kato. Again, says Goodhue, on the 24th day of July, 1850, the steamer Yankee ascended the stream, and, picking up the shingle of the Anthony Wayne, carried it as far as the mouth of the Cottonwood river. After the Indian treaty of 1851, navigation gradually became regular; and the Tiger, Nominee, Humboldt, Equator, Time and Tide, Jeannette Roberts, Frank Steele, and Favorite, appeared successively in the trade, till the advent of the iron horse drove them out of business.

OUR WAGON ROADS AND STAGE LINES.

Our wagon roads in the beginning were very crude. The first road has been referred to, running from Grand Portage to Fort William. The second was from St. Paul to Mendota, crossing the ferry at Fort Snelling. The next one was to the Falls of St. Anthony. In 1849, Amherst Willoughby and Simon Powers commenced running a daily line of wagons, during the summer only, between St. Paul and St. Anthony. In 1851, these same parties brought to Minnesota, and put on the line, the first Concord stages ever run in our state. In 1851, also, Lyman L. Benson and Mr. Pattison came from Kalamazoo, Mich., and brought a large livery outfit. They put on a yellow line in opposition to Willoughby and Powers' coaches, which were red. A furious opposition resulted, and gave birth to the first "cut rates" in the history of our state. Afterward, in 1856, our good friend Alvaren Allen and Charles L. Chase appeared upon the scene, and run a line to the upper Mississippi; and in 1859 they consolidated with J. C. Burbank and Capt. Russell Blakeley, forming a new company under the name of the Minnesota Stage Company. In 1853, M. O. Walker established a winter line down through Minnesota and Iowa to Dubuque, and had the mail contract. But in 1858 J. C. Burbank & Co. got the winter mail contract and drove the other line out. In 1854 and 1855, William Nettleton established a line of stages to Duluth; but this line also was soon absorbed by the Minnesota Stage Company.

In 1851, J. C. Burbank established the first express business, and he was the father of that sort of transportation in this state. He was himself the first express messenger, and carried the first package entrusted to him, from Galena to St.

Paul, in his pocket. Later, in 1856, Capt. Russell Blakeley bought an interest in the growing business; and with these enterprising spirits, Burbank and Blakeley, new life was infused into our young transportation system. The Minnesota Stage Company and the Northwestern Express Company were very closely identified in business relations. In 1860, John L. Merriam bought out the interest of Allen and Chase in the stage company; and for the ensuing seven years this firm of Burbank, Blakeley & Merriam carried on the stage and express business with wonderful energy and activity. Their aggregate routes covered about 1,300 miles, besides 300 miles more by "pony" routes. In 1865 they worked over seven hundred horses, and employed more than two hundred men. This firm left a splendid name for the energy, fairness, and justice which always characterized their dealing with the public as common carriers. But this very enterprising firm did not stop there.

In 1857 and 1858, Ramsay Crooks, agent of the Hudson Bay Company, sought transportation for the goods of that company through Minnesota to the far North. Captain Blakeley himself made the contract with Crooks in Washington, and Blakeley visited the Red river late in the autumn of 1858, and decided that it could be navigated. The next season a steamboat, the Anson Northup, was built on the Red river, and was run by the company under the command of Capt. Edwin Bell. This was followed by a contract with Sir George Simpson, of the Hudson Bay Company, to transfer their goods. to the Red River Settlement, now Manitoba, from Montreal, through St. Paul. Soon the company built the steamboat International, and thus was navigation established on the Red river of the North.

The history which I have here glanced at affected the settlement and development of our state in the most substantial manner. Early transportation was thus established, amid innumerable obstacles, and carried over the whole extent of our territory, with a degree of energy and success that marks the men identified with it as bold, aggressive, and grand characters in the history of our early transportation.

We must recur a moment to an early and important road, established by the War Department as a military road, from

Mendota to the Big Sioux river. The work was begun in 1853, and was completed in 1857, by authority of an act of congress. This road was located along the Minnesota river valley. It was the first road with bridges, and furnished good facilities for travel and early immigration. At one time, a system of plank roads was sought to be established, and our Territorial Legislature organized no less than six separate companies, but none ever materialized.

THE RED RIVER OX CART TRADE.

