Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-07-05
FORT SMELLING.

The New Home for the Headquarters of
the Department of Dakota---The Confu-
sion Incident to Removal---Preparing
New ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Coming
Bridge.
For well nigh sixty years old Fort Smelling
has raised his towering walls frowningly
above the deep time worn bed of the father
of waters; for sixty years the waters of the,
azure hue have crept softly beneath the
shadows of his whitened battlements into
the bosom of her lord: But it is doubtful if
the venerable hoary headed sentinel
during these long years of
watching has ever before
witnessed such hustle, such cemmotion, such
confusion and hurry burly as that which has
disturbed the slumbering old fortress within
the last few days. There has been hurrying
and scurrying, running out and rushing in:
the tramp Of horses, the rumbling of wheels,
the sound of the hammer, the screech of the
ak, day and night the onfusion and tumult
was undated and the haste was greater than
that of the exodus from Egypt, for
time was short and the edict was
imperative-the department. of Dakota
was to remove its headquarters to their new
home. Wednesday morning the 1928 train
on the Fort smelling branch of the Chicago
& Milwaukee line took out the attaches to
their new headquarters. OF course GLOBE
man was on the train, and it was impossible
for him, with his acute auriculars not to
animated the breasts of the army of martyrs
who were Inconvenience by the new order
of things.
On arriving at Fort Smelling an army
some forty strong left the cars and COM
mencd to scale the heights. The GLOBE man
leisurely wendell also to the plateau upon
which the venerable and homogeneous pile is
erected. A more beautiful panoramic view
was never stretched before the eve of mortal
man than that closed in on all sides by the
purple mists of the horizon. There are
other scenes which strike with their i'm
posing grandeur and towering magni6cence,
but in exquisite combinations and inmensi-
ty OF extent. stretching out as it were to the
edge of vision where it melts into infnity,
no scene can equal this. And in their new
location, when conveniences and accommo-
dations have been properly supplied, the fear
will be that the officers and attaches will be-
come like Ethiopian lotus eating dreamers.
The GLOBE man had little time to admire
the matchless loneliness of the landscape,
and turning his attention to the fort he
found extensive alterations in progress,
which had been begun to enlarge the fort
from two to ten company post. The old
prison and chapel had been RACED to the
ground; men were employed in tearing down
an old long frame building by the shanty
quarters overlooking the Mississippi between
the fort and graveyard: carpenters were
busily employed erecting officers quarters
upon the roadway leading into the fort, and
soldiers were employed in constructing new
road in front of the new quarters
going up. These new quarters are
large commodious frame houses, some two
or three hundred yards apart, and are to be
built with all the modern improvements.
The situation of these houses are excellent,
both for health and magnifcence of scenery.
Within the diamond or lozenge shaped quad
rangle seemed to be the most hustle and con-
fusion; ponderous safes, heavy boxes, un-
wieldy packing cases, desks. tables, chairs.
stools, carpets, and all the paraphernalia of
moving time were piled about in delightful
disorder; and the forty attaches who came
up by the 1925 train were rushing about in
shirt sleeves and hatless, some Juggling
hopelessly at a heavy chest
of documents, some staggering beneath
the weight OF an office stool, others per-
spring from the effort of carving off pa
per knife. All were laboring and sweating
and some were swearing on account of their
unaccustomed drudgery. By dint of hard
work, however, they were getting some lit-
tie order out of chaos, and the little narrow.
confined. airless, dim and dingy apartments
which are for time to be their Offices, were
gradually assuming a business like appear
ance. The south range of buildings, for
nerly officers quarters, and the old two
story hospital and inirmary behind it, will
for the present be used for the offices. At
the east end little room is to contain
the medical department.; next to this con-
fined chamber is assigned to the chief en-
glneer; the chief of ordnance is the next.
The Judge advocate, the quartermaster and
the commlssary departments are crowded
into the remainder of this little building.
In the hospital are the printing Office, post
quartermaster. commandant of the fort.
department quartermaster, and two paymas-
tiers. These confined premises will not long
continue as offices, however. Col. Lee is
actively engaged in planning to have them
altered and changed so that they will become
moderately comfortable quarters. and he
says he hopes very comfortable ones.
The offices will have to be provided
elsewhere for time,-Col. Lee SAYS,
in tents. He hopes to have all ready by
August or early in September tits not easy
to transform buildings erected in 1920 into
modern dwelling places in few days.
Meantime the employees will have to 20 to
the fort in the morning and return at night,
the government paying railroad fare.
The GLOBE reporter found Capt. G. E.
Bennett busily shoveling dirt with his men
upon the road he is constructing. In con
versation he said that the old fort is terribly
unhealthy IN its present state; the
men who live in it are often sick,
while those who live in the wooden
quarters, or under canvas enjoy the best
of health. He thinks some 100000 should
be laid out upon the old place if it is to CON
tinue to be occupied by troops and perma-
nent headquarters of the department.. This
sum judiciously laid out, Fort Smelling, he
says, could be transformed into the most
beautiful and pleasant military station of
this or any land
OF gentlemen on the opposite bank
of the Mississippi and being told that thew
were the bridge commission studying the
yexed problem of the best location for the
Smelling bridge, he said that the commission
will make mistake if they do not place the
bridge as near the fort as possible, and have
as wide an approach to it as they can OBJ
tain. With roadway 100 feet wide he said
the drive to the bridge would be as magnif-
cent as the famous golden gate of Califor-
MIA. The captain who ia a trne soldier and a
hard worker is enthusiastic over the enter
prise, and thinks with the bridge that st.
Paul will gain immensely and the headquar-
tiers will be at the terminus of what will be
her grand drive-a drive which can be made
to excel any other for beauty in the whole
world.