WINONA
is in view. This is the most populous town in the State of Minnesota south of St. Paul. It occupies a low, level tract projecting from the base of the bluffs, which circle its rear in the shape of an ox-bow, and, in times of high water, becomes an island, owing to its great depression at its junction with the bluffs. The town stands on the front of this low plateau, along the channel of the river, and has a population of nine thousand people, counting the nomadic lumbermen, who live half the year in the piny woods many hundred miles to the north, and the other half are floating on the rafts down the river; a rough but useful people, who betimes will lose their heads and winter's wages in a single drunken fray, which they seem to consider the highest pleasure vouchsafed to them each season as they return to the walks of civilized life.
The pleasant sounding name of Winona is one of the many Dakota words abounding along the river and over the State, and was the appellation of the beautiful Indian girl who so tragically ended her life by leaping from the top of Maiden's Bluff, bordering the eastern shore of Lake Pepin above, and of which we shall presently speak more in detail.
It is a name always given by the Dakotas to the first-born female child of a family. As was the maiden, celebrated in song and story, so is the town, quite handsome and interesting in many points of aspect. It is the objective point for great quantities of freight by boat up the river, to be from thence distributed through the whole southern section of Minnesota by means of the important railway line extending from this city to the interior, tapping the St. Paul and Milwaukee road at Owatanna, and the St. Paul and Sioux City at St. Peter's and Mankato; draining one of the most fertile districts in the commonwealth of its immense stores of wheat and other grains seeking an outlet and an eastern market. This road is known as the Winona and St. Peter's, and is a trunk line, with the sure promise of increasing importance to the State and profit to its projectors. By means of it the great lumber marts of Minneapolis and St. Anthony, and likewise the Capital, are brought in close proximity to this commercial city of Winona; and much of the trade and travel of the fertile valley of the Minnesota River must, by means of this line, prove tributary to the rapid growing town.
The march of progress is never ended in the life of the West; and, ere the present year passes, an entirely new line both north and east will have been completed, and then a new era of prosperity will be inaugurated. We refer to the St. Paul and Chicago Air-Line Railway, which, starting at St. Paul, follows the river banks to this place, where it is to cross to Wisconsin, thence direct to Chicago, leaving La Crosse forty miles below, and out of the line. Heretofore the means of travel to Chicago and the east has been either by rail to Owatanna, far to the west, or the more common practice of going by steamer in summer and stage in winter to La Crosse, thus of necessity paying both compliments and costs to this rival town, which has not been highly relished by the Winonians. The new route will make them entirely independent of the denizens of La Crosse. But both places have resources peculiar to themselves and quite sufficient to insure prosperity and fame.
Those visiting Winona are impressed with the general neatness of the place, and the number and finish of its business blocks and private residences. There are many fine churches erected, whose capacity, though large, is not much greater than seems demanded by the church-going inhabitants, which affords both a commentary and index to their general high character. Among the public buildings worthy of special attention is that of their Normal school, recently finished at a cost of over one hundred thousand dollars, being a model of elegance and convenience. This is a State institution, free to pupils of a certain class, and is one of three—all of the same character—erected under the patronage of the State, and for the location of which towns were invited to compete. Winona secured this, Mankato another, and St. Cloud the third, all noble buildings, as we can personally testify, and which give to the people of this State opportunities such as those of the older commonwealths were utterly destitute, and are still, so far as scope, scale, and affluence are concerned. Then there is the city school, costing over half a hundred thousand dollars, and likewise highly ornamental, as well as useful.
New England long boasted of her superiority in the rank of her schools; especially was this the case in Connecticut, where a school fund existed, reducing somewhat the expense attending their maintenance; but they used no part of this fund toward the building of school-houses, and it is a question if it has not had there an opposite effect of what originally it was intended to accomplish. The same old shabby school-houses, fifteen by twenty, still do duty, and the district committee annually figure with the many youthful candidates for teachers—who, it used to be said, came there on a horse—to make the per-head allowance of the school fund, with boarding around thrown in, pay for their three months' services. Had the people understood they must hand out the whole school expenses, and seen personally to the education of their children, they would have had a livelier interest in the whole business; and this, with compelled liberality, would have paved the way for greater expenditure and effort. Neighborhood rivalries of suitable buildings would have followed, and, instead of incompetent teachers being the rule, they would have been the exception, and those of us whose fortune it has been to be born in New England would not now be such "jacks of all trades and masters of none" as we are. The West deserves great commendation for their lively interest in all that relates to the education of the young. Why, almost any of these States excel those of New England in school matters, outside of two or three of the great universities which they happen to possess. Several years ago, in passing through Indiana and visiting several of the village schools, we were surprised and astonished at the superior class of text-books that were in use, and the improved methods of teaching in practice; and, likewise, the prompt and intelligent manner of the scholar in his exercises and examples, as compared with similar schools at the East; all a proof of the superior methods and facilities in vogue.
The new States have had it in their power to do what most of the older ones had not, and after all they cannot claim all the credit of their advancement in these matters, for the general government shares part of the honor in this wise provision for the education of the people, having donated one section of land in every township in some of the newer States. This was the case in Minnesota. These lands are to be used in establishing a school fund, and this has already amounted to a large sum—two million five hundred thousand dollars; and these normal school buildings are an evidence alike of the wisdom of the measure and magnitude of this fund.
The site of the town—while ample for a large city, having an area of several miles in extent—seems rather too low to insure that dryness essential to good health, though we believe its general sanitary reputation is as good as any of the towns along the river, and this is more than could be expected, since its general elevation scarce exceeds a dozen feet above the river when at a fair stage of water. Its levee accommodations are extensive and excellent, and the place must always remain the most important in southern Minnesota.
Passing several minor towns and landings, along the river, we next come to