New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1910-02-23
River Improvement and Power
Company Filed Articles OF In
corporation. Floods Pre-
vented and Water Power
stored up for Use.
Farmers will Hold Part of Million
Dollar Issue of Stock.
DR.. L. A. Fritsche Vice President.

The Minnesota River Improvement
League at its session in St. Paul last
week decided to vigorously push the
work of the Improvement of the Mimi
sofa river and no longer wait for state
assistance, in as much as the state
seems to have plenty of money for
>grand-stands but deems it necessary
to declare unconstitutional all appro-
priations which would be Of some
benefit to people in the rural districts.
The Improvement League held an
interesting meeting Feb. 18th and after
a lively discussion passed resolu.
ton to adopt and file articles of In
corporation with the secretary of
State, providing for the incorporation
of the Minnesota River Improvement
and Power Co. The association will
be capitalized at 81, 100000.
The Minnesota River Improvement
& Power company is a peoples move
ment. It was started some time ago
by the farmers living throughout the
valley of the Minnesota, who, seeing
that the state was powerless to enact
laws providing for the Improvement
of the land along the river bottoms,
determined to take action of their own.
The plans of the new company con-
template three dams along the Mime
sofa river, which will control abso-
lutely the flood waters of the river,
save 100000 acres of land from in
undation at food times, and directly
and Indirectly affect some 100000
more acres lying along the river for
two aud half miles inland from each
bank.
A. B. Kercher, temporary president
of the company, said this afternoon:
''With the three dams which we ex-
pect to build-one at Ortonville, at the
source of the Minnesota, one at Lac
Qui Parle, and the third at Redwood
Falls-we will be able to control alb
solutely the food waters of the entire
Minnesota river, and this on no less
authority than that Of George A.
Ralph, state drainage engineer.
'Mr. Ralph says that with a single
dam at Ortonville he could control Is
per cent of the food of the Minnesota.
We expect to develop 25,O0O-horse
power. We also expect the national
government to give US aid insofar as
navigation is concerned. The federal
board Of engineers has man in the
Minnesota river region now, esti-
mating the cost of river Improvement
for navigation.
Among the men back of the new
company are: State Senator G.. A.
Johnson of St. Peter; Judge L. W.
Collins of Minneapolis; A. L. Poehler
of Henderson; DR.. L. Albert Fritsche
of New Ulm.
Work on the dam at Ortonville will
begin as soon as the frost leaves the
ground and it will be pushed forward
with all possible haste.
s'sIt is the lntention,' said Mr..
Kercher, ''to sell the larger part of
the stock to farmers, and to issue
bonds for the remainder"
This improvement and the idea of
Harvesting the Minnesota River is of
the greatest interest to the farmers in
the valley and they are the ones who
primarily join the agitation because
it is they that are benefited at .prac-
tically much less cost to them. than
what the prairie farmers are now pay
ing for their bitches which largely
cause the floods.