,” is now a concrete spillway. The junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, known as Mendota to the Dakota, is the heart of a sprawling city. The estuary of the St. Louis River, where walleyes spawned in great abundance, is an international port where thousand-foot ships take on cargoes of wheat, coal, and taconite. A grid of tar, grav- el, and concrete highways covers the state. Even the sky has intru- sive contrails of jet aircraft. There are a number of places in Minnesota, however, where remnants of territorial days still exist, places where you can stand and see what Henry Sibley, Little Crow, and Hole-in-the-Day saw. There are traces of roads and trails once traveled by wooden wheels. There are houses where the night was lit only by the embers of the fireplace, tallow candles, and kerosene lamps. There are remnants of forts, pris- The Ramsey Mill on the Vermillion River at Hastings, about 1865 ons, mills, missions, hotels, and

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churches where the best and worst of Minnesota’s early written history occurred. The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) at the Minnesota Historical Society keeps records of the state’s structures and sites that have historic value. According to SHPO records, at least 225 buildings have survived since territorial days (1849–58). Of these, about 150 are houses. The remainder are commer- cial, industrial, farm, and public buildings, schools, churches, mili- tary structures, fraternal-organiza- tion lodges, and even a lighthouse. Some look very much like they ori- ginally did, and some are in ruins. Most are still in their first locations, but some have been moved. Some Warden’s house on Stillwater’s Main Street, 1972, occupied by the have been restored, some are un- Washington County Historical Society restored, and others, significantly rebuilt. It is more difficult to quantify the thousands of archaeological sites of surviving Minnesota territorial In 1849 the first territorial leg- from territorial days. A listing of properties appears below. A com- islature selected Stillwater as the some prominent ones—where ruins plete listing can be seen in the prison site. Two years later, four are visible, where archaeological SHPO office.* acres were purchased in a swampy excavations have been carried out, hollow near the north edge of town. and those on the National Register The first warden, Frank R. Delano, TERRITORIAL of Historic Places—would contain was selected in 1853, and the first PRISON, STILLWATER perhaps 50 sites. A more complete structures were erected: a prison tally would include every village, As you drive north out of downtown building surrounded by a 14-foot- every hunting, gathering, or special- Stillwater on State Highway 95, look high wooden wall and, just south of use site, and every burial ground to your left. Across from the railroad the wall on a higher elevation over- utilized by the Dakota and depot stand two old factory build- looking the prison, the warden’s from 1849 to 1858. It would count ings in a small notch in the bluffs of house. In 1854 the first prisoners every log cabin or dugout site, every the St. Croix River. If you look close- arrived. The following year, the fur post, every cemetery, every mill ly, you’ll notice that parts of the grounds were drained and a work- site, and every road used by early notch are lined with massive stone shop was constructed. white settlers. blocks forming a u-shaped wall. If There are no photographs of The preservation of territorial you look even more closely, you’ll Minnesota’s first prison, so it is dif- historic properties allows us reach see ruins of masonry walls poking ficult to describe it exactly, although out and touch the past, not just read out of the gravel parking lot. These prison records give us the basic about it. It allows us to view crafts- are the remains of Minnesota’s for- arrangement and materials. All of manship from an age when hand- mer territorial prison. the buildings were constructed of made was the rule, not the excep- tion. It allows us to better under- stand ways of life during a time *SHPO maintains files of information for each of the properties described. For more on the Red River Trails, see Rhoda R. Gilman, Carolyn Gilman, and Deborah M. Stultz, The when daily survival was a matter of Red River Trails: Oxcart Routes between St. Paul and the Selkirk Settlement, 1820–1870 (St. Paul: hard work, wise choices, and more Minnesota Historical Society, 1979); on the military roads, see Grover Singley, Tracing than a little good luck. A sampling Minnesota’s Old Government Roads (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1974).

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parking lot within the walls just northeast of this building. Caves that once stored food and other supplies pockmark the bedrock walls. Current plans are to turn the two remaining state prison buildings into a hotel.

