The Saint Paul globe., 1901-08-13
ROOM FOR AN EMPIRE
FIVE MILLION ACRES OF UNOCCU-
PIED LAND IN DISTRICT
OF DULUTH
RICH IN TIMBER AND ORE
Railroads Now Building North and
South Across This Vast Domain,
and Great Influx of Settlers
Is Expected.

DULUTH, MINI, Aug. 12.-There are
over 5000 square miles,, 2S3, 600 acres-of
vacant and unappropriated land in the
United States land district of Duluth.
This is tract larger than the state of
massachusetts. 1t les close TO Duluth
none of it more than $50 miles away, and
yet it is inhabited by few Indians and
occasional trappers and woodsmen
II Is no deSolate region. There are sew
eraI thousand square miles of valuable
timber land, pine, spruce and hardwoods
mere are hundreds Of square miles Of
rich agricultural lands, that will yield
large crops, and there are areas OF great
extent known to be rich in minerals
Much Of the mineral land is on iron ore
bearing formation, some is Of the cop
per amygdaloid formation, coming up
from the south side of Lake Superior
and some carries the silver bearing rocks
o. the Thunder bay district. There Is
known to be gold in some of this region
and certain unfinished varieties of coal
have been found at various places. There
are dozens Of undevelOped water powers,
that at Koochiching, or Fort Francs,
alone being sufficient to generate 40,OOo
horse power.
OF this vast area more than 1,2OO, ,OgO
acres remain unsurveyed so that it can
not be entered by the public except as
Equatters and under squatters' titles,
Ehich retards development. 1t is eX-
gected that much of this will be surveyed
after the coming session of congress- In
addition to the vast area of government
land there are millions Of acres in the
same territory that is neld by railroads
under their grants, and of this the great
Ct part is unoccupied, though efforts are
now under way to bring in settlers.
These figures are for the land surface
alone and take no account of the lakes,
Svhich form perhaps about 10 per cent
of the total area of Northern Mime
sofa.
Cook county lying in the northeast
corner Of the state, and bounded on the
south and east by Lake Superior and on
the north by Canada, has not a mile of
railroad in its 100000 acres of area. 1t
has 800 Inhabitants, one to 200 acres. In
this county alone are S9,000CO0 worth Of
standing white pine, a. great quantity OF
spruce, cedar, birch, maple and poplar
Thousands of acres, too rocky for culti-
walton, have been burned over but bear
in great stumps and logs OF pine evidence
that magnificent forests once covered
them, and II the fires are kept out will
do so again as the young pine is spring.
ing up everywhere. This young pine is
from ten to fifteen years ola and in
sixty or seventy years more will be worth
hundreds of dollars to the acre. There
are several townships that, on account of
the rocky soil, are better adapted to for
estry than to anything else, and these in
time viii be taken by the state and for
ested. Elsewhere in the county wheat,
rye, oats, clover and root crops yield
ebundanuy. The surface soil and rocks
Of a large part of the country resemble
to a marked degree the noted iron mining
regions of Wormand and Nerica,
Sweden. Itasca county has S,5O0OOO acres
Of unappropriated soil and Is nearly all
timber and farming The emaining
counties contain large areas of good land.
Two railroads are now building north
and south across this great area, and one
the Canadian Northern-across it's
northerly line. With these roads con-
structed the region will no longer be in
accessible and win at once receive as
vast an influx of population as the ad-
joining lands to the south and west are
now getting. Already large railroad corr
porations, owning hundreds of thousands
of acres TO the south Of this region, have
sold out and settlers are going there by
droVes
The Northern Pacific nas IN the past
few months sold to large colonization
companies nearly 0,C00 acres of lands
ana one of these colonization concerns
the Boston and Duluth Land company
whose chief stockholders are Bostonians,
has IN very few months sold 80 coo acres
are now clearing improving and locat>
propriated and partly unsurveyed land
in the Duluth district is probably the
largest and most available tract of open
lands in the United States today that is
reasonably fitted for agriculture