DULUTH.
Embarking at a pier, and steering northwest, we pass up the bay, with
the long, narrow, natural breakwater, Minnesota Point, on our right
hand, and the level plateau of the main-land, with a heavy forest
growth, on our left. Before us, on the sloping hillside of the northern
shore, lies the rapidly rising town of Duluth, unheard of twelve months
ago, but now, to use a Western term, "a right smart chance of a place."
One hundred and ninety years ago Duluth, a French explorer, was
coasting along these shores, and sailing up this bay over which we are
gliding. He was the first European to reach the head of the lake. He
crossed the country to the Upper Mississippi, descended it to St. Paul,
where he met Father Hennipen, who had been held in captivity by the
Indians.
It is suitable that so intrepid an explorer should be held in
remembrance, and the founders of the new town have done wisely in
naming it for him, instead of calling it Washington or Jackson,
or adding another "ville" to the thousands now so perplexing to
post-office clerks.
The new city of the Northwest is sheltered from northerly winds by
the high lands behind it. The St. Louis River, a stream as large as
the Merrimac, after its turbulent course down the rocky rapids, with
a descent altogether of five hundred feet, flows peacefully past the
town into the Bay of Superior. The river and lake together have thrown
up the long and narrow strip of land called Minnesota Point, reaching
nearly across the head of the lake, and behind which lies the bay. It
is as if the Titans had thrown up a wide railway embankment, or had
tried their hand at filling up the lake. The bay is shallow, but the
men who projected the city of Duluth are in no wise daunted by that
fact. They have planned to make a harbor by building a mole out into
the lake fifteen hundred or two thousand feet. It is to extend from
the northern shore far enough to give good anchorage and protection to
vessels and steamers.
The work to be done is in many respects similar to what has been
accomplished at both ends of the Suez Canal. When M. Lesseps set about
the construction of that magnificent enterprise, he found no harbor on
the Mediterranean side, but only a low sandy shore, against which the
waves, driven by the prevailing western winds, were always breaking.
The shore was a narrow strip of sand, behind which lay a shallow lagoon
called Lake Menzaleh. There was no granite or solid material of any
description at hand for the construction of a breakwater. Undaunted
by the difficulties, he commenced the manufacture of blocks of stone
on the beach, mixing hydraulic lime brought from France with the sand
of the shore, and moistening it with salt water. He erected powerful
hydraulic presses and worked them by steam. After the blocks, which
weighed twenty tons each, had dried three months, they were taken out
on barges and tumbled into the ocean in the line of the moles, one of
which was 8,178 feet, nearly a mile and a half, in length; the other
5,000 feet, enclosing an area of about five hundred acres. More than
100,000 blocks of manufactured stone were required to complete these
two walls. They were not laid in cement, for it has been found that a
rubble wall is better than finished masonry to resist the action of the
waves. Having completed the walls, dredges were set to work, and the
area has been deepened enough to enable the largest vessels navigating
the Mediterranean to find safe anchorage.
These breakwaters were required for the outer harbor, but an inner
basin was needed. To obtain it, M. Lesseps cut a channel through the
low ridge of sand to Lake Menzaleh, where the water upon an average was
four feet deep. A large area has been dredged in the lake, and docks
constructed, and now the commerce of the world between the Orient and
the Occident passes through the basin of Port Said.
The Suez Canal, the construction of a large harbor on the sand-beach of
the Mediterranean, and another of equal capacity on the Red Sea, is one
of the wonders of modern times,--a triumph of engineering skill and of
the indomitable will of one energetic man.
The people of Duluth will not be under the necessity of manufacturing
the material for the breakwater, for along the northern shore there
is an abundant supply of granite which can be easily quarried. It is
proposed to make an inner harbor by digging a canal across Minnesota
Point and excavating the shallows.
The difficulties to be overcome at Duluth bear slight comparison with
those already surmounted on the Mediterranean. The commercial men of
Chicago contemplate the fencing in of a few hundred acres of Lake
Michigan; and there is no reason to doubt that a like thing can be done
at the western end of Lake Superior.