GIDEON AND AGNES POND HOUSE, BLOOMINGTON Along the bluffs of the just southwest of the foot of Portland Avenue in east Blooming- ton near the Mall of America is a small brick house hidden from 104th Street by a screen of trees. This house was built in 1856 by Gideon and Agnes Pond. Gideon Minnesota State Prison from A. T. Andreas’s 1874 Illustrated Historical Atlas of and his brother Samuel had arrived in Minnesota in 1834 to be Christian the State of Minnesota. The territorial buildings stand near the river side (east); missionaries to the Dakota. The the warden’s house is just outside the walls (south), at left center of drawing. brothers established their first mis- sion at Lake Calhoun in what was to become , associating limestone from local quarries. The thieves and murderers, both men themselves with Mahpiyawicasta’s main building, which contained the and women. They were generally (Cloud Man’s) band of Mdewakan- cell blocks, was three stories high, well treated but were used by area ton Dakota. In 1836 Gideon went 45 feet long, and 30 feet wide. Near- manufacturers virtually as slave to in western by, within the walls, were a workshop labor. (Wardens were local business- Minnesota, where he married Sarah and an office. men until 1891 when the first pro- Poage. He returned to Lake Cal- Until abandoned in 1914, the fessional penologist, Albert Garvin, houn in 1839, but conflict with the prison went through many changes. was appointed.) Ojibwe was making any area north Major additions and new buildings When a new prison was finished of the Minnesota River dangerous were constructed in each decade. at Bayport just south of Stillwater in for the Dakota. When Cloud Man All of the original buildings except 1910, the old facility was gradually and his people moved south, the for the warden’s house were torn abandoned, with the last prisoners Ponds followed them. Gideon and down in 1871. The grounds were being transferred in 1914. The front Sarah established a new mission on continually expanded and the walls wall of the prison was torn down in the north bank of the Minnesota rebuilt until the prison occupied the the 1920s, opening the first clear River in 1842. They called this mis- entire hollow. A massive stone wall view to the inside from the street in sion Oak Grove, and there they completed in 1892 linked with the nearly 70 years. In 1936 WPA crews spent the remainder of their lives. bedrock bluffs on three sides and demolished all of the prison build- The Ponds first built a small log bridged the gap of the hollow on ings except for the shoe factory and building on the top of the bluff the river side. leather warehouse. overlooking the majestic river valley. There were no famous prisoners The warden’s house, the only When the Dakota were forced to in territorial days, at least none of standing structure from territorial cede their lands west of the Missis- such notoriety as the members of days, is now occupied by the Wash- sippi River to the United States in the James Gang, sent to Stillwater in ington County Historical Society. 1851, the missionaries decided to 1876 after their ill-fated Northfield Foundations of the early prison stay at Oak Grove and minister to raid. Most territorial convicts were buildings can be seen in the gravel white settlers. They built a pre-

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emption cabin near the log mission, the property of Bloomington in and Oak Grove became a farm. 1975. The city plans to develop the Sarah Pond died in 1853, and Gid- site as a historic facility, where the eon married Agnes Hopkins the interpretation will extend beyond next year. In 1856, using brick that the house and the Ponds. they made themselves at a nearby The Gideon and Agnes Pond kiln, Gideon and Agnes Pond built a house site is more than a standing new house adjacent to their cabin. structure. It is a complex of historic They dismantled the mission and resources that could tell us much used the timbers to build a barn. about territorial life in Minnesota. Gideon Pond served as the minister Archaeological loci include the mis- to Oak Grove Presbyterian Church sion house, the pre-emption cabin, until his retirement in 1873. He the kiln and clay pits, and a variety died in 1878 at the age of 68. Agnes of farmstead buildings. Cloud Man Pond died in 1915 at the age of 90. and his people lived on the lower The Pond family has continually terrace at Oak Grove and buried occupied the Oak Grove site in their dead on the upper terrace Bloomington since 1842. Richard near the mission. Excavation of the St. Martin, Gideon and Agnes lower-terrace village could reveal Pond’s great-grandson, still lives in much about the Dakota during this the brick house, although it became period of great change. Gideon and Agnes Pond, about 1854

