The following comparison of distance will be of interest to the people of the Northwestern States:
| Miles. | Miles. | |
| St. Paul to Chicago | 411 | |
| Chicago to New York City | 962 | |
| New York to Liverpool | 3,040 | |
| —— | 4,413 | |
| St. Paul (via Sault) to Montreal | 997 | |
| Montreal to Liverpool | 2,790 | |
| —— | 3,787 | |
| —— | ||
| Difference in favor of Montreal route | 626 |
CHICAGO, BURLINGTON & NORTHERN RAILROAD.
The Chicago, Burlington & Northern Company constructed a road from Chicago to Savannah, Illinois, and from that point up the Mississippi, along its east bank to St. Paul, crossing the St. Croix at Prescott. The road from Savannah to St. Paul is two hundred and eighty-five miles in length, and was completed in 1886. The cost complete, including rolling stock, was $30,000 per mile. The road was built on a grade of nine and eight-tenths feet to the mile, and its curvature nowhere exceeds three degrees in one hundred feet. The St. Croix, Chippewa, Wisconsin, Platte, Grant, and Fever rivers are crossed by iron bridges.
MILEAGE OF ROADS CENTRING IN ST. PAUL AND MINNEAPOLIS IN 1887.
| Miles. | |
| Manitoba | 3,200 |
| Northern Pacific | 2,200 |
| Hastings & Dakota | 344 |
| Pacific division of the Minneapolis & St. Louis | 223 |
| Minneapolis & Pacific | 230 |
| Omaha, Western division | 627 |
| Milwaukee, River division | 100 |
| Milwaukee, Iowa division | 100 |
| Minneapolis & St. Louis | 100 |
| Burlington & Northern | 100 |
| Northwestern, Omaha section | 176 |
| Minnesota & Northwestern (now Chicago, St. Paul & Kansas City) | 200 |
| Wisconsin Central | 100 |
| Soo Ste. Marie | 210 |
| North Wisconsin | 250 |
| St. Paul & Duluth | 216 |
| —— | |
| Total | 8,476 |
CONGRESSIONAL APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE ST. CROIX RIVER.
As early as 1858, when the writer was a member of the Minnesota senate, he introduced a memorial to Congress for the improvement of the St. Croix river, and of the Mississippi at Beef Slough bar, below Lake Pepin. This was the first memorial presented on this subject. Subsequent legislatures continued to memorialize Congress, but it was twenty years of continuous pleading before any attention was paid to the subject. In 1878 Thaddeus C. Pound, representing the St. Croix valley in Congress, secured the first appropriation. Mr. Pound also secured the first appropriation for the Mississippi reservoirs.
The following appropriations were made from time to time: 1878, $8,000; 1879, $10,000; 1880, $8,000; 1881, $10,000; 1882, $30,000; 1883, $7,500.