Two years ago Duluth was a forest; but in this month of May, 1870,
it has two thousand inhabitants, with the prospect of doubling its
population within a twelvemonth. The woodman's axe is ringing on the
hills, and the trees are falling beneath his sturdy strokes. From
morning till night we hear the joiner's plane and the click of the
mason's trowel. You may find excellent accommodation in a large hotel,
erected at a cost of forty thousand dollars. We may purchase the
products of all climes in the stores,--sugar from the West Indies,
coffee from Java, tea from China, or silks from the looms of France.
The printing-press is here issuing the Duluth Minnesotian, a sprightly
sheet that looks sharply after the interests of this growing town.
Musical as the ripples upon the pebbly shore of the lake are the voices
of the children reciting their lessons in yonder school-house. I am
borne back to boyhood days,--to the old school-house, with its hard
benches, where I studied, played, caught flies, was cheated swapping
jack-knives, and got a licking besides! Glorious days they were for all
that!
Presbyterian and Episcopal churches are already organized, also an
Historical Society. During the last winter a course of lectures was
sustained.
The stumps are yet to be seen in the streets, but such is the beginning
of a town which may yet become one of the great commercial cities of
the interior.
A meteorological record kept at Superior since 1855 shows that the
average period of navigation has been two hundred and sixteen days,
which is fully as long as the season at Chicago.
Year. Opening. Close. No. of Days.
1855 April 15 December 6 235
1856 " 16 November 22 220
1857 May 27 " 20 177
1858 March 20 " 22 247
1859 May 25 " 9 164
1860 April 7 December 4 238
1861 June 12 " 12 184
1862 April 28 " 16 233
1863 May 10 " 7 212
1864 April 23 " 1 222
1865 " 22 " 5 227
1866 May 5 " 10 220
1867 April 19 " 1 225
Steaming up the river several miles to the foot of the first rapids,
and landing on the northern shore, climbing up a wet and slippery bank
of red clay we are on the line of the railroad, upon which several
hundred men are employed.
Grades of fifty feet to the mile are necessary from the lake up to the
falls of the St. Louis, but the tonnage of the road will be largely
eastward, down the grade, instead of westward.
The road will be about a hundred and forty miles in length, connecting
the lake with the network of railroads centring at St. Paul. It is
liberally endowed, having in all 1,630,000 acres of land heavily
timbered with pine, butternut, white oak, sugar-maple, ash, and other
woods.
There is no doubt that this line of road will do an immense amount of
business. Such is the estimation in which it is held by the moneyed
men of Philadelphia, that Mr. Jay Cooke obtained the entire amount of
money necessary to construct it in four days! The bonds, I believe,
were not put upon the market in the usual manner, by advertising, but
were taken at once by men who wanted them for investment.
A single glance at the map must be sufficient to convince any
intelligent observer of the value of such a franchise. The wheat of
Minnesota, to reach Chicago now, must be taken by steamers to La Crosse
or Prairie du Chien, and thence transported by rail across Wisconsin,
but when this road is put in operation, the products of Minnesota,
gathered at St. Paul or Minneapolis, will seek this new outlet.
Think of the scene of activity there will be along the line, not only
of this road, but of the Northern Pacific, when the two are completed
to the lake, of an almost continuous train of cars, of elevators
pouring grain from cars to ships and steamers. Think of the fleet that
will soon whiten this great inland sea, bearing the products of the
immense wheat-field eastward to the Atlantic cities, and bringing back
the industries of the Eastern States!
It is only when I sit down to think of the future, to measure it by
the advancement already made, that I can comprehend anything of the
coming greatness of the Northwest,--20,000,000 bushels of wheat this
year; 500,000 inhabitants in the State, yet scarcely a hundredth part
of the area under cultivation. What will be the product ten years
hence, when the population will reach 1,500,000? What will it be twenty
years hence? How shall we obtain any conception of the business to be
done on these railways when Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon,
and all the vast region of the Assinniboine and the Saskatchawan, pour
their products to the nearest water-carriage eastward? We are already
beyond our depth, and are utterly unable to comprehend the probable
development.