Gideon and Agnes Pond’s house, 1992

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Ruins of the Ramsey Mill, about 1902

The Oak Grove site is not a place ships with . Gideon bald Mill (1857) can be seen only to commemorate just territorial pio- and Agnes Pond raised a loving and through careful examination of an neers. It needs to be a place of heal- hard-working family in territorial island in the Cannon River. In Hast- ing. Most missionaries who jour- Minnesota. These accomplishments ings, however, Minnesota’s territori- neyed to Minnesota to minister to are all worthy of celebration at their al flour-milling legacy is clearly visi- the Dakota and Ojibwe were good Oak Grove home. ble. The high wall ruins of the people with good intentions; they Ramsey Mill stand on the banks of hoped to make the lives of the the Vermillion River in a city park THE RAMSEY Indians better. In retrospect, how- across from the Minnesota Veterans’ AND GARDNER ever, by attempting to destroy Indian Home. Just upstream, the remains MILLS, HASTINGS religion and belief systems, they did of the Gardner Mill are embedded more to harm Indian culture than Minnesota once led the world in in the giant Conagra Mill. Euro-American soldiers and settlers. flour production. This accomplish- In 1856 and Some Dakota remember Pond’s ment was not due to the state’s agri- Thomas Foster built a four-story friendship. Others remember his cultural prowess; others produced limestone flour mill in the scenic “mission.” much more wheat. It also cannot be gorge of the Vermillion River. They Gideon and Samuel Pond devel- credited exclusively to the well- called it the Hastings City Mill, but it oped the first Dakota alphabet in known mill owners in Minneapolis. became known as the Ramsey Mill. 1836. Working with missionaries The success story of Pillsbury and By that time Ramsey had served as Stephen R. Riggs and Thomas S. General Mills begins with territorial the first territorial governor from Williamson, the Pond brothers pub- millers. It begins in southeastern 1849 to 1853. Foster, a physician lished the Grammar and Dictionary of Minnesota at Faribault, Dundas, who had arrived in Hastings in 1851, the Dakota Language in 1852. Gideon and Hastings. was his close friend and political ally. Pond started the first Dakota news- No visible remnants of territorial Ramsey was not involved in the paper, the Dakota Friend, in 1850. milling survive in Faribault. In Dun- day-to-day work of the mill; it was The Ponds established close friend- das, the low ruins of the first Archi- leased to operators. The business

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was not especially successful, parti- milling innovation that was copied resulted in slowly accepted innova- cularly in territorial times. Ledger elsewhere in Minnesota. The Gard- tions. The millers of southeastern books from 1857 and 1858 reveal ner Mill was acquired by the Peavey Minnesota rapidly improved the that it sold limited quantities of Company in 1928 and by Conagra process, and when these innovations wheat flour and corn meal. When in 1973 and currently is one of the were introduced into the massive Minnesota became a state in 1858, most productive in the world. The mills of Pillsbury and Washburn- the Ramsey Mill was one of more remains of the earlier Le Duc and Crosby (General Mills) at St. An- than 80. Ten years later, some 200 Gardner mills can be seen near its thony Falls, Minnesota flour gained flourished in the state. Ramsey sold downstream end, the gable outline markets and respect throughout the his interest in the mill in 1877, and clear below the modern flat roof. world. it burned in December 1894. It was Citizens of territorial Minnesota not rebuilt. knew that in order to be taken seri- MINNESOTA A smaller and earlier mill had ously by easterners they needed POINT LIGHTHOUSE, been constructed in Hastings in more than productive wheat fields DULUTH 1853 on the north bank of the Ver- and pine forests. Minnesota needed million River, immediately adjacent to process its resources if it were to The western shore of to the waterfall at the head of the gain national and international in- was sparsely populated when the gorge. Built by Harrison Graham fluence. The ruins of the Ramsey Ojibwe ceded northeastern Minne- and William Le Duc, this mill was Mill, its high stone walls open to the sota in the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe. three stories tall with a gable-roofed sky, are a powerful symbol of Minne- The had collapsed in the upper story of wood and two lower sota’s past when almost every town 1830s and trading posts had been stories of limestone. Le Duc became had a flour mill. abandoned. There were Ojibwe vil- sole owner in 1856 and enlarged the The remains of the Gardner lages at Grand Portage, Beaver Bay, mill. Stephen Gardner bought it in Mill, though more subtle to behold, and Fond du Lac, near the mouth 1863 and significantly rebuilt the have, perhaps, a more powerful of the St. Louis River, and seasonal structure, incorporating the earlier meaning. The technology of flour fishing stations at Grand Portage, mill into the new building. It was milling had been brought to Amer- Grand Marais, Encampment River, Gardner who is credited with intro- ica from Europe, where centuries and, again, Fond du Lac. With the ducing early middlings purifiers, a of wheat growing and grinding had signing of the treaty, hundreds of

