St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1885-12-25
Present and Retrospective.

Present and Retrospective.
Tradition and romance point US to the
Orient for the wonders of fable and the
magic of miracle; fact and reality draw US
to the Occident for the realization of what
fancy painted for the East. The genii of
the lamp and ring created, in Eastern i'm
agination, at the touch of the hand palaces
and castles of rare beauty: the genii of en-
terprise and destiny have reared, in solid
Northwestern fact, at the touch of energy
and faith. gigantic metropolis that stands
blushing in the gaze of nation-a monu-
ment erected by progress to mark domain
selected as its exclusive territory. Ten
years ago the name of Minneapolis sug-
geSted to the mind of average culture in the
Eastern states vague settlement lost in
the wilds of the dreary Northwest, and
known only to the civilized world because
somewhere within reach of st. Paul and on
line from that city to the graceful cataract
made famous by the poet Longfellow; a
wandering little town where nomadic tribes
of Indians marketed their furs and cowb, Us
terrorized the timid settler; a blizzard
swept waste where hardy humanity evaded
the sheriff and, between uncompromiSing
native and savage surroundings, eked out
miserable existence.
THE SCENE CHANGES,
and to-day an enlightened East connects
the name of Minneapolis with magniti-
cent city of broad avenues, noble structures.
beautiful lawns, public buildings the finest
and private residences the most comforta-
ble-a municipality without aristocracy
and without paupers," the Northwestern
Manchester Of manufacturing, the grain
center of the nation and the flour focus of
the world. Modest, but not retiring, and
neither bashful nor backward, Minneapolis
has at last succeeded in convincing doubt
ing country that her bulletins to the East
are founded on thirty square miles of solid
fact, and her possessions could be cleaned
up at round two hundred and fifty mill
ions of dollars. There is nothing in the
mere fact of Minneapolis having and being
all it claims that should excite wonder or
elicit applause, but when it is recalled that
less than thirty summers have warmed and
winters solidified its growth. and that in
reality less than five years have seen the
marvellous transformation-it is then the
wonder comes and the applause follows.
The excavation for the new postoffice was
begun by the woodchuck less than twenty
years ago, and where Nevada trilled on
Monday evening, the plaintive cry of the
quail was heard in native wilderness only
fifteen brief summers ago. 1t is within the
memory of man that the spot where, lin
the door of his wigwam sat the ancient ar
row maker" has changed to uphold the
portal of a magnificent hotel, and the down
has scarcely darkened the chns of boys
who hunted wild fowl in the marshes where
is now the pride of polis-Central
park. The gourd of Jonah sprung up in a
night. but the growth was evanescent-in
one brief night in the cycles of time, a city
sprung up by the falls. but there was
nothing ephemeral about it, and its growth
was abiding. 1t is this that swels with
pride the heart of the Minneapolitan, and
it is this that causes a world which looked
to the East for the seven wonders, to turn
to the Northwest for the eighth.
The year is done. In its journey toward
the millennium Minneapolis has reached a
summit from which its future lies spread
before it. In the natural wonder and inter-
est with which traveller halts at the sum
NIT of the hill he has just Surmounted and
gaZes over the new scene revealed, it is with
no less interest that he turns and surveys
the path by which he came. especially if
that path has been a satisfactory one.
Minneapolis has made path well worth
surveying and looks back upon it with
gratiffed pride. Its history is condensed
into the lifetime of one man and has pl aetic-
ally been written by handful of men who
coined gold from the falling waters of st.
Anthony and scraped it from corner lots
redeemed from virgin wilderness.
FIFTY YEARS AGO
the falls of St Anthony rumbled over their
rocky precipice in an utter solitude but the
news of the treaty which threw open the
Fort Smelling reservation had no sooner
reached the fort. than Franklin Steele
located claim at the falls and soon after
erected the saw mill that was the beginning
of the vast lumber interest that gained for
Minneapolis the name of the Sawmill CITY.
Mai. Plympton had a claim at the same
time and in dispute which grew out
of the date of the treaty the
men pooled issues and became the
pioneer owners of the prospect over which
Father Hennepin had raved hundred and
fifty years before. The year 1S4s dawned
sn these events, and found Minneapolis
still unknown. A crude numbering mill,
erected on the present site of the North
western mill by the soldiers of Fort Smell
ing, in which wheat was slowly ground and
lumber coarsely sawed. was the only evil
dence of the foot of civilization on, the west
side of the river. Three years later the
news was received. four months late, that
reduction was proposed of the military
reservation, and settlers began to arrive on
the east side. which had been named St.
Anthony, but there was no GLOBE then,
md the news proved premature, resulting
In endless trouble and confusion. A claim
raked on one day was scattered the next
by soldiers from the fort. Claim jumping
same into vogue, and it was notSuntil the
alder settlers had organized a Protective
Claim association" which decided all dis
putes, that it was safe for squatter to
leave his shanty over night. In 1858 the
reservation was formally restricted, and the
actual life of the town began. Actual
settlers f1ocked in, little village sprung up,