The capital of Wisconsin is the city of Madison, seventy-five miles west of Milwaukee, built on the isthmus between Lakes Mendota and Monona, thus giving it an admirable position. It has about twenty thousand people, and the lake attractions make it a popular summer resort. The State Capitol is a handsome building in a spacious park, one of the wings being occupied by the Wisconsin Historical Society, with a library of two hundred thousand volumes, an art gallery and museum. The great structure of Madison is the University of Wisconsin, the buildings in a commanding position on University Hill overlooking the charming Lake Mendota. There are seventeen hundred students, and its Washburn Observatory, one of the best in America, has wide fame.
ASCENDING THE MISSISSIPPI.
Westward from Lake Michigan all the railroads are laid across the prairie land en route to various cities on the Mississippi River, several of them having St. Paul and Minneapolis for their objective points, although some go by quite roundabout ways. The great "Father of Waters" comes from Northern Minnesota, flows over the Falls of St. Anthony at Minneapolis, and is a river of much scenic attractiveness down to Dubuque and Rock Island, its width being usually about three thousand feet, excepting at the bends, which are wider, the picturesque bluffs enclosing the valley sometimes rising six hundred feet high. The railways leading to it traverse the monotonous level of prairie in Illinois and Wisconsin, excepting where a stream may make a gorge, and the face of the country is everywhere almost the same. The Moline Rapids in the Mississippi above Rock Island afford good water-power, and here the Government, owning the island, has established a large arsenal, which is the base for all the western army supplies. The admirable location has made cities on either bank, Rock Island in Illinois and Davenport in Iowa, both being commercial and manufacturing centres, and the latter city having the larger population. The Mississippi flows through a rather wide valley, with pleasant shores, having villas dotted on their slopes. The Moline Rapids, which are said to have a water-power rivalling the aggregate of all the cataracts in New England, descend twenty-two feet in a distance of fourteen miles. Above them, the river flows between Illinois and Iowa, and various flourishing towns are passed, the largest being Dubuque, with fifty thousand people, the chief industrial city of Iowa, and a centre of the lead and zinc manufacture of the Galena district. This was the first settlement made by white men in Iowa, the city being named for Julien Dubuque, a French trader, who came in 1788 with a small party to work the lead-mines. Iowa is known as the "Hawkeye State," and its name is of Dakotan Indian derivation, meaning "drowsy," which, however, is hardly the proper basis for naming such a wide-awake Commonwealth. Opposite Dubuque is the northern boundary of Illinois, and above, the Mississippi separates Iowa from Wisconsin.
The Mississippi bordering bluffs now rise much higher and become more picturesque, Eagle Point, near Dubuque, being elevated three hundred feet. Prairie du Chien, just above the mouth of Wisconsin River, was one of the earliest French military posts. This region was the scene of the "Black Hawk War," that chief of the Sacs battling to get back certain lands which in 1832 had been ceded by the Sac and Fox Indians to the United States. He was finally defeated back of the western river shore, the boundary between Iowa and Minnesota being nearby. Minnesota is the "North Star State," and its Indian name, taken from the river, flowing into the Mississippi above St. Paul, means the "cloudy water." The river scenery becomes more and more picturesque as the Mississippi is ascended, the bluffs rising to higher elevations. La Crosse is a great lumber manufacturing town, drawing its timber from both Minnesota and Wisconsin. Above, where islands dot the channel, is perhaps the most beautiful section of the river. Trempealeau Island, five hundred feet high, commands a magnificent view, and the Black River flows in through a splendid gorge. Winona is a prominent grain-shipping town, and at Wabasha the river expands into the beautiful Lake Pepin, thirty miles long and from three to five miles wide, with attractive shores and many popular resorts. Over the lake rise the bold round headland of Point No Point on one side and the Maiden Rock on the other. St. Croix River flows in above on the eastern bank, making an enlargement known as St. Croix Lake, and the upper Mississippi is now wholly within Minnesota, having here at the head of navigation the famous "Twin Cities" of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
THE FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY
Father Hennepin was the first white man who penetrated the wilds of Minnesota, and in 1680 he discovered the great falls of the Mississippi River, to which he gave the name of his patron saint, Anthony of Padua. The river just below the falls naturally attracted the attention of the French adventurers who came to trade with the Sioux, Chippewas and Dakotas, and the first white man who tarried and built a house here was a Canadian voyageur, who came in 1838. In 1841 a French priest established the Roman Catholic mission of St. Paul on the bank of the river, and thus the settlement was named. The admirable water-power of the falls, which, with their two miles of rapids, descend seventy-eight feet, afterwards attracted the attention of millers, lumbermen and other manufacturers, and this made the settlement of Minneapolis, ten miles westward and farther up the river, which began in 1849, the name meaning the "city of the waters." St. Paul grew with rapidity, being encouraged both by steamboat and afterwards by railway traffic; but Minneapolis, though started later, subsequently outstripped it. The two places, rivals yet friends, have extended towards each other, so as to almost form one large city, and they now have over four hundred thousand inhabitants. These "Twin Cities" are running a rapid race in prosperity, each independently of the other. St. Paul is rather more of a trading city, while Minneapolis is an emporium of sawmills and the greatest flour-mills in the world. Both are admirably located upon the bluffs rising above the Mississippi. St. Paul is situated upon a series of ornamental semicircular terraces that are very attractive, though in some portions rather circumscribed. Minneapolis is built on a more extensive plan upon an esplanade overlooking the falls, and extending to an island in midstream, and also over upon the opposite northern side of the river. The Falls of St. Anthony is the most powerful waterfall in the United States wholly applied to manufacturing purposes. The entire current of the Mississippi comes down the rapids and over the falls, the latter having a descent of about fifty feet. It is protected by a wall built by the Government across the river, to prevent the wearing away of the sandstone formation, there having been serious inroads made, while the surface is covered with an apron of planks over which the water runs, with sluiceways alongside to shoot logs down. However much Father Hennepin may have admired the beauties of this great cataract, there is no longer anything picturesque about the Falls of St. Anthony. Logs jam the upper river, where the booms catch them for the sawmills, and subterranean channels conduct the water in various directions to the mills, and discharge their foaming streams below. There is no romance in the rumble of flour-rollers and the buzz of saws, but they mean a great deal of profitable business. The force exerted by the falls at low water is estimated at one hundred and thirty-five thousand horse-power.