Gardner Mill at the falls of the Vermillion River, 1859. Its stone outline is clearly visible in the 1936 view of the Peavey mill.

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white settlers and prospectors staked claims along Minnesota’s North Shore, but when rumors of rich min- eral deposits proved false and the financial Panic of 1857 hit, the tide of settlement temporarily waned. The promise of a great port at Duluth, however, did not wane. As the agricultural fields of Minnesota and the Dakotas boomed and white pine forests yielded their great trees, eastern cities demanded the wheat and lumber. Moving products east was difficult before railroads reached the region. The Great Minnesota Point lighthouse and light keeper’s dwelling, Duluth, about 1870 Lakes offered an attractive water route, although the violent storms, cold water, and rocky coastline of Lighthouse remains, 1970 Lake Superior were well known to sailors even in the midnineteenth century. Ways had to be found to make shipping safer. At the mouth of Duluth harbor lies Minnesota Point, one of the longest bay-mouth sandbars in the world. In 1854 the St. Louis River swept east around Minnesota Point before it entered Lake Superior. This was the only entry into the great inner harbor at Duluth. Pro- moters immediately recognized the need for a lighthouse to guide sail- ors to the harbor entrance. In 1855 the federal government appropriated $15,000 to build this lighthouse on the eastern end of Minnesota Point. Completed in 1858, it stood 50 feet high and was constructed of red brick shipped from Cleveland. Whitewashed mor- tar covered the brick to make the tower more visible. A 10-foot-high wooden turret with four large glass windows and a glass-paneled door capped it. Inside the turret was a kerosene-powered light with French- made lenses. A brick light keeper’s house was constructed adjacent to the tower. In 1870 the city of Duluth ordered a channel cut through Minnesota Point near its western

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end to give ships more direct access to the city’s inner harbor. Although the eastern (Superior, Wisconsin) entrance grew steadily less popular, shifting sands at the east end of the point required the construction of a new light station in 1878 a quarter of a mile to the east. The lenses from the old lighthouse were moved to the new Superior entry, and the old Min- nesota Point lighthouse was aban- doned. The wooden turret, the inte- rior stairway, and the light keeper’s house were also removed in 1878. Over the last 120 years the Min- nesota Point lighthouse has fallen into ruin. Only 35 feet of the tower still stand, the uncovered top layers of brick gradually succumbing to the freeze-thaw cycle. A thick patch of poison ivy hampers access to the broken cylinder. Though its light is gone and its tower shattered, the lighthouse still shines bright in importance. The Minnesota Point lighthouse was the first high- powered light beacon on Lake Superior. It was a landmark that became the zero point for all of the initial surveys of the lake. It allowed safe passage into a little-known har- bor at the head of Lake Superior, a harbor that is now one of the busiest in the United States.

