SAINT PAUL.
Early History of Saint Paul.--Founding of the City.--Public
Buildings.--Roman Catholics.--Places of Resort.--Falls of
Minnehaha.--Carver's Cave.--Fountain Cave.--Commercial
Interests.--Present and Future Prospects.
The first white man who ever visited the locality where Saint Paul now
stands, was Father Hennepin, who made a voyage of discovery up the
Mississippi, above the Falls of Saint Anthony, in 1680. But for more
than a century and a half after his visit the entire section of country
remained practically in the possession of the Indians. Eighty-six years
afterwards Jonathan Carver made a treaty with the Dakotas, and in 1837
the United States made a treaty with the Sioux, throwing the land open
to settlement.
The first building in Saint Paul was erected in 1838, but for a number
of years afterwards it remained merely an Indian trading-post. In 1841 a
mission was established on the spot by the Jesuits, and a log chapel
dedicated to Saint Paul, from which the city afterwards took its name.
The land upon which Saint Paul is built was purchased in 1849, at the
government price of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. The same
year the town was made the capital of the State, while it was yet a
hamlet of a few log huts. Four years later it had nearly four thousand
inhabitants, with handsome public buildings, good hotels, stores, mills,
factories, and other constituents of a prosperous town. In 1846 the
town had but ten inhabitants. In 1856 it had ten thousand. Steamers were
coming and going; loads of immigrants were arriving; drays and teams
were driving hither and thither; carpenters and masons were hard at
work; yet could not put up houses fast enough; shops and dwellings were
starting out of the ground, as if by magic. In 1880 the population had
increased to fifty thousand, and was steadily and rapidly multiplying.
Saint Paul originally occupied the western bank of the Mississippi, but
has now extended to the eastern bank as well. It is divided into a lower
and upper town, the former lying on the low shore between the bluff and
the river, and containing the wholesale houses, shipping houses and
factories. The latter occupies no less than four plateaus rising one
above another, in a semicircle around the bend of the river, the first
plateau being nearly a hundred feet in height. Here are the retail
stores, public buildings, churches and private residences. The streets
in the central portions of the city cross one another at right angles,
but become irregular as they approach the boundaries. They are graded
and paved and lighted by gas. Two bridges connect the opposite shores of
the river, and horse cars traverse all sections of the city. Its general
appearance is pleasing in the extreme. Many of the houses are built of
blue limestone, which is found underlying one of the terraces in great
quantities.
The State Capitol building is now in process of construction, and will,
when completed, be a very handsome edifice, occupying an entire square.
The United States Custom House, an opera house, a large number of
handsome churches, and several public school buildings are among the
objects worthy of note in the city.
Although Saint Paul is settled largely by people from New England and
New York State, the Roman Catholics still hold an important place in the
city. The first to take possession of the spot, they will be the last to
relax their hold. They have a number of large and handsomely finished
church edifices, and have established an orphan asylum. There is also a
Protestant orphan asylum, and three free hospitals.
The city boasts an Academy of Sciences, which has a very full museum, a
Historical Society and a Library Association, each of the latter having
fine libraries.
Saint Paul is in the midst of a charming and romantic country, and the
throngs of people who seek a transient home within its borders during
the heat of summer find abundance of delightful drives and places for
picnics and excursions. White Bear Lake and Bald Eagle Lake, but a short
distance away by rail, furnish boating, fishing and bathing for pleasure
seekers, as well as most enchanting scenery for the lovers of nature.
The city park is but two miles away, on the shores of Lake Como, and is
also an attractive place.
All lovers of the romantic should thank Longfellow that by means of his
exquisite poem of Hiawatha he has rescued the beautiful Falls of
Minnehaha, meaning in the Dakota language "laughing water," from being
known as Brown's Falls, a name which some utilitarian egotist had
bestowed upon it. From a high bank, covered with shrubbery, the clear,
silvery stream makes a sudden leap of about fifty feet into the chasm
beneath. A veil of mist rises before the falls, and the sun shining upon
it spans the cataract with a rainbow.
On the eastern side of the city, in Dayton Bluff, near the river, is
Carver's Cave, so named after Jonathan Carver, already referred to, who,
in this cave, in May, 1767, made his treaty with the Indians, by which
he secured a large tract of land. The cave contains a lake large enough
to have a boat upon it.
Two miles above Saint Paul, on a beautiful clear stream that flows into
the Mississippi, is Fountain Cave, a most wonderful and interesting
production of nature. It seems to have been formed by the action of the
stream which finds an outlet through it. It has an arched entrance with
a vaulted roof, the entrance being twenty feet in height by twenty-five
in width, while roof, sides and floor are of pure white sandstone. This
cave contains a number of chambers, the largest being one hundred feet
in length by twenty-five feet in width, and twenty feet in height. The
cave has been penetrated for a thousand feet or more, and still has
unexplored recesses.
Saint Paul stands at the head of navigation of the Mississippi River,
the Falls and Rapids of Saint Anthony, a short distance above,
effectually barring the further upward progress of craft from below,
though above the falls small steamboats thread the waters of the
youthful Mississippi to the furthest outposts of civilization. At this
point the immense grain fields of the northwest find an outlet for their
annual products, and to this point comes the merchandise which must
supply the needs of an already large and constantly increasing
agricultural, mining and lumbering population. Numerous railroads
connect it, not only with the great trade centres of the east and south,
but with a hundred thriving towns and villages in Minnesota and
Wisconsin, who look to it for supplies; and when the Northern Pacific
is completed, the entire northwest will be brought into communication
with Saint Paul, and as the Mississippi will share with the lakes the
transportation of produce, manufactures and ores of an inexhaustible but
now scarcely populated region, Saint Paul will derive immense advantages
from this gigantic enterprise.
Saint Paul is already a town of the greatest importance on the Upper
Mississippi. Her streets teem with business, and boats of all
descriptions lie at her wharves. Already a populous city, what she is
to-day is but the beginning of what the future will behold her. A
generation hence she will count her inhabitants by hundreds where now
she counts them by tens; her business will have increased in like
proportion; and in the no distant future she will be known as the great
metropolis of the Northwest.