St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-05-21
able lake port the railroad will reachs-su-

able lake port the railroad will reach?-Su-
perior.
Chicago's greatness was the result of cir
cumstances for it had the location although
it lacked the physical advantages, while Mil
waukee, the elder of the two cities, has never
advanced beyond mediocrity because, while
well endowed in local situation, it was
wrongly located to con venience the require
ments of traffic. Superior possesses rare
combination OF situation, conformation and
location. 1t is located at the point where
water and rail communication should blend,
and it is so situated that the work of
trans-shipment is reduced to the simplest
and easiest process possible, for, while the
railroads find an abundance of convenient
and natural land along the
lake for yard room in which
to move all cars that would be required in a
traffic of indefinite proportions, the water front
affords safe dockage for an immense number
of vessels.
IT IS JUST THIRTY YEARS AGO
that number of prominent, sagacious and
wealthy men, Representative men from
many parts of the Union, selected this site,
convinced that on it must develop a great
Ecity. Chicago was then an infant, but the
tide of emigration set through the center of
sources of the great northwest
were undreamed of. The fertility and extent
of the boundless prairies whose ''No. hard"
wheat is famous throughout the world, was
unknown. Wild indians and buffalos ranged
unmolested through the rich stock ranges,
and over the buried mineral treasures, and
even the idea OF opening those, then, distant
regions, was treated with contempt. War
and financial disasters came, and while Chi
cago and other cities, near the heart of the
union, continued to exist, if not to flourish,
this isolated region was left neglected and
unsought. 1t was not until about 1870 that
the eyes of the country were agBin directed
to this portion of the national domain, being
attracted by the renewed effort to construct
the great Transcontinental railway
and the discovery of the fertility of
the Dakota prairies. Slowly the work
went on, until within The last few years dur
ing which the rush of Immigration to the
long neglected region has been marvelously
rapid. Hundreds of thousands of fertile
acres are yielding bounti fully Of the best
grain in the world, rich mines have been
discovered, and the far west is united to the
east by an iron road. Now the city which
the wise men proposed to found is needed
and their impressions and confidence will be
emphatically endorsed by every observing
man who visits this spot.
Superior is
PECULIARLY SITUATED.
1t lies on the south side of
a land-locked bay, the northern shore
of which is formed of high
range of rocky hills and sandy point run
ming about seven miles into the lake, almost
meeting another point. Between these two
capes is deep, wide channel permitting the
entrance of the heaviest vessels to the most
secure and spacious harbor to be found in
the whole lake system. At the western end
of the bay thus formed, the st. Louis, a
large and rapid river, finds entrance and
its current serves to keep the channel open
through the bay to the deep waters of the
lake. Near the east end of the town site is
another deep, but more sluggish river, the
Allones. Between the latter bay
and the st. Louis river lies the site Of Supe-
rior, whose physical attributes fit it most
eminently for the situation of great city,
Here are no steep and lofty eminences, or
rocky bluffs to be leveled at vast expense, or
to be left as unsightly obstacles to a city's
growth. Here is no narrow, circumscribed
strip of land, to dwarf and limit the conven-
lent arrangement of thoroughfares. 1t is
broad, spacious and almost level plateau
located about thirty-fve feet above the level
of the water and almost imperceptibly rising
back from the lake, with sufficient fall to
afford the best of drainage. At the lake
front. perhaps five hundred feet from the
main street, the land is slight, but suffi-
cient distance above the water forming a
lower bench in front of the town, natural
and useful provision for the easy carrying-on
of the transportation business by railroads,
while ample space is available for large ware
houses and freight repositories.
The town is laid out in regular rectangu-
lar blocks, with broad avenues and streets of
generous width. Throughout this town there
is scarcely place needing filing or leveling,
so uniform is the surface. Could the most
skillful engineer have planned the situation,
he would not have conceived or adopted a
single idea which nature has not supplied.
THE HARBoR AT SUPERIOR.
One of the strongest evidences that nature
intended that great city should exist at the
head of Lake Superior, is found in the splen-
orbo eI-a1
where thousands of craft can find
perfect security. In fact there is
not elsewhere on the chain of
lakes harbor that compares with it. The
approach to it from the deep water of the
lake is through a spacious natural canal which
has been secured and improved by the most
scientific engineering. The absolute safety
of vessels is insured by two piers 400 feet
apart, extending far into the lake, and the
depth of the water in this entrance channel
is always sufficient for the heaviest laden
craft that sail the lakes. The entrance is be-
tween two lights and the piers afford protec-
ton from the severest storms. Within the
bay there is broad, deep channel running,
with plentiful depth of water,
from ST. Louis river to the
lake, thus making the entire length of the
city's front available for dockage, a distance
of over four miles. Two commodious piers
have already been built. one belonging to
the Northern Pacific Railway company and
the other to the town. On the former a fuel
company receives its coal, and, at the time
of my visit, there were thousands of tons de-
posted on it awaiting distribution. The
government has as yet done little for Supe-
rior in the way of dredging, and yet the
depth of water in the channel is excellent.
More money can and will be used to advant-