the , with Euro- tured very few improvements such TERRITORIAL ROADS American settlements on the Red as bridges, grading, or filling. When Minnesota became a territory, River in southern Canada. Known With the signing of the area’s it already had an extensive network as Red River trails, these routes fol- first major Indian treaty in 1837, the of overland transportation routes. lowed river valleys where possible. land between the St. Croix and Mis- Most of these were Indian trails. Major Red River trails went south sissippi Rivers, known as the St. Croix Largely impassable by wagons, they from on both sides of the triangle, was opened to white settle- did not necessarily make the link- Red River and then diverged into ment, and the need for roads ages required by Euro-American set- three main routes across central increased. Loggers developed an tlers. What may have been the first Minnesota: the Minnesota Valley informal network in the triangle, built road in Minnesota, linking the Trail along the Minnesota River, the linking sawmills and river landings Falls of St. Anthony with Fort Middle Trail along the Sauk River, to stands of white pine. Snelling, was constructed by soldiers and the Woods Trail along the Crow In the early 1850s when addition- in the early 1820s. Wing and Mississippi Rivers. These al Indian treaties ceded more land, Cart trails were developed in the had many spurs that offered local Minnesota’s population began to 1830s to connect , the route options based on the weather increase rapidly, and the new settlers head of steamboat navigation on or time of year. Red River trails fea- demanded better roads. Congress

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appropriated $40,000 in Perhaps the best exam- 1850 to construct “mili- ple of a Red River Trail tary” roads in Minne- segment is on the west- sota Territory; addition- ern edge of Goose Lake al appropriations were Swamp in Pennington passed in 1852, 1855, and Polk Counties. 1856, and 1857. Five A well-preserved seg- major roads were speci- ment of the Point fied in these appropria- Douglas-to-Superior tions: the mouth of the military road is present St. Croix River (Point in St. Croix Wild River Douglas) to the mouth State Park in Chisago of the St. Louis River County. In Kandota (Superior); Point Doug- Township of Todd las to Fort Ripley; the County, off County mouth of the Swan Riv- Road 92, is a surviving er (Little Falls) to the segment of the Winnebago Agency St. Cloud and Red (Long Prairie); Men- River Valley stage road. dota to Wabasha; and Mendota to the mouth Unless maintained, of the Big River the built environment (Sioux City, Iowa). The goes back to nature. Treaty of La Pointe in Historic buildings be- 1854 had also specified come ruins, and ruins that roads be built from become archaeological the mouth of the Rum sites invisible at the River (Anoka) to Lake earth’s surface. Walls Mille Lacs and from the and artifacts are pre- mouth of the Crow cious resources. They Wing River north to Point Douglas-to-Superior Road, 1989 demonstrate that the Leech Lake. past is real, that the sto- Surveys for the mili- ries told in history books tary roads began in late are more than stories, 1850, starting with the Mendota-to- days. William Dodd got contribu- and that there are more stories than Wabasha road. By the time of state- tions to build a road from Traverse the books can hold. People lived in hood in 1858, the authorized mili- des Sioux (Nicollet County) to those houses, worked in those mills, tary roads had essentially been St. Paul in 1853. The Mendota-to- traveled those roads, paced in those completed, although their condi- Big Sioux military survey crew en- prison cells, and lit beacons in that tion and passability varied greatly. countered this road and drew their tower to welcome white-winged The worst section was the northern survey line along it. The alignment schooners to a new world. portion of the Point Douglas-to- through Dakota County, still largely Territorial stories are pivotal to Superior road. Like the Red River intact, is known today as Dodd Minnesota history. In those 10 years, trails, the military roads followed Road. Stagecoach roads funded by the transformation from “wilder- favorable topography and existing private developers also began about ness” to metropolis irrevocably be- trails wherever possible, but signifi- this time, and by 1859 a network gan. The lives of native peoples, and cant bridge building, swamp filling, connected most towns in southeast- those who came after, were changed and timber clearing were also done. ern Minnesota. forever. As we view those years, we Road beds were 25 to 50 feet in width While many territorial roads must also view the present and de- with 100-foot cleared right-of-ways. became state highways and county cide what we will leave to the future. Local road-building initiatives roads, there are not many places The fragile fabric of the past is a gift were also common in territorial where the actual roads survive. well worth giving.

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