Fifty Years In The Northwest
body of fresh water on the globe, and open to it one of the most
fertile and extensive wheat growing districts on the continent, a
country that will soon vie with the country around the Black sea in
the quantity and quality of its grain production.
"Shall we stand idly by whilst our neighboring states are moving to
secure cheaper communications with the seaboard states? Cheap
transportation, the lever that moves the world, is claiming the
favorable attention of Congress, and men and means have been provided
to ascertain the most feasible routes on which to bestow her aid for
the transferring of the surplus products of the country to the markets
of the East.
"The reports made thus far by the national committee make no allusion
to Minnesota's great gateway to the East by Lake Superior, nor to the
improvement of the Sault Ste. Marie canal. The committee dwelt
somewhat elaborately upon the project of connecting the Mississippi
with the lakes by means of a canal between the waters of Wisconsin and
Fox rivers, neither of them good navigable streams. No authorized
survey has ever commended this as a cheap route. Only one plan can be
adopted by which a thoroughfare can be made profitable to the
government and to the Northwest over this route, and that is to
construct a ship canal along the Wisconsin river from the portage to
the mouth.
"If the government can be prevailed upon to open up this route no one
will deny that it will be of incalculable benefit to the people of
Wisconsin, and to those further up the valley of the Mississippi. Let
its friends do all they can to push forward the great movement.
"To Minnesotians I would say, let Wisconsin have much of our aid. I
trust it will not take thirty-five years of the future to open up what
thirty-five years of the past has projected. Wisconsin alone and
unassisted ought to have accomplished this great work years ago, if
the work could have been accomplished as cheaply as it has been
represented.
"Let Minnesota look nearer home. The headwaters of the St. Croix are
nearer to Lake Superior than those of any other navigable stream.
Large Mississippi boats, whenever occasion has demanded, have made
their way to the Dalles of the St. Croix. The falls and rapids above
this point for a distance of four miles have a fall of but
seventy-four feet, an elevation that could be overcome by means of
locks. By means of wing dams at Kettle River falls, and other
improvements at no very great cost, the river could be made navigable
to the mouth of the Namakagon. This river, though put down as a
tributary, is in reality the main stream, and can be navigated to
Namakagon lake, which is but thirty miles from Ashland, and can be
connected by a canal with Chequamegon bay, or with White river, a
distance of only a few miles.
"If we pass up the St. Croix from the mouth of the Namakagon river, we
shall find no serious obstructions to navigation till we reach the
great dam built by the lumbermen twenty miles below Upper Lake St.
Croix. The conformation here is of such a character that an
inexhaustible supply of water can be held--more than three times what
is held in the celebrated Summit lake in Ohio, which feeds the canal
connecting the waters of the Ohio and Lake Erie. It is but a mile from
the former lake to the source of Brule river, an affluent of Lake
Superior, but as the waters of the Brule are rapid and the channel
rocky, and its outlet is on a bleak and unhospitable stretch of lake
shore, destitute of any harbor, we prefer the route from the Upper St.
Croix lake to the bay of Superior, a distance of about thirty miles, a
route well supplied by reservoirs of water, and with no difficult or
insurmountable hills to overcome.
"Hon. H. M. Rice, who was one of the commissioners to survey the St.
Marie's canal, pronounces this the most feasible and direct route for
our contemplated canal.
"Other routes have been proposed, as from the St. Croix to the Nemadji
and St. Louis rivers, but of the feasibility of these I am not so
definitely informed.
"Believing, gentlemen of the senate, that you are in full accord with
me that this great Northwest demands not only state aid in developing
our natural resources, but the assistance of the general government, I
recommend the proper presentation of this subject before Congress by
our senators and representatives until our prayers are granted for
the improvement of the same."
In the session of the Minnesota legislature of 1876 I again introduced
a memorial to Congress asking for an appropriation of $10,000 to make
a government survey of the St. Croix and Lake Superior routes.
George R. Stuntz, the veteran explorer, surveyor and civil engineer,
who accompanied the United States reservoir commission to the Upper
St. Croix waters, and who had made previous scientific examinations
for the purpose of forming a correct idea of the contour of the summit
dividing the waters flowing north and south, and of the practicability
of constructing reservoirs, and of the cost of connecting the Lake
Superior and St. Croix waters, makes the following report, which is
valuable for the reliable data given:
"There are evidences that in the glacial period this was the channel
through which flowed a river of ice, and that subsequently for a long
period a vast volume of water coursed through this channel from Lake
Superior to and down the Mississippi. The valley is everywhere of
great width in proportion to the present volume of water, showing
evidences of currents of great velocity fifty feet above the high
water marks of the present time. These ancient banks of the river are
composed of heavy drift gravel and boulders bearing the marks of the
glacial action and having their origin north of Lake Superior. This
valley extends across the height of land in township 45, in range 11
west, and in the northern part of it the Brule river rises and flows
north into Lake Superior.
