John Rollins was elected to the territorial council, W. R. Marshall and Wm. Dugas to the house of representatives. The district was comprised of St. Anthony Falls and Little Canada.
The first school was taught by Miss Electa Bachus, in the summer of 1849. A post office was established and Ard Godfrey was appointed postmaster. There were occasional mails brought in John Rollins' passenger wagon. In 1850 Willoughby & Powers ran a daily stage line from St. Paul and the mail thenceforth was carried regularly. John W. North built a dwelling on Nicollet island, which became a social centre, and was made attractive by a piano. In 1850 a public library was established, the first in Minnesota. Rev. E. D. Neill, the historian of Minnesota, delivered the first public lecture and preached the first sermon in 1849. The following year, the Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists and Presbyterians organized societies, and in 1851 the Episcopalians and Universalists. Amongst the accessions to the population were Judge Isaac Atwater, W. W. Wales, J. B. Bassett, C. W. Christmas, and Joseph Dean. Col. Alvaren Allen opened a livery stable. The St. Anthony Express, the first newspaper, was established May 31, 1851; E. Tyler, proprietor, Judge I. Atwater, editor. Measures were taken to locate the university in St. Anthony Falls. Citizens contributed $3,000 aid to in the erection of the building.
Facilities of communication with the surrounding country were none of the best, yet communication was early established with the Red River country, a dog train having arrived from Pembina, distant four hundred miles, in sixteen days. On this train Kittson, Rolette and Gingras came down to attend the territorial legislature at St. Paul as representatives of Pembina county.
Franklin Steele, in 1847, established a ferry above the Falls. In 1854 the Minnesota Bridge Company was organized, consisting of Franklin Steele, H. T. Wells, R. P. Russell, and others. A handsome suspension bridge was finished in 1855. This bridge remained in the control of the company fifteen years, when by an act of the legislature the value was assessed and Hennepin county purchased the bridge, and it became a free thoroughfare.
April 13, 1855, St. Anthony Falls was incorporated as a city with the following officers: Mayor, H. T. Welles; clerk, W. F. Brawley; aldermen, B. F. Spencer, John Orth, Daniel Stanchfield, Edward Lippincott, Caleb W. Dorr, and Robert Cummings.
In 1872 St. Anthony Falls was annexed to Minneapolis, and placed under the same government, a movement which has resulted in great benefit to both cities.
ST. ANTHONY FALLS.
The earliest written descriptions of St. Anthony falls were by the Roman Catholic missionaries, Hennepin and LaSalle. The former with Accault and Du Gay ascended the river in a canoe until captured by a band of Sioux Indians. These Indians left the river at a point now the present site of St. Paul and took their prisoners to Mille Lacs. In September, when the Indians set out on their annual hunt, the captives were left to go where they pleased. Accault preferred remaining with the Indians. Hennepin and Du Gay obtained a small canoe and commenced the descent of the Rum and Mississippi rivers to the falls, then called by the Indians Ka-ka-bi-ka Irara or "Severed Rock." They reached the falls about the first of October, and named them after St. Anthony of Padua. The description given by La Salle, a second hand one, was probably derived from Hennepin, Accault or Du Gay, as La Salle did not visit the falls, and these voyageurs were his subordinates, and had been sent by him to explore the Upper Mississippi.
He says: "In going up the Mississippi again, twenty leagues above the St. Croix is found the falls, which those I sent named St. Anthony. They are thirty or forty feet high, and the river is narrower here than elsewhere. There is a small island in the midst of the chute, and the two banks of the river are bordered by hills which gradually diminish at this point, but the country on each side is covered by thin woods, such as oaks and other hardwoods, scattered wide apart."
This description corresponds very well with the earliest pictures of the falls, which with "the small island in the midst of the chute" make them resemble slightly a Niagara considerably diminished in height. The historic falls have almost entirely disappeared or so changed as to become unrecognizable. Spirit island, if this be the island referred to by La Salle as in the midst of the chute, is now so far below the falls that it can scarcely be brought into the same picture with them. The falls have undoubtedly receded, by a process easily explained by a geologist, some distance up the river, and have diminished somewhat in altitude. The movement of the falls up stream, caused by the breaking off of limestone ledges, overlying sandstone, easily washed from beneath by the falling water, threatened the total obliteration of the cataract unless arrested by artificial means, as the dip or inclination of the rock is such that the altitude of the falls diminishes with the wearing away of these ledges: It has been found necessary to strengthen the ledges and prevent further erosion by means of aprons, till the present appearance of the falls is not unsuggestive of a series of dams. The entire cost of these improvements has amounted to more than $1,000,000. The shores of the islands and mainlands have been covered with mills and manufactories, while the scene is still further disfigured by a maze of railway and other bridges, waterways and flumes. Scarce a vestige of the original falls remain to recall their appearance as they were when the sandaled and robed Franciscan, Hennepin, first gazed upon them. In the midst of this solitude, and on the banks once covered by a sparse growth of trees, one of the finest cities in the West has sprung up as if by magic, and the scene is one of busy life. This marvelous change has occurred within a space of fifty years.