[TOWER AT FORT SNELLING. THE ORIGINAL "FORT" NOW USED AS A GUARD-HOUSE.]

In 1821 the soldiers built a mill on the west side of the river, near where now stands one of the greatest flouring mills in the world. The fort was, of course, the centre of what life there was in the country, and its people occasionally came into contact with the great world beyond. In 1826 the Indian agent, Major Taliafero, officiated at the marriage of the slave, Dred Scott, who was destined to play a part in history doubtless out of all proportion to his expectations. Colonel Snelling's son Joseph was something of a littérateur, and, after fighting a duel with a young officer, he became involved in a more savage, although less bloody, contest with N.P. Willis.

The land about the falls was a military reservation and therefore not open to settlement. As early as 1837 a Swiss watchmaker by the name of Perry attempted to settle there, but was driven off by the soldiers. Going a few miles down the river, he became in 1838, the first settler upon the present site of the city of St. Paul. His only competitor for this honor is a certain one-eyed personage of evil disposition and unattractive appearance whose true name was Parrant, but who became known to fame as Pig's Eye. With an eye to the advantages of the liquor business, Parrant located his claim beyond the limits of the reservation and near the river, where it became a flourishing resort for soldiers, Indians, and other frontier characters. It was the head of navigation on the river and entered into competition with the neighboring village of Stillwater for the proud position of the metropolis of the Territory. A town near by was surveyed in 1847 and during the following two years, as we are credibly informed by a local historian, "maturative and creative influence, slowly but surely tended towards civilization." From the same source we learn that in 1848 "the nuclei of civilization" consisted of a church, a school, and a hotel,—surely not a bad beginning. The history of the modern city properly begins in 1848, when Minnesota was organized as a territory with St. Paul as the provisional capital. The territorial government was organized with Alexander Ramsey (afterwards Governor of the State, Senator, and Secretary of War) as Governor, and duly proclaimed on June 1, 1848. The enabling act named St. Paul as the temporary capital, but left the people free to choose at the first general election a permanent place of government.

ALEXANDER RAMSEY.

In the meantime, a rival town had grown up at the east end of the Falls of St. Anthony, and the long struggle for supremacy began with the selection of a permanent capital. The Indian title to the lands was extinguished in 1838, but two years earlier the commandant at the fort, Major Plympton, availed himself of his superior facilities and staked out a claim and built a cabin near the east end of the falls. Other claims were located soon after, all of which ultimately became the property of Franklin Steele and Pierre Bottineau, names famous in the early history of the locality. Early in 1847 there were about fifty people in the village, but in that year the van of "that great army which is moving yet but never stopping" began to arrive.

In 1848 three hundred people were on the ground, and the two towns of St. Anthony City and St. Anthony were duly surveyed and launched upon the market. In the same year it is interesting to find the names of Robert Rantoul and Caleb Cushing, famous statesmen of the day, among the purchasers of a nine-tenths interest in the east-side water power. During this year both the villages of St. Anthony and St. Paul were thriving under the impulse given by the organization of a regular government. St. Anthony now obtained a post-office, established a library association with two hundred books on its shelves, and indulged in a lecture course by local talent. St. Paul became the capital, but the controversy was not finally settled until 1872, when a compromise was effected by the permanent location of the State University at Minneapolis. The growth of the two villages during the next decade was very rapid. In 1855 Laurence Oliphant, diplomat and traveller, came down the river in a canoe and wrote interesting descriptions of St. Anthony and St. Paul and uncomplimentary notices of the people to Blackwood's Magazine. He was charmed with the falls and the "comfortable, civilized aspect of the town," which was then becoming known as a "watering place." Hotel manners in the capital city were not satisfactory, but the opinions of England and the Crimean War expressed by prominent citizens in the free and easy vernacular of the frontier made good reading.

[COURT HOUSE AND CITY HALL, MINNEAPOLIS.]

In the meantime another village had grown up on the west side of the falls. In 1849 the old government mill, the little house a few yards back and two cabins built by missionaries on the banks of Lake Calhoun were the only buildings on the west side of the river. In that year Robert Smith, a member of Congress from Illinois, through some means best known to himself, obtained from the War Department the privilege of purchasing the mill and the house and of making a claim to 160 acres of land. This tract was carefully selected for the purpose of including the valuable waterpower rights on the west side. In the same year John H. Stevens, then postmaster at the fort, also obtained a permit and entered a claim to the land now covered by the heart of the city. While Smith and Stevens were favored others were driven from the reservation by the soldiers. Stevens built the first frame house in Minneapolis, and it now stands in one of the beautiful parks of the city as an evidence of the antiquity of things. Legal titles could not be obtained on the west side until 1855, although by that time more than two hundred houses had been built. In the following year the city was incorporated, but in 1862 this form of government was abandoned, and the people lived under a simple township organization until 1867. Five years later, in 1872, the two cities of St. Anthony and Minneapolis were consolidated under the name of the City of Minneapolis, which then entered upon a period of phenomenal growth.

We now find two cities in the stress of a rivalry which continued for many years. The west line of St. Paul soon became the east line of Minneapolis. The existence of two cities so near together was, as we have seen, due not to deliberate choice but to circumstances. In early days the fall, with its abundant waterpower and attractive scenery, was the point about which the minds of people revolved; it was, however, on the military reservation acquired by Pike, and settlers were driven to find a foothold farther down the river but within reach of the fort. There were some difficulties in the way of navigation to the falls, but these would soon have been removed. St. Paul was the capital of the State, and thus became the political and professional centre. In the contest for political honors this supremacy is still maintained. Its leaders control the politics of the State. Governors and senators are created in St. Paul and not in Minneapolis. The business enterprise of St. Paul found vent in building up great wholesale houses and in the development of railway and general transportation enterprises. Minneapolis, by reason of its location, became a great manufacturing centre. The vast pine forests of the north sent millions of logs to its mills. Around the falls were built the greatest flouring mills in the world, and its location upon the eastern edge of the great prairies of Minnesota and Dakota soon made it the primary wheat market of the world. The commercial and business interests of the two cities thus for a number of years developed along different and clearly defined lines. The increase of population is shown by the following table: