The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1906-07-25
FORTY YEARS AGO.
Excerpts Taken from St. Paul Papers of
forty Years Ago.

The Mill City in 1866 Minneapolis
just now seems to be in a transition
state doffing the simplicity of a
country town for the more preten-
tious dignity of a city AS neces-
sary consequence extravaganza is
patent everywhere. Ladies ape the
latest styles of, dress, such as the
tiniest little hats and the biggest
fitting hoops. Men go about sport
ing monkey coats and plug hats.
Fast young men sport fancy turn
outs, drive fast horses and talk race
course slang. Brandy mashes and
mint juleps are imbibed with the
most inimitable sang froid, and Is
cent cigars and meerschaums are
pulled with gusto truly interest
ing.
Minneapolis can boast Of her own
theater, horse races every Saturday
and gambling bells every night.
The large proportion of young men
in the population lends zest to
dissipation and fast living, Manu-
featuring towns have never been
noted for good morals, and Mime
apolis promises to be no exception
to the rule. Not one-half of the
young men attend church or even
stay at home on the Sabbath. Such
dereclictions of sacred duty must in
the end prove destructive to sound
morality.
The tide of Improvement still rolls
on unimpeded. House building goes
on with unparalleled rapidity. Not
less than 800 houses are now in
process of erection, many of them
substantial three-story stone struct-
ures. Mills, factories and other
manufacturing establishments are
being erected. The saw mills turn
out 100000 feet of manufactured
lumber daily and cannot keep pace
with the demand. Common lumber
just from the saw sells at S18 per
thousand. Masons get S. per day,
carpenters 81 and common laborers
II. The population of Minneapolis
will nearly double the present wear.
Well posted travellers say that not
another town or city in the entire
West shows such unexampled pros
perity.
Norman W. Kittson, ESQ, the
agent of the Hudson Bay company,
just down from Fort Garry, relates
the following tale of Indian savage
ry: On June p party of twenty
eight Sioux refugees from Mime
sofa came into the fort to make
peace They were met by a band of
Red Lake Indians, who chased them
out on the plains, and in sight of
the house occupied by Mr.. Kittson,
shot six of them dead and wounded
several. The Sioux fled to the port
age, sixty-fve miles distant, where
they met another large band of Red
Lakers, and at last accounts the
Sioux were digging holes to defend
themselves. Some of the Indians
cut up the slain and ate their flesh.
The attack and the slaughter oc-
Cured within few rods of Fort
Garry, and in the midst of the popu-
lous settlement which surrounds that
headquarters of the Hudson Bay
company's trade. The attacking
party, the Red Lake Chippewas, are
by far the most stalwart and war
like band of that tribe in this state,
and for more than a century they
have been fighting the Sioux of the
plains IN the Red River Valley, as
the Mississippi Chippewas have been
fighting the Sioux of the Mississippi
valley.
But it is not the Sioux of the
plains, the Yanktons or the Cut
Heads or the Saulteux whom they
met at Fort Garry. 1t is our old
friends, the Mdewakantons, or what
are left of them-the remnant of
Shakopee's, Goodroad's Red Wings,
Little Crows and other bands that
once lived on the Mississippi and
about Mendoza, Kaposia, Red Wing,
ETC., and who were the chief in
stigators and actors in the horrible
massacre of 1862 at the Redwood
agency, and in subsequent raids up
on our border.