It would be a serious omission to neglect to mention the extraordinary cart trade with Pembina. The beginning of this trade is undoubtedly due to Norman W. Kittson, our wellknown pioneer, and he blazed out that line of travel which was ultimately adopted by the Minnesota Stage Company. Kittson, in 1843, established a trading post at Pembina. This trade grew till 1854, when the firm of Forbes & Kittson had fully established a great line of business. For a period of about twenty years, the furs from the Pembina region were shipped in the most curious vehicle known to modern commercial life. It was a two-wheeled concern, of very rude but strong workmanship, made entirely of wood and leather, without a particle of iron, and would carry from six to seven hundred pounds. This cart cost about $15. To the cart an ox was geared by broad bands of buffalo hide. Sometimes there were two oxen, driven tandem. No grease was used, and the creaking axles were heard far away. From Pembina to St. Paul was about 448 miles. They generally consumed some thirty or forty days in the trip, and would arrive in St. Paul early in July.

The drivers were not less striking in their appearance than the carts and oxen. The Red river half-breeds (bois brulés) were a peculiar people with a character and dress half civilized and half barbaric. They generally camped near what was called Larpenteur's lake, near the intersection of Dale and Marshall streets. They brought down pemican, buffalo tongues, and buffalo robes, with furs and pelts, and took back teas, tobacco, alcohol, hardware, etc. In 1844 there were only

six carts in the trade; in 1851, one hundred and two; and

in 1857, five hundred. The value of this trade was a helpful auxiliary to our business in those early times. While in 1844 it was reported at only $1,400, in 1863 it reached $250,000. But the increase of the Burbank & Co. freight lines, the establishment of steam navigation on the Red river, and the Sioux war of 1862, combined to drive these primitive prairie carts out of the field of trade. The fur trade, it should be remembered, was always one of the chief sources of our early commerce and income. The prices of furs in some cases showed great fluctuation on account of changing demands of fashion. A mink skin, which in 1857 brought only twenty cents, in 1863 had risen to five dollars and even seven dollars in value.

WINTER TRAVEL BY DOG TRAINS.

The dog trains ought not to be forgotten, for during the long winters they did much freighting. Travellers would generally have these dogs driven tandem, and would travel from thirty to forty miles a day. Some traders, with great pride, would have a cariole, with jingling bells, such as Kittson and Rolette came in, when they had been elected to the Legislature of 1852; and their coming attracted as much attention as the arrival of a Mississippi steamboat in the summer. When Commodore Kittson's first wife died, on the spot where the Ryan Hotel now stands, her remains were taken from St. Paul to Pembina, in the dead of winter, by a dog train.

PRESENT TRANSPORTATION ON LAKE SUPERIOR.

Let us return and resume, for a moment, the story of our developing commerce, on the most prodigious body of pure water in the world. That from the feeble beginnings we have noted this inland sea should have developed its present vast traffic, is one of the most extraordinary facts of the commercial world. What would Alexander Henry or Henry Rowe Schoolcraft think, if they could witness the magnitude of the fleets which now cover its bright waters? The Sault Ste. Marie river is the key to lake Superior. The rapids of this river, from the level of one lake to the level of the other, fall twenty feet. To overcome this barrier was a necessity of our lake commerce. This natural obstacle has been practically

surmounted by our government; and in 1896 we have the official total of vessels passing through the "Soo" canals as 18,615, with a registered tonnage of over 17,000,000. More than 8,820 of the vessels were for Minnesota ports. To more fully comprehend the magnitude of this lake commerce, we may compare it with an official report which shows that but 3,434 vessels passed through the Suez canal in 1895, with a registered tonnage of only 8,448,225. The commerce passing the "Soo" was thus more than double that of the great interocean canal of De Lesseps. Every year this trade expands. New vessels, with new designs and enlarged capacities, continue to astonish us. That remarkable class of vessels known as the "whalebacks" appeared in July, 1888, the first one being named "No. 101." The first of the enormous steel steamships of James J. Hill was launched in the winter of 1892-93, and entered on business the following June. It was named the "Northwest." It was followed by the "Northland," a sister ship, the following year. Such floating palaces are scarcely to be seen on any ocean of the world. Let me here note, for the enlargement of our minds to the measure of the lake traffic, that, for the year 1896, 47,942 carloads of grain were emptied into our lake vessels, or 59,828,999 bushels, all of which arrived at Duluth that year and was shipped through our lake on its journey to the east and to Europe.

Think of the big "400-footers" now on the lake, which can carry the products of a hundred farms! In 1895 the "Selim Eddy" carried 121,000 bushels of wheat. Within the past year the "Empire City" took out 205,445 bushels. This is about the product of 17,000 acres, at the average of our production. It would load 342 cars, and at forty cars to the train would make more than eight great trains of grain. It is 6,163 tons of grain. Converted into flour, it would make 46,000 barrels!

The growth of our lake trade is simply unparalleled in the history of transportation. Deeper waterways and bigger ships go hand in hand. New enterprises are constantly in the air. It is now whispered that the transcontinental lines are to open up trade from the lake with Asia; while another dream is to make deep waterways connecting with the At