"At the copper range in township 48, range 10 west, section 23, a
ledge of trap rock stands in the valley. In the eddy of this rock and
extending to the southward or up the present stream is a well defined
moraine of large boulders and gravel showing that the glacial river
ran south. To the north of this point the Brule river makes a straight
cut to the lake through sandy red clay deposits peculiar to that
region.
"In this ancient valley the lowest point on the summit at the
headwaters of these two streams is about 460 feet above Lake Superior
[Lake St. Croix, at Stillwater, is 117 feet higher than Lake Superior]
and 346 feet above Lake St. Croix. Upper Lake St. Croix is 12 feet
below this summit. The St. Croix river one mile above the mouth of
Moose river is 25 feet below this summit. The St. Croix river
discharges 15.360 cubic feet of water per minute at the mouth of Moose
creek. The Brule river discharges about 5.805 cubic feet of water per
minute in the north part of township 46, range 10. The distance from
Taylor's Falls to Lake Superior by the valley of the St. Croix and the
valley of the Brule river is nearly 150 miles.
"There are several exposures of trap rock along these streams and an
abundance of brown sandstone of good quality for building purposes,
being easily worked.
"Can Lake St. Croix, at Stillwater, be connected with Lake Superior by
canal and slackwater navigation? Yes. This question has been
definitely settled by the recent examination of the United States
engineers, under the direction of Maj. Chas. J. Allen, of the sources
of the St Croix river, with reference to the construction of
reservoirs to improve the navigation of that river and the
Mississippi.
"By constructing a dam one mile above the mouth of Moose creek, on the
St. Croix, of sufficient height to raise the water 25 feet, cutting a
canal 75 feet wide, 12 feet deep, 1-1/2 miles long, across the summit,
and building a dam in township 46, range 10, across the Brule river,
high enough to raise the water to the same height as the dam on the
St. Croix, and you construct a lake over thirty miles long, affording
uninterrupted navigation across the summit for that distance, and
utilize the waters of the St. Croix and its branches and the Brule,
and by the capacity before given the amount of water is sufficient to
pass vessels through locks 75 feet wide, 300 feet long, 12-1/2 feet
lift, at the rate of 3 per hour, or 73 in 24 hours, at the dryest
season of the year. This settles the question of practicability.
"The whole improvement will cost less than $8,000,000, and by placing
the lowest dam and lock at Prescott so as to always hold Lake St.
Croix at the high water mark will give two hundred miles of slackwater
navigation connecting the Mississippi river with Lake Superior,
accommodating boats of large size and deep draft, propelled by steam,
at the usual rates of speed used on the rivers. Average cost per mile,
$40,000.
"It would accomplish another object. The improvement of navigation on
the Mississippi river by a system of reservoirs on its tributaries
would be most effectually accomplished by holding one or two feet of
extra head upon each of the thirteen dams proposed, thus storing up
during the spring freshets vastly more water than can be held in the
small reservoirs on the tributaries of the St. Croix. There are no
very large natural reservoirs in the Upper St. Croix valley.
"Hold a three foot head on the lake as a reserve from the spring
freshets and you have stored up 34,073,000 cubic yards of water to be
used in the dry season in August and September. Continue this plan to
the source and you have in the St. Croix valley a continuous reservoir
one hundred and fifty miles long. Connect the two systems as proposed
above and you have a route furnishing the cheapest transportation that
can be had and at the same time obtain a system of large reservoirs to
improve the navigation of the Mississippi river.
"This is one of the improvements that the Northwest needs for its
present, future and more perfect development.
"The proposition and figures are given, after a series of examinations
extending through a period of over twenty-five years, for the purpose
of calling out investigation."
THE WATERWAYS CONVENTION OF 1885.
Public discussions of the matter in the legislature and in conventions
were not entirely in vain. Public attention was aroused and interest
awakened in the great question of inland navigation. In 1885 the great
waterways convention convened in St. Paul, at the call of Gov.
Hubbard, of Minnesota. This convention was attended by over 1,000
delegates from the states of Florida, Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas,
Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and from the
territories of Dakota and Montana. Ex-Gov. Bross, of Illinois, acted
as temporary chairman. The permanent organization elected Maj. Wm.
Warren, of Kansas City, president, Gen. G. W. Jones, of Iowa, vice
president, and Platt B. Walker, of Minnesota, secretary.
Various schemes for internal improvement were brought before the
convention and ably advocated, but each in the interest of a
particular section. The members from Florida wanted a ship canal for
that State. Illinois and Eastern Iowa advocated the Hennepin canal
scheme. Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Western Iowa, Dakota, and Montana
demanded the improvement of the Missouri river. Wisconsin and
Northern Iowa the completion of the Fox and Wisconsin canal. Minnesota
and Wisconsin agreed with all for the improvement of the Mississippi
from the falls of St. Anthony to the Balize, for the improvement of
the Sault Ste. Marie canal, and for the internal improvements asked
for generally in the states and territories represented.
The result was the passage of a series of resolutions recommending a