The men who are building this railroad from St. Paul to Duluth have not
failed to recognize this one fact, that by water Duluth is as near as
Chicago to the Atlantic cities. Wheat and flour can be transported as
cheaply from Duluth to Buffalo or Ogdensburg as from the southern end
of Lake Michigan, while the distance from St. Paul to Lake Superior is
only one hundred and forty miles against four hundred and eighty to
Chicago. We may conclude that the wheat of Minnesota can be carried
fifteen or twenty cents a bushel cheaper by Duluth than by Lake
Michigan,--a saving to the Eastern consumer of almost a dollar on each
barrel of flour. Twenty cents on a bushel saved will add at least four
dollars to the yearly product of an acre of land.
The difference in freight on articles manufactured in the East and
shipped to Minnesota will be still more marked, for grain in bulk is
taken at low rates, while manufactured goods pay first-class. The
completion of this railway will be a great blessing to the people of
New England and of all the East, as well as to those of the Northwest.
Anything that abridges distance and cheapens carriage is so much
absolute gain. I do not think that there is any public enterprise in
the country that promises to produce more important results than the
opening of this railway.
An elevator company has been organized by several gentlemen in Boston
and Philadelphia, and the necessary buildings are now going up. The
wheat will be taken directly from the cars into the elevator, and
discharged into the fleet of propellers running to Cleveland, Buffalo,
and Ogdensburg, already arranged for this Lake Superior trade.
The region around the western end of the Lake has resources for the
development of a varied industry. The wooded section extends from
Central Wisconsin westward to the Leaf Hills beyond the Mississippi,
and northward to Lake Winnipeg. This is to be the lumbering
region of the Northwest, for the manufacture of all agricultural
implements,--reapers, mowers, harvesters, ploughs, drills, seed-sowers,
wagons, carriages, carts, and furniture,--besides furnishing lumber
for fencing, for railroad and building purposes.
Upon the St. Louis River there is exhaustless water-power,--a descent
of five hundred feet, with a stream always pouring an abundant flood.
Its source is among the lakes of northern Minnesota, which, being
filled to overflowing by the rains of spring and early summer, become
great reservoirs. With such a supply of water there is no locality more
favorably situated for the manufacture of every variety of domestic
articles. Undoubtedly the water-power will be largely employed for
flouring-mills. The climate is admirably adapted to the grinding
of grain. The falls being so near the lake, there will be cheap
transportation eastward to Buffalo, Cleveland, Philadelphia, New York,
and Boston, while westward are the prairies, easily reached by the
railroads.
The geological formation on the north side of Lake Superior is granite,
but as we follow up the St. Louis River we come upon a ridge of
slate. It forms the backbone of the divide between the lake and the
Mississippi River.
A quarry has been opened from which slates of a quality not inferior
to those of Vermont are obtained, and so far as we know it is the only
quarry in the Northwest. It is almost invaluable, for Nebraska, Kansas,
Iowa, western Minnesota, and Dakota have very little wood. Shingles
are costly, but here is abundant material to cover the roofs of the
millions of houses that are yet to rise upon the prairies.
This slate formation is thus referred to by Thomas Clark, State
Geologist, in his Report to the Governor of Minnesota, dated December,
1864 (pp. 29, 30):--
"These slates are found in all degrees of character, from the common
indurated argillaceous fissile to the highly metamorphosed and even
trappous type. The working of these slates demands the attention of
builders; their real value is economically of more importance to the
prairie and sparsely timbered valley of the Mississippi than any other
deposit in the State's possession on the lake. The annual draught of
hundreds of millions of lumber upon the pine forests of the St. Croix
and Upper Mississippi and tributaries will exhaust those regions before
the close of this century. The trustees of our young Commonwealth are
emphatically admonished to encourage and foster the working of these
slates, and to bring them into use at the earliest time possible. A
hundred square feet of dressed slates at the quarries of Vermont, New
York, and Canada are worth from one and a half to two dollars; the
weight ranges from four to six hundred pounds, or about four squares
to the ton. A ton of this roofing may be transported from the St.
Louis quarry to the Mississippi, by railway, at three dollars, and
thence by river to the landings as far down as St. Louis or Cairo; but
the article may be at all points in this State accessible by boats or
railway, at an average cost of fifteen dollars per ton, or, at most,
four dollars per square,--little, if any, more than pine shingles; the
former as good for a century as the latter is for a decade. The supply
of these cliffs is literally inexhaustible; if one fourth of this slate
area in the St. Louis Valley proves available,--and doubtless one half
will,--it will yield one thousand millions of tons.
"The demand for this slate at ten roofs to the square mile, and for
forty thousand square miles, would be one million of tons, or one
thousandth part of the material. The annual demand for slates in the
Mississippi Valley may be reasonably estimated at one hundred thousand
tons, an exportable product of two hundred thousand dollars, besides
the element of a permanent income to the railways and water-craft of
the State of a half-million of dollars annually."
To-day the country along the St. Louis is a wilderness. Climb the
hills, and look upon the scene, and think of the coming years.
"Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,
And down into the secrets of the glens
And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,
And eagle's shriek."
Here, through the bygone centuries, the Indians have set their nets and
hooks without ever dreaming of laying their hands upon the wealth that
Nature has ever in store for those who will labor for it.
A few of the original lords of the forests are here, and they are the
only idlers of this region. They lounge in the streets, squat in groups
under the lee of buildings, and pick animated _somethings_ from their
hair!
Their chief appears in an old army coat with three stars on each
shoulder, indicating that he ranks as a lieutenant-general among his
people. He walks with dignity, although his old black stove-pipe hat
is badly squashed. The warriors follow him, wrapped in blankets, with
eagle feathers stuck into their long black hair, and are as dignified
as the chief. Labor! not they. Pale-faces and squaws may work, they
never. Squaw-power is their highest conception of a labor-saving
machine. They have fished in the leaping torrent, but never thought of
its being a giant that might be put to work for their benefit.
It is evident that a great manufacturing industry must spring up in
this region. At Minneapolis, St. Cloud, and here on the St. Louis,
we find the three principal water-powers of the Northwest. The town
of Thompson, named in honor of one of the proprietors, Mr. Edgar A.
Thompson of Philadelphia, has been laid out at the falls, and being
situated on the line of the railroad, and so convenient to the lake,
will probably have a rapid growth. The St. Paul and Mississippi
Railroad, which winds up the northern bank of the river, crosses the
stream at that point, and strikes southward through the forests to St.
Paul.
The road, in addition to its grant of land, has received from the city
of St. Paul $200,000 in city bonds, and this county of St. Louis at the
head of the lake has given $150,000 in county bonds.
The lands of this company are generally heavily timbered,--with pine,
maple, ash, oak, and other woods.
The white pines of this region are almost as magnificent as those
that formerly were the glory of Maine and New Hampshire. Norway pines
abound. Besides transporting the lumber from its own extensive tracts
and the lands of the government adjoining, it will be the thoroughfare
for an immense territory drained by the Snake, Kettle, St. Louis, and
St. Croix Rivers.
The lands that bear such magnificent forest-trees are excellent for
agriculture. Nowhere in the East have I ever seen ranker timothy and
clover than we saw on our journey from St. Paul.
The company offers favorable terms to all settlers. Men from Maine
and New Hampshire are already locating along the line, and setting up
saw-mills. They were lumbermen in the East, and they prefer to follow
the same business in the West, rather than to speed the plough for a
living. I doubt not that the chances for making money are quite as good
in the timbered region as on the prairies, for the lumber will pay
for the land several times over, which, when put into grain or grass,
yields enormously.