St. Paul is the capital of Minnesota, and the State is building a magnificent new Capitol, constructed of granite and marble, with a lofty central dome, at a cost exceeding $2,000,000. There is a fine City Hall and many imposing and substantial business edifices. Its especial residence street, Summit Avenue, is upon a high ridge, parallel with and some distance back from the Mississippi, the chief dwelling, a large brownstone mansion, being the home of the leading railroad prince of the Northwest, President James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad. Here is also the new and spacious Roman Catholic Seminary of St. Thomas Aquinas. The old military post of Fort Snelling is on the river above St. Paul, near the mouth of Minnesota River. In Minneapolis, the great building is the City Hall, completed in 1896, and having a tower rising three hundred and fifty feet, giving a superb view. The Guaranty Loan Company's Building is one of the finest office structures in America, with its roof arranged for a garden, where concerts are given. Minneapolis has a widely extended residential section, with hundreds of attractive mansions in ornamental grounds. Near the river bank is the University of Minnesota, having well-equipped buildings and attended by twenty-eight hundred students.
Minneapolis is the greatest flour manufacturing city in the world. Its mills, of which there are some twenty-five, are located along the river near the falls, and have a daily capacity of over sixty thousand barrels, turning out about eighteen millions of barrels annually, which are sent all over the globe. The whole country west and northwest of Minneapolis, including the Red River Valley, the Dakotas and Manitoba, is practically a fertile wheat field, growing the finest grain that is produced in America, and this makes the prosperity of the city. The Pillsbury-Washburn Flour Mills Company are the leading millers. The great Pillsbury A mill, which turns out ten thousand seven hundred barrels a day, is the world's champion flour-mill. It is a marvel of the economical manufacture, the railway cars coming in laden with wheat, being quickly emptied, and then filled with loaded flour-barrels and sacks for shipment. Machinery does practically everything from the shovelling of wheat out of the car to the packing of the barrel or sack with the product. This huge mill stands in relation to the flour trade as Niagara does to waterfalls. The other great Minneapolis industry is the lumber trade. Minnesota is well timbered, a belt of fine forests, chiefly pine, stretching across it, known as the Coteau des Bois, or "Big Woods," an elevated plateau with a rolling surface, having thousands of lakes scattered through it, fed by springs, while their outlets go into streams feeding the Mississippi, down which the logs are floated to the booms above the falls. The extensive sawmills will cut over four hundred and fifty millions of feet of lumber in a year. Thus the flour and lumber have become the chief articles of export from Minneapolis.
There are several pleasant lakes in the neighborhood, which are popular resorts of the people of the "Twin Cities," the largest and most famous being Minnetonka, the Indian name meaning the "Big Water." It is a pretty lake, at nearly a thousand feet elevation, with low, winding and tree-clad shores, having little islets dotted over its surface, and myriads of indented bays and jutting peninsulas which extend its shore line to over a hundred miles, though the extreme length of the lake is barely seventeen miles. There are many attractive places on the shores and islands, and large steamers ply on its bosom. From this lake the discharge is through the Minnehaha River, and its Minnehaha Falls, the "Laughing Water," poetically praised by Longfellow in Hiawatha. The beautiful glen in which this graceful cataract is found has been made a park. The falls are about fifty feet high, and a critical observer has recorded that there is "only wanting a little more water to be one of the most picturesque cascades in the country." Below the Minnehaha Falls is another on a smaller scale, which the people thereabout have nicknamed the "Minnegiggle." Thus sings Longfellow of Minnehaha: