The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-11-05

Is. r. lVeSs DrOtner-ln-laW OF T.. A
Driver, and who still resides IN his pleas
ant home on the banks of the Turtle.
He is the grand chaplain of the Masonic
fraternity in this state. The st. Lawrence
lodge, by the way, was removed to Miller
some time ago, after a contest in the
grand lodge.
The legal phase of the last county seat
fight between Miller and st. Lawrence. in
. 1888, before the county board, was handled
by the ablest attorneys to be had by
both towns. The present attorney general
of South Dakota, Hon. John L. Pyle;
Hon. w. c Arnold of Huron, since
congressman from Pennsylvania, and
Hon. Frank Goodykoontz, of Mitchell
now deceased, represented Miller. Hon.
A B. Melville, then of Huron, now of
Chicago, and Hon ]. H Baldwin appear
ed for st. Lawrence. After brilliant
forensic battle st. Lawrence won out, and
a vote was ordered for October of that
year.
1t would consume too much space to
recount the many thrilling incidents of
the exciting campaign which followed.
So anxious was st. Lawrence to win that,
while dozens of men were riding the prai-
RE day and night, in a midnight confer
ence her agents offered a Miller town.
site man the sum of $4,000 in cash and
a half interest In the townsite Of st.
Lawrence if he would desert his town
and move to the rival. He declined the
offer, saying he could not thus betray his
friends who were lighting with him. The
answer, evidently prepared for just such
an emergency, was an additional offer of
a business lot each for ten of his Miller
friends and $500 in cash each to pay the
expense of moving their buildings to st.
Lawrence. This was also declined, and
the fight went to the polls.
The vote of 1000 in the county was
nearly e0IIa1lV divided befUaar hp two
towns, st. Lawrence receiving about 100
majority. But as the law required a
twothirds majority for removal, Miller
retained the coveted prize.
Each town had offered the county
court house, grounds and necessary
building free, and in consequence the
county today owns a block of ground
and q brick court house, presented by
the citizens of Miller, moreover settling
the question of Hand county's seat of
government. To which is also due the
very satisfactory fact to all taxpayers
that the county has no bonded indebted
ness and its warrants are cash.
BEGINNING OF THE END.
This was the beginning of the end of
ST. Lawrence, which is now rapidly ap-
preaching the last act of a vanishing
city. From that time her energetic citi-
zens lost heart. They bonded the town
for artesian wells, but got little water
for their money. Gradually one man
after another gave up the fight and
moved away, and a couple of years ago
the town began going very rapidly.
Buildings were emptied and after a time
came into demand by Miller people and
farmers, and the business of hauling
buildings over the level prairie has been
an important industry for some time.
Upwards of one hundred buildings Of
one kind and another have been moved
from ST. Lawrence, several were torn
down, including the opera house and
three-story hotel, and fire has removed a
number of others. The town at one time
had two Touring mills and eight or ten
grain elevators, all doing an active bust
ness. Two good newspapers furnished
the lively literary end of political and
county seat campaigns, and over thirty
business houses were actively engaged in
commerce. From a rustling Western
town of over 900 people, st. Lawrence has
now declined TO a village Of eighteen or
twenty families.
In the complaint Of St Lawrence fled
in the Cross case now pending in the
state supreme court, the towns as
sessed valuation in 1887 is given as s109,-
sos, and in 1899 at 81. 973, the latter sum
being just about equal to the bonded and
warrant debt. The fight now on before
the state supreme court is to prevent en-
saddling of this debt upon few adjein-
ing farms, which were taken into the cor
poration some years ago to swell its ia
cilties for bonding.
And this is no single event in the in
teresting history of this young common
wealth, upon whose prairies towns
sprung up as If by magic between the
rising and setting Of a SUM- said Hon.
J. A Bushfeld, Of Miller, to whom the
history of the rival towns is a well
known story. Like experiences are
noted in many places. Aberdeen, the
rustling metropolis of northern South
Dakota, absorbed Columbia, the Cnce
thriving city and county seat of Brown
county.
"Faulkton, the present county capital
of Faux county, enacted a similar drama
by absorbing La Foon, now but an IT.
ridescent dream of that county's first
seat of government. The city Of LaBelle
LeBeau, a Widely-advertised town on the
Missouri river in Walworth county, now
has no place upon the map. 1t was de-
signed for the territorial capital of Da-
kota by the sanguine men who bought
the land from the old French squawTnan5
LeBeau, and who named it after his In
dian daughter, LaBelle. Many similar
instances could be cited throughout the
two states carved out Of territorial Da-
kota.
There is an eternal fitness in this
REIMBURSEMENT The rustling, energetic
pioneers of these prairies were statesmen
all, and city builders. Under the impetus
of a boom in the early eighties, the like
of which no other agricultural state ever
experienced, and the business and po-
Iitical rivaIries of ambitious men, two
towns were often made to grow where
but one could exist
1.-The natural sequence IS a survival Of
the fittest when succeeding years brought
normal conditions, and in many local.
ties where two rival towns were built
close to each other, one of them has be
come but a "Reminiscences of early day
avna sion -