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

lantic so that vessels may pass, without breaking bulk, to the waters of the ocean. It may be something more than a dream, that we shall yet hear the ebb and flow of the Atlantic on the shores of the Zenith City. Our lake steamship trade is the marvel of the world. Great records are made only to be broken.

But we are not yet done and must linger to note that an entirely new commerce has appeared on the north shore of lake Superior. Originating within our own territory, the rapidity and magnitude of its growth is absolutely astounding. In 1883, not a pound of iron ore had yet been shipped from Minnesota. The Vermilion range was opened in 1884, and the great Mesabi not till 1892. In 1897, the Mesabi produced twice as much ore as either the Marquette, Gogebic, or Menominee ranges. The port of Two Harbors takes both Vermilion and Mesabi ores, while Duluth handles Mesabi ores only. The investment in the lake Superior ore trade, including mines, buildings, railroads, and docks, has been estimated at $150,000,000; and the value of the fleet doing this special transportation is but little short of $50,000,000. The latest movement in the transportation of this ore appears in the fleet of steel steamers, put in our trade by the Bessemer Steamship Company of Cleveland, behind which is John D. Rockefeller. They are now building these steam monsters with a capacity of 7,000 gross or long tons, with barges of equal capacity. The lakes control the entire ore traffic.

This inland navigation starts with Minnesota. Among the components of its volume, ore stands first, grain second, lumber third, and then comes general merchandise. In 1857, it cost nearly ten cents per bushel to ship wheat from Chicago to Buffalo; but in 1897 wheat was shipped from Duluth to Buffalo at rates slightly over one and a half cents. Ore has been carried from our ports to lake Erie, in 1897, for 57 cents a long ton; and returning vessels have carried coal to Duluth for 15 cents a short ton.

THE ADVENT OF RAILWAYS.

It has been well said, that the highways of nations are the measure of their civilization. By means of speedy transit,

society, government, commerce, arts, wealth, intelligence, are developed and advanced to their highest excellence. The thirty-one roads which radiated from the forum of Rome into her vast provinces, like spokes from the nave of a wheel, were proofs of the wisdom and grandeur of the Roman rule. The substitution of turnpikes for muddy lanes is on the line of true progress. In the pre-railway times of England, freight transportation by earth roads averaged twenty-six cents per ton per mile. The railways came and soon carried a ton of goods twenty-five miles an hour for two cents per mile. The value of a wagon load of wheat is totally consumed in hauling it on an earth road three hundred miles. The advent of the locomotive into our territory swept away other modes of transportation, except by water, and became the swift civilizer of the prairie and wilderness. No other known power could have accomplished what we now behold, in the compass of a single generation.

In the spring of 1862 there was not a mile of railway in Minnesota. On June 30th, 1897, the aggregate length of our railways was 6,086.35 miles. It is quite difficult to fix the precise time of the very first agitation for a railway within our borders. There is some unwritten history which may here be snatched from oblivion. In 1847, Prof. Increase A. Lapham outlined a plan for two railroads, one from lake Superior and another from St. Paul, which were to meet on the Red river, below where Fergus Falls now is; and that point of junction was to be called Lapham. This gentleman carefully viewed the country and made a map of the routes and a written outline of his plans, which are in existence to this day. James M. Goodhue, in an editorial in the Pioneer, in 1850, gave the first prophetic vision of a Northern Pacific railway, and specifically outlined a northern route, which he believed was shorter and safer than the one then proposed from St. Louis to San Francisco. He cited the fact that there was then a trail from the Red river to the mouth of the Columbia river, over which mails were regularly carried by the American Fur Company. His article was headed "A Short Route